Hammer User Guide

Obtaining an Account

If you do not already have an account on one of the Lion-X Series clusters, please see the HPC Systems Accounts page.

Disk Storage Policies

Each user has a home directory at /gpfs/home/<userid>, a work directory at /gpfs/work/<userid>, and a scratch directory at /gpfs/scratch/<userid>.
- /gpfs/home is for the most important files like original source code and paper drafts. /gpfs/home transparently keeps two copies of data on different disk storage targets to increase data availability in the case of a major disaster that would normally require restoring data from tape. /gpfs/home quotas will not be increased except under extenuating circumstances.
- /gpfs/work is where normal data should go for individual users. It doesn't have data replication like /gpfs/home but it is backed up to tape. /gpfs/work is higher performing than /gpfs/home.
- /gpfs/scratch has over 130 TB of space available for anyone to use. Files here aren't backed up and are removed if they haven't been used in 30 days, but there are no quotas, so huge datasets or output can be worked with without worrying about quota limits.
Research groups can have a shared group directory with policies simliar to /gpfs/work.

The data directories have the following policies.

Directory	Purpose	Disk Quota	Backed Up	Replicated ⁽¹⁾	File Lifetime Limit
/gpfs/home	Individual User Home Directories	8 GB	Yes	Yes	No
/gpfs/work	Individual User Work Directories	64 GB	Yes	No	No
/gpfs/group	Research Group Directories	Yes, but variable	Yes	No	No
/gpfs/scratch	Multi-use Temporary File Area	None	No	No	Yes, 30 days since last use

(1) Replicated means that two copies of every piece of data are stored on disk for extra data protection.

System Hostnames
The following is the hostname of the login nodes of Hammer The login node of the cluster is what a user would connect to to access the cluster.

System Hostname

Hammer hammer.rcc.psu.edu
Using SSH to Log In
Connections to Hammer are only through SSH. SSH is a secure protocol that encrypts all data sent between the client computer and the computer it's connecting to. SSH applications usually allow both interactive terminal sessions on the remote machine and the ability to transfer files securely.
- Linux/Unix/Apple OS X
  Linux, Unix, and Apple OS X all include the standard command line SSH utilities. Information on using them to open a remote terminal session on one of our systems can be found in the Command Line SSH User Guide.
- Windows
  Information on using PuTTY, a freely available SSH client for Windows, can be found in the PuTTY User Guide.
Using SSH to Transfer Files
- Linux/Unix/Apple OS X
  Linux, Unix, and Apple OS X all include the standard command line SSH utilities. Information on using them to transfer files can be found in the file transfer section of the Command Line SSH User Guide.
- Windows
  We recommend using WinSCP as a freely available SSH file transfer client for Windows. Information on using WinSCP can be found in the WinSCP User Guide.
Using a Remote Graphical User Interface

Information on connecting to Hammer via a graphical user interface (GUI) can be found in the Remote Display User Guides.

System	Hostname
Hammer	hammer.rcc.psu.edu

Software on Hammeris managed through the Environment Modules package. It allows a user to do such things as:

Information on using Environment Modules can be found in the Environment Modules User Guide.

The following compilers are available:

Compiler	C Command	C++ Command	Fortran 77 Command	Fortran 90 Command
GNU	gcc	g++	gfortran	gfortran
Intel	icc	icpc	ifort	ifort
Portland Group	pgcc	pgCC	pgf77	pgf90

All jobs on Hammer are run interactively and not through a batch queuing system. To start a job, just run it from the command line.