Frequently Asked Questions

1. How do I find out which compute platforms and software are available at RCC?
2. How do I apply for accounts on RCC machines?
3. How do I connect to an RCC machine?
4. How do I copy files to/from an RCC machine?
5. How do I print files that are on an RCC machine?
6. How do I run jobs on an RCC machine?
7. How do I change my default shell on a given machine?
8. Can I use text files (programs, scripts, etc) created on a Windows machine on the RCC Unix/Linux machines?
9. Can I use text files (programs, scripts, etc) created on a Mac on the RCC Unix/Linux machines?
10. How do I forward X Window applications running on RCC machines to my Windows desktop?

1. How do I find out which compute platforms and software are available at RCC?

A list of RCC systems, including compute platforms, is available at Resources/Systems. Click on each item title to see its brief description. The RCC compute platforms (with documentation) are also listed in Documentation.

Applications and software available on RCC machines are grouped by category in the main Applications & Software page. For an alphabetical list of all software refer to Complete List of Applications and Software.

2. How do I apply for accounts on RCC machines?

User accounts are created as part of a "lab group" which has been registered by a Principal Investigator via the Group Registration Form. Once the group is registered, the PI will receive an email stating that he/she and members of his/her group may request their individual accounts. The Group Registration Form and the Account Creation Request Form are accessible by selecting the Request an Account link (under Services) on the RCC main page. Note that you will need to enter your UGA myID and password to access these forms.

3. How do I connect to an RCC machine?

Users can access RCC machines using secure shell (ssh) from their local machines either on-campus or off-campus. To connect via ssh, you must have an ssh software on your local machine and a connection to the UGA campus network. ssh software is included in recent releases of Unix based operating systems (including Linux and Mac OSX). An SSH Secure Shell Utility is available for Windows on the UGA Sitesoft page (you will need to enter your UGA myID and password to download the software). Note that connection via telnet is not allowed .

For more detailed information on how to connect to a specific RCC machine, please see:

4. How do I copy files to/from an RCC machine?

Users can transfer files between their local machines and RCC machines using a secure copy (scp) or an SSH secure File Transfer software (SSH file transfer). To transfer files using scp (or SSH file transfer) you must have scp (or SSH) on your local machine and a connection to the UGA campus network. An scp software is included in recent releases of Unix based operating systems (including Linux and Mac OS X). Mac OS X users who prefer to have a graphical frontend for secure file transfer can install a free utility called FUGU on their local machines. An SSH Secure File Transfer Utility is available for Windows on the UGA Sitesoft page (you will need to enter your UGA myID and password to download the software). Note that the Secure FTP client available on the UGA Sitesoft page does NOT work with the RCC machines. Another option for Windows users is to install WinSCP, which is an open source freeware Secure File Transfer client for Windows. Both FUGU and WinSCP have a graphical interface with user friendly features, such as "drag and drop" upload and download of files. Note that file transfer using ftp and secure ftp are not allowed .

For more detailed information on how to copy files to/from a specific RCC machine, please see:

5. How do I print files that are on an RCC machine?

Files on any RCC machine cannot be directly printed on your local printer. Please transfer the files from the RCC machine to your local machine using Secure copy or Secure File Transfer (see question above) and print them from your local machine. .

6. How do I run jobs on an RCC machine?

Jobs that take more than ten (10) minutes should NOT be run on the login node of RCC machines. Background jobs and interactive commands including cron jobs, at, and nohup processes on the login node (headnode) will be terminated after 10 minutes of cpu time. Text editor, graphical front ends to programs, programming tools, etc will not be terminated. Jobs that take longer than 10 minutes should be submitted to the batch queue. If your program has to be run interactively, please run it on an interactive node (we reserve at least one node on each cluster for interactive jobs).

For more detailed information on how to run batch jobs and how to access interactive nodes on a specific RCC machine, please see:

7. How do I change my default shell on a given machine?

When you login to an RCC machine, the environment on your terminal and the commands that you type at the prompt are defined/interpreted by a program called shell. Examples of shell are bash, csh, ksh, tcsh. The syntax for setting environment variables and some of the functionality of your keyboard depend on the shell that you are running. For example, with bash and tcsh it is straightforward to use up arrows to recover previous commands. All users have a default shell defined at account creation time. Users can change their default shell by typing chsh at the command prompt.

8. Can I use text files (programs, scripts, etc) created on a Windows machine on the RCC Unix/Linux machines?

Text (ascii) files created on Windows machines might have Windows newlines that are not interpreted correctly by a Unix/Linux system. However, you can convert a Windows text file to the Unix/Linux format with the dos2unix command available on the RCC altix and rcluster. The syntax is

dos2unix filename

where filename is the name of the ascii file (such as program.c, program.f, run.sh, input.txt, etc) created on a Windows machine.

9. Can I use text files (programs, scripts, etc) created on a Mac on the RCC Unix/Linux machines?

Text (ascii) files created on computers running Mac OS might have Mac newlines that are not interpreted correctly by a Unix/Linux system. However, you can convert a Mac text file to the Unix/Linux format with the mac2unix command available on the RCC altix and rcluster. The syntax is

mac2unix filename

where filename is the name of the ascii file (such as program.c, program.f, run.sh, input.txt, etc) created on a machine with Mac OS.

10. How do I forward X Window applications running on RCC machines to my Windows desktop?

A number of software installed on RCC machines have X Window (GUI) front ends. Examples of such applications are Mathematica, Maple, SAS, some text editors and debuggers, etc. In order to export such X Window applications to your Windows desktop, your desktop needs to have an X Window client (or server) running on it. A free X Window server for Microsoft Windows (XP/2003/Vista) is Xming. You can download it from Sourceforge and make a default installation. You will need to install the Xming server and the Xming-fonts package. During the installation of Xming, you might want to select the option to create a desktop icon for Xming. When the installation of these two packages is complete, double click on the Xming icon to start the X Window server (a capital X will appear on your task bar). Now you need to configure your SSH client to allow tunneling of X11 connections. For example, if you use the SSH client provided at the UGA sitesoft page you need to open the SSH client, then click on

Edit -> Settings -> Tunneling (under Profile Settings)

and check the box for "Tunnel X11 connections", and then save the settings. Once that is done, you can SSH into your RCC account (pcluster, rcluster, altix, stats) and run X Window applications. The application should appear on your local Windows desktop. Each time you logout and log back into your Windows desktop, you might need to start the Xming Server manually before using SSH to connect to your RCC accounts.