LPCT Cluster

Overview

Welcome to the LPCT Cluster, a HPC platform featuring a heterogeneous architecture with x86 CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs.

Cluster Specifications

Compute Nodes: Close to 250 nodes
Accelerated Nodes: About 100 nodes equipped with NVIDIA GPUs
Networking: 5 high-speed interconnect switches
Storage: Over 1 petabyte (PB) of disk space mounted via NFS

Fronted Nodes

Login Nodes

The cluster provides 4 login nodes:

lpct-login1.pct.site.univ-lorraine.fr
lpct-login2.pct.site.univ-lorraine.fr
lpct-login3.pct.site.univ-lorraine.fr
lpct-login4.pct.site.univ-lorraine.fr

Visualization Nodes

Dedicated nodes for graphical applications with GPU acceleration:

2 nodes with 2× NVIDIA RTX A5000:
- lpct-visu1.lpct.site.univ-lorraine.fr
- lpct-visu2.lpct.site.univ-lorraine.fr
1 node with 4× NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070:
- ebam-login.pct.site.univ-lorraine.fr
1 node with 4× NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN:
- lia-login.pct.site.univ-lorraine.fr

Access is available via:

SSH: For command-line sessions
TurboVNC: For graphical applications (Graphical Session Guide)

Graphical Session

X11 Forwarding

The simplest way to access a graphical interface on the cluster is via X11 forwarding. Use the -X flag with SSH:

$ ssh -X USER@lpct-login

For better performance, enable compression by adding the -C flag:

$ ssh -XC USER@lpct-login

TurboVNC

For higher-performance remote desktop access, use TurboVNC. Note that, only securized sessions via SSH are allowed. The required TurboVNC client version is 3.2 and can be installed from the release website of turbovnc.

Setting up a TurboVNC session

On the login node, run:
```
$ /opt/TurboVNC/bin/vncpasswd
```
and choose your VNC password
Then run:
```
$ /opt/TurboVNC/bin/vncserver
```
to start a new session
A message like this should appear:
```
Desktop 'TurboVNC: lpct-login:n (USER)' started on display lpct-login:n
```
where the number n indicates the X display number of the TurboVNC session

Managing TurboVNC sessions

To see all your VNC sessions, run:
```
$ /opt/TurboVNC/bin/vncserver -list
```
To connect to an opened session, on your local machine run:
```
$ /opt/TurboVNC/bin/vncviewer -tunnel USER@lpct-login:n
```
You will be asked first to enter your login password, and then to enter the VNC password.
To kill a session, use:
```
$ /opt/TurboVNC/bin/vncserver -kill :n
```