Checklist before using Shaheen from a remote location for a long period
During the Eid break, we advise you to think about it and be proactive ahead of your vacation time to prepare everything without any time constraints. Here are a few suggestions:
- Update and check your VPN connection to the KAUST network. Go to http://vpn.kaust.edu.sa, download and install the Cisco Anyconnect client on your laptop. Test it with a non-KAUST network, using a wifi hotspot from your phone directly linked to mobily or STC network for example.
- Change your password a few weeks before leaving to avoid having to change it while you're away. To do that, login to shaheen and type the command:
passwd
It will change your password on Shaheen and Ibex but also for other KAUST services you're using (portal mail...), be sure to check that you can still access every thing you need. - Do a quick scan of the files living in /scratch. Remember that they will be deleted if not modified in 60 days. Move the valuable data to your /project directory, where files are not delted. Please move only the required ones! Check the tip of last week on the use of scratch and project
- Note down the forecasted scheduled maintenance date. If you have a recurrent workflow, you may have to relaunch a job or reset your tasks in crontab as they are cleared after each maintenance.
- Do a quick check on the number of files currently owned with the command
lfs quota -hu $USER /lustre.
Estimate the additional number of files to be produced while you are away and clean the amount required in order to cope with the limit. Remember that policy set a hard limit in terms of global size and number of files. Your job will start and run almost as usual but each file creation above the quota will fail independantly... if you are close to the quota limit the behaviour of your workflow could be impacted sporadically and it might be challenging for you to find the cause when coming back or working remotely behind a weaker internet connection.