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Warning

Portal User Web Interface Under Development

This web interface is currently under development and unavailable for general use.

Notice

Deucalion is only available to valid user accounts! If you don't have an account yet, please check Gaining access.

Register Account

The home page of the login interface for the Deucalion system.

To register an account following the next steps:

  • In the initial credential request page the user has to defined the wanted username and the its own email.
  • In this section the user needs to provide some personal information, the first and last name, the country of residence, their gender and the year of birth. the highlighted salution field is optional.
  • In this section the user needs to define the type of institution they belong to, in this example it is Academia. The user also needs to specify the affiliate institution and the field of science which it belongs.
  • If the user has a grant it needs to be specified with the funding agency and with the grant number. All user even if they do not have a grant need to explain in the provided space why the need access to Decaulion.
  • It is necessary to accept the terms of service, the news letter is optional but recommended.
  • Once you get an invitation email you must finish your account setup, registering your TOTP token and uploading your public ssh key to the MACC user portal.
  • After verifying the email, this should be the following message
  • After the email is verified successfully the user needs to create a password for the account from a link that is sent by email
  • Define the user password
  • User information page after the account basic setup is complete

Register TOTP

There is the option to use two factor authentication with time operated one time passwords, the set up is the following:

  • Go to the security section on the user account
  • First, request a new device, then Activate 2FA(TOTP)
  • Add a label to identify the new device
  • With an authenticatior app, for example google authenticator, scan the QR code and input the code into the highlighted field

With this the 2FA configuration is complete.

Setting up SSH key pair

Before connecting to cluster through SSH, you need to register an SSH key pair. You can only log in to cluster using SSH keys. There is no option for using passwords.

Login node only accepts SSH keys based on the ed25519 algorithms. If possible, we recommend to use ed25519.

Generate your SSH keys

If you already have an appropriate SSH key pair that you want to use, you may skip to [registering your public key][jump-register-keys]. If not, start by generating an SSH key pair as detailed below.

An SSH key pair can be generated using a Linux, macOS, Windows PowerShell terminal. For example, you can use the following command to generate an ed25519 key:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519

You will be prompted for a file name and location where to save the key. Accept the defaults by pressing ++enter++. Alternatively, you can choose a custom name and location and add it interactively or as a command line argument with for example -f /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa_macc.

Next, you will be asked for a passphrase. Please choose a secure passphrase. It should be at least 8 (preferably 12) characters long and should contain numbers, letters and special characters. Do not leave the passphrase empty.

After that an SSH key pair is created, i.e. a pair of files containing the public and private keys, e.g. files named id_rsa_macc (the private key) and id_rsa_macc.pub (the public key) in your /home/username/.ssh/ directory.

An SSH key pair can be generated with the PuTTygen tool or with MobaXterm (Tools :octicons-arrow-right-16: MobaKeyGen). Both tools are identical.

In order to generate your key pairs, choose the option RSA and set the number of bits to 4096. The, press the Generate button.

Create SSH key pair with windows - step 1

You will be requested to move the mouse in the Key area to generate some entropy; do so until the green bar is completely filled.

Create SSH key pair with windows - step 2

After that, enter a comment in the Key comment field and a strong passphrase. Please choose a secure passphrase. It should be at least 8 (preferably 12) characters long and should contain numbers, letters and special characters. Do not leave the passphrase empty.

Create SSH key pair with windows - step 3

The next step is to save your public and private key. Click on the Save public key button and save it to the desired location (for example, with id_rsa_macc.pub as a name). Do the same with your private key by clicking on the Save private key button and save it to the desired location (for example, with id_rsa_macc as a name).

Warning

The private key should never be shared with anyone, not even with MACC staff. It should also be stored only on your local computer (public key can be safely stored in cloud services). Protect it with a good password! Otherwise, anyone with access to the file system can steal your SSH key.

Register your public key

Now that you have generated your key pair, you need to register your public key in your Deucalion User Portal settings.

To register your key, click on the Settings item of the menu on the right as shown in the figure below. Then copy and paste the content of your public key file in the text area, or upload the file, and click the Save button.

deucalion-sshkey
Registering SSH Public key

Adding new users to projects (only for PI and CO-PI)

As a project PI or CO-PI, it is your responsibility to add (or remove) users to your project. First, tell your co-workers to register in the portal. Then, to add the registered users to your project, go to the projects tab:

projects tab
Projects tab

Find your project and scroll to the right, where you can click the edit button (orange background with a white pencil).

projects tab
Projects menu

You are now able to add users to your project by clicking the green button on the top right corner and providing their e-mail address (they must be registered):

projects tab
Adding new users

Connecting to Deucalion

Warning

Web Interface Under Development This web interface is currently under development and unavailable for general use.

Warning

Deucalion is only available to valid user accounts! If you try to access the system without prior authorisation, you will be incurring crimes punishable by Portuguese and European law.

Using web interface

Once you have completed the steps to Setting up TOTP you can connect using the web browser.

Using a web browser navigate to login.deucalion.macc.fccn.pt.

Using SSH

Once you have completed the steps to Setting up SSH key pair you can connect using the ssh client.

Once you have completed the steps to Setting up SSH key pair you can connect using the ssh client command:

ssh -i <path-to-private-key> <username>@login.deucalion.macc.fccn.pt

where you need to replace <path-to-private-key> with the path to the file which contains your private key and <username> with with your own username.

To simplify the login procedure you can define a shorthand alias for the connection parameters (user, host, private key). You may add the following declaration to the SSH user configuration file on your system (~/.ssh/config, create it if it does not already exist):

Host deucalion
   Hostname login.deucalion.macc.fccn.pt
   User <username>
   ForwardAgent no
   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_macc

You will then be able to connect to Deucalion simply with:

ssh deucalion

Open PuTTY, specify the Host Name login.deucalion.macc.fccn.pt and port 22

In the tab Data, enter your username to access Deucalion

In the tab SSH > Auth click Browse and select the private key generated in the step Generate your SSH keys

You will be prompted for the passphrase of the SSH key which is the one you entered when you generated the key. When you connect for the first time, you will also be asked to check the host key fingerprint of the system and need to type yes in order to accept it. The fingerprint of the Deucalion login nodes are listed in the table below. Please make sure that the host key fingerprint matches one of these.

Key type Fingerprint
ED25519 SHA256:AMzlfN8g69jQGN26hYJqtag20d2CYG2Xg16VXmJv5V0

Upon successful connection you will see the welcome banner followed by a message of the day:

8888888b.  8888888888 888     888  .d8888b.        d8888 888      8888888 .d88888b.  888b    888
888  "Y88b 888        888     888 d88P  Y88b      d88888 888        888  d88P" "Y88b 8888b   888
888    888 888        888     888 888    888     d88P888 888        888  888     888 88888b  888
888    888 8888888    888     888 888           d88P 888 888        888  888     888 888Y88b 888
888    888 888        888     888 888          d88P  888 888        888  888     888 888 Y88b888
888    888 888        888     888 888    888  d88P   888 888        888  888     888 888  Y88888
888  .d88P 888        Y88b. .d88P Y88b  d88P d8888888888 888        888  Y88b. .d88P 888   Y8888
8888888P"  8888888888  "Y88888P"   "Y8888P" d88P     888 88888888 8888888 "Y88888P"  888    Y888

Greetings <username>
    Welcome to the Portuguese EuroHPC supercomputer, *please* read documentation before use:

                                https://docs.macc.fccn.pt/

================================================================================================
User            Home    Quota(Home)  Scratch  Quota(Scratch)
<username>      34.11G  0k           18.64G   0k
================================================================================================
Account         User            CPU_BILL  CPU_LIM    CPU_FREE   GPU_BILL  GPU_LIM  GPU_FREE
                                (min.)    (min.)     (min.)     (min.)    (min.)   (min.)
<account>                       29899533  330000000  300100467  0                  0
<account>       <username>      30365                           0
================================================================================================

Login nodes (Advanced usage)

For High Availability reasons, Deucalion has four login nodes. The Host Name login.deucalion.macc.fccn.pt points automatically to one of the login nodes.

We recommend that you connect to login.deucalion.macc.fccn.pt and not directly to a specific login node, but it is possible to do, and it may be necessary for certain advanced use cases.