The [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=4196 ] Research Computing servers allow connectivity via the secure shell protocol for command-line access. This documentation describes the steps required to run applications supported by the Research Computing group on the Research Computing servers.

To open up a 'terminal' session to a Research Computing server from a computer running the UNIX/Linux/Mac OS X operating system, you must use a 'secure shell' (ssh) client. Secure shell is built into most UNIX/Linux/Mac OS X systems, but can be downloaded and installed onto your UNIX/Linux/Mac OS X system if it is not already there. The ssh client [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=4703 ] SSH Secure Shell and [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=4182 ] SecureCRT are available free of charge for faculty, staff, and students at the University of North Carolina. There are also numerous ssh software programs freely available for windows. If you are not affiliated with the University of North Carolina, [ http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ ] PuTTY is a free ssh client you may wish to consider.

If you want to run X applications (i.e., graphical Unix applications such as Matlab, SAS, Maple) on a Research Computing server from a local computer, and have the graphics display on your local computer. You need to run the X-windows server software on your local computer. UNIX/Linux usually comes with a free X-windows server. Mac OS X has support for X11 (but it is not installed by default); you can also download free X-windows server software for the Mac on Apple's website. Standard X-windows server software that runs on MS Windows systems includes [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=4696 ] X-Win32 which is available free of charge for faculty, staff, and students at the University of North Carolina.

You need to have an account before you can login using Secure Shell (ssh) to connect to Research Computing servers. You can request account to these servers by visiting the [ https://onyen.unc.edu/ ] Onyen Services page and selecting Subscribe to Services .

Once you have an account, use the ssh command to connect to Research Computing server. To use ssh on the unix/linux/Mac OS X platform, type at the command prompt:

 ssh server_name

This will contact the ssh server on the remote host and will attempt to log you in after prompting you for your Onyen and password. You can connect to the [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=4196 ] Research Computing servers of your choice. For example, if you want to connect to Emerald, issue the command such as:

 ssh emerald.unc.edu

If you intend to run X-windows server software to display graphic results in the computing session, you need to enable X11 tunneling.

In order for X11 tunneling to function, the DISPLAY variable on the remote system needs to be configured properly. You need to let ssh handle it automatically. This method is strongly recommended as it is both simple and secure and also avoids any firewall problems.

In general, you can run the research applications on the Research Computing server in the following ways, depending on exactly what you want to do.

Interactive modes allow you to type commands directly into the application; non-interactive modes require you to put statements in a program file or scripts and then submit this file for background processing.

When you use one of these modes, each of these modes operates via a batch manager software called LSF (Load Sharing Facility) to allocate resources fairly to all running jobs. LSF is described in more detail in [ http://help.unc.edu/?id=4484 ] here.

The procedures of run a specific mathematical and statistical application in three modes are described in detail below, please click the following link to proceed:

[ http://its.unc.edu/research-computing.html ] Research Computing home page