Get Started with LUMI¶
Please read through all of this carefully before you start running on LUMI. Here we describe a few sets of basic rules and the important information that you need to get started.
Access to LUMI¶
Users with Finnish allocation
This section does not apply for users with a Finnish allocation (via MyCSC). These users are invited to follow the instruction starting from the next section. See also here how to create a Finnish LUMI project.
To access LUMI, you need to be a member of a project. LUMI Countries have different policies for LUMI access. An overview of the access policies is provided here.
Resource allocators of each country will create the project and invite the PI. The project PI can then invite members based on email addresses. If you have been granted access to LUMI but didn't receive an invitation to a project, please contact your PI or local HPC center.
In order to access the portal, you need to register to MyAccessID. The procedure depends on the country but in general this can be achieved via the Sign in with MyAccessID. The authentication is done with your home organization identity provider (recommended), which can be selected from the list. Alternative registration options are available for some countries. Please see here for information about these alternatives.
In case neither of the registration option works for you, please contact the support team. You may also contact your identity provider directly.
For the next step, you will be directed to the registration page, where you have to accept the Acceptable Use Policy and LUMI Terms of Use document, which is linked there. Please read it carefully!
You may also modify the email address, but according to LUMI Terms of Use you must use your institutional email address.
Setting up SSH key pair¶
You can only log in to LUMI using SSH keys. There are no passwords. In order for this to work, you need to register your SSH key with MyAccessID, from where LUMI will fetch it. The portal is the only way to add an SSH key. If you have a Finnish allocation, then, you have to add your key to your MyCSC profile.
Generate your SSH keys¶
After registration, you need to register a public key (Note! Key must be RSA 4K bits or ed25519). In order to do that you need to generate an SSH key pair.
An SSH key pair can be generated in the Linux, macOS, Windows PowerShell and MobaXterm terminal. It is important to create a long enough key length. For example, you can use the following command to generate a 4096 bits RSA key:
or for a ed25519 key:
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. For example
/home/username/.ssh/id_rsa_lumi.
Next, you will be asked for a passphrase. Please choose a secure passphrase. It should be at least 8 characters long and should contain numbers, letters and special characters. Do not leave the passphrase empty.
After that a SSH key pair is created. If you choose the name given as an
example, you should have files named id_rsa_lumi and id_rsa_lumi.pub in
your .ssh directory.
An SSH key pair can be generated with the PuTTygen tool or with MobaXterm (Tools MobaKeyGen). Both tools are identical.
In order to generate your key pairs for LUMI, choose the option RSA and set the number of bits to 4096. The, press the Generate button.
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.
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 characters long and should contain numbers, letters and special characters. Do not leave the passphrase empty.
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_lumi.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_lumi as a name).
Note
The private key should never be shared with anyone, not even with LUMI staff. It should also be stored only in the 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.
Upload your public key¶
Now that you have generated your key pair, you need to set up your public key in your user profile. From there, the public key will be copied to LUMI with some delay according to the synchronization schedule.
To register your key, click on the Settings item of the menu on the left as shown in the figure below. Then select Ssh keys. From here you can add a new public key or remove an old one. Note: SSH key structure is algorithm, key, comment.
Now that you have generated your key pair, you need to set up your public key in your user profile. From there, the public key will be copied to LUMI with some delay according to the synchronization schedule.
To register your key with MyCSC, click on My Profile item of the menu on the left as shown in the figure below. Then scroll to the end and in the SSH PUBLIC KEYS panel click the Modify button. From here, click the Add new button and paste your new public key in the text area and click Add.
After registering the key, there can be a couple of hours delay until it is synchronized. You will receive your username via email once your account is created.
How to log in¶
Connect using a ssh client:
where you need to replace username with your own username, which you received
via email when you account is created in the identity manager. There may be a
10-15 minute delay before your account is before your account is actually
created on LUMI, be patient. If after this delay you cannot connect, please
contact the support.
Your username can also be retrieved via the different portals, depending on your resource allocator:
- the Puhuri Portal by clicking on the Remote accounts in the left menu
- myCSC by clicking on My Profile in the left menu
- the SUPR portal under Account > Existing Accounts
Running¶
When you log in to LUMI, you end up on one of the login nodes. These login nodes are shared by all users and they are not intended for heavy computing.
The login nodes should be used only for:
- compiling (but consider allocating a compute for large build jobs)
- managing batch jobs
- moving data
- light pre- and postprocessing (a few cores / a few GB of memory)
All the other tasks should be done on the compute nodes either as normal batch jobs or as interactive batch jobs. Programs not adhering to these rules will be terminated without warning.
Compute intensive jobs must be submitted to the job scheduling system. LUMI uses Slurm as the job scheduler. In order to run, you need a project allocation. You need to specify your project ID in your job script (or via the command line when submitting your job) in order for your job to be submitted to the queue.
Missing
Commands to gather information about the project and quota are not
available yet. However, you can use the groups command to retrieve your
project ID when connected to LUMI: you should see that you are part of a
group named project_xxxxxxxxx.
Here is a typical batch script for Slurm. This script runs an application on 2 compute nodes with 16 MPI ranks on each node (32 total) and 8 OpenMP threads per rank.
$ cat batch_script.slurm
#!/bin/bash -l
#SBATCH --job-name=test-job
#SBATCH --account=<project_xxxxxxxxx>
#SBATCH --time=01:00:00
#SBATCH --nodes=2
#SBATCH --ntasks=32
#SBATCH --ntasks-per-node=16
#SBATCH --cpus-per-task=8
#SBATCH --partition=standard
export OMP_NUM_THREADS=$SLURM_CPUS_PER_TASK
srun ./application
Where to store data¶
On LUMI, there are several disk areas: home, projects, scratch (LUMI-P) and fast flash-backed scratch (LUMI-F). Please familiarize yourself with the areas and their specific purposes.
| Path | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Home | /users/<username> |
for user personal and configuration files |
| Project: | /project/<project_name> |
act as the project home directory |
| Scratch | /scratch/<project_name> |
intended as temporary storage for input, output or checkpoint data of your application |
| Flash | /flash/<project_name> |
fast scratch space based on flash storage |
Compiling and Developing your Code¶
LUMI comes with multiple programming environments: Cray, GNU, and AOCC. In addition, the most common libraries used in an HPC environment tuned for LUMI are also available. Parallel debugger and profiling tools are also at one's disposal.
Getting Help¶
The LUMI User Support Team is here to help if you have any questions or problems regarding your usage of LUMI. You can contact the support team here.