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Getting access to use the HPC cluster

Who can use the UMD HPC cluster?

HPC Access Eligibility

HPC resources are available to the University of Maryland community at all Colleges, Schools, and Departments. The allocation accounts are granted to faculty members. A faculty member, or a principal invesigator, with and allocation account can grant access to grad & undergrad students, postdocs, and other researchers to their allocation account.

If you are a faculty member looking to use the HPC resources, the first step is to request a basic allocation.

If you are a student or other researcher, ask your advisor/PI if they have an allocation account on the campus HPC cluster. If so, your advisor/PI must either (a) use the ColdFront portal to add you, or (b) open a ticket requesting the HPC systems staff to add you to their allocation. If they don't have an allocation, you can fill out the application on their behalf, but your advisor must take the ownership of the resulting allocations and grants. Allocations are not directly granted to students, postdocs, or non-faculty researchers.

What exactly do I need in order to login and use the cluster?

If you have both of the following, see our page about connecting to the cluster for more information about logging in.

  • You are affiliated with the university and you have a current identity in the University Directory (ex: you regularly use the UMD username/dirID and the passphrase to check your university email).

  • You've carefully read the welcome email ("From: Zaratan Administrators", "Subject: Welcome to the Zaratan High Performance Computing Cluster") sent to your username@umd.edu email address when you were added to an active allocation. If you did not receive the welcome email, then you haven't been added to an allocation, and your Linux account hasn't been created on the cluster. See the answer to the previous question.

Can my non-UMD collaborator get access to the cluster?

Your external collaborator must have an affiliate appointment with UMD, the process for which is described in our KB article. You and your department's HR staff must take action. The HPC systems staff cannot create an affiliate appointment for your collaborator.

Can I use the HPC cluster for a class I'm teaching?

A modest amount of HPC resources can be made available to the instructors. The allocations page provides instructions you must follow. You are encouraged to request the class allocations well in advance of the first day of the class. If you don't already have at lease a basic allocation on the cluster, you may want to request one as well. (See top of this page.)