Current Users
Welcome to the Gaea cluster, a powerful tool for study and research. To start, please pay attention to the important information described on this page.
The Login Node - gaea.niu.edu
This node works as a gateway between a user and the rest of the system. This is the only cluster computer accessible from the public networks. It is shared between all users and provides tools to run software installed on the cluster and to develop custom applications. While powerful, the login node has limited resources and should be used responsibly:
- only run any application interactively for development or testing purposes. Any production jobs should be submitted via the batch system.
Batch System
All compute (a.k.a "worker") nodes are managed via the PBS batch system. The batch system allows reserve a part of cluster nodes to run a particular application (a job). The more resources job requires the larger cost of a user mistake:
- always submit several short test jobs before long massive production runs.
Disk Space
The accessible disk space is configured to be used as described below -
- /home/$USER - the user's home area. Please keep the smaller files here (documents, configuration scripts, code archives).
- /data1/$PROJECT/$USER - the user's project area, to store input and output (potentially large) datasets required or produced via batch jobs.
Backup Policy
We only provide a 60 days backup of /home area. We strongly encourage users to use a personal GIT system for any code development and do frequent backups of important data to remote locations.