OnDemand

Metacentrum wiki is deprecated after March 2023 Dear users, due to integration of Metacentrum into https://www.e-infra.cz/en (e-INFRA CZ service), the documentation for users will change format and site. The current wiki pages won't be updated after end of March 2023. They will, however, be kept for a few months for backwards reference. The new documentation resides at https://docs.metacentrum.cz.

Open OnDemand https://ondemand.metacentrum.cz is a service that enables users to access computational resources via web browser in graphical mode.

User may start common PBS jobs, get access to frontend terminals, copy files between our storages or run several graphical applications in browser. Among the most used applications available are Matlab, ANSYS, MetaCentrum Remote Desktop and VMD (see full list of GUI applications available via OnDemand). The graphical sessions are persistent, you can access them from different computers in different times or even simultaneously.

The login and password to Open OnDemand web interface is your e-INFRA CZ / Metacentrum login and Metacentrum password.

Supported browsers are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Edge.

Open OnDemand features

The main OnDemand menu consists of five tabs:

• Files
  • view and browse directory tree of your home on /storage/brno2
  • view and browse Metacentrum storages
  • upload and download files from/to local PC
  • copy/move files between storages
  • edit files
  • create new files/directories
• Jobs
  • list all your queuing/running jobs on any PBS server, depending on your choice
  • compose new batch jobs
  • run batch jobs using templates
• Clusters
  • get terminal access to frontends skirit/zuphux/elmo
• Interactive Apps
  • get interactive GUI desktop to Metacentrum machines
  • get Linux terminal without the need to install PuTTY
  • run applications with GUI interactively
  • run GUI environments interactively
• My Interactive Sessions
  • list, delete and launch sessions started by the OnDemand interface

Files

Home directory

By default, your home directory resides on brno2 storage. Withing the File manager you can manipulate files, upload and download them. You can change to other storages by using the "Change directory" button.

OnDemand data directories

To store it's own files, OnDemand creates automatically ondemand directory in your home. You will find there output files, error files and other data for batch jobs submitted from OnDemand interface. The subdirectories for jobs are sorted according to the apps used.

Jobs

Under this tab you can list your running jobs on *-pbs PBS server. You can also compose and submit new batch jobs.

Active jobs

Under this tab you will find list of all active or queued jobs on PBS server. On the contrary to list of interactive sessions, you will see all jobs no matter whether they were submitted via OnDemand interface or otherwise. By clicking on chosen job, you will find job's details in a similar way as in Metavo list of your jobs.

Clusters

The Clusters tab is OnDemand's way to provide terminal access to computational machines, in Metacentrum case to frontends. Currently OnDemand funnels all job to PBS through zuphux (CERIT-SC), skirit (MetaCentrum), or elmo (ELIXIR-CZ) frontends.

Shell access

Using shell access you can open ssh connection to zuphux/skirit/elmo frontends in your browser.

Interactive Apps

The Interactive Apps tab lists all the applications and environments that can be run as interactive jobs from OnDemand interface.

MetaCentrum Remote Desktop

By launching the Interactive Desktop you will get a very simple Linux GUI desktop to Metacentrum storages. You can launch File Manager to browse directories and run jobs.

You can, above all, run any GUI application within the interactive desktop. Just open the terminal, type module add XY and run XY. You will get a graphical output without the need to go through the procedure described in Remote desktop.

GUIs

Thorough this tab you can launch selected applications with GUI interface interactively. See full list of GUI applications available via OnDemand.

Servers

Apart from the applications mentioned above, OnDemand offers GUI environments to be run as interactive jobs, namely:

• Rstudio, development environment for R
• Jupyter notebook , didactic environment that allows user to create and share documents containing live code, equations, narrative text etc.

My interactive sessions

Under this tab, you will see list of your running sessions. You can launch or delete running sessions. By closing the tab in the browser you will not loose your session - it can be relaunched, even on another computer, using the blue Launch button if the time reserved for the session is not up yet. Next to the 'Launch button is the grey View only (sharable link) button which is useful if you want to share live view of your desktop application with colleague (although he/she must have the Metacentrum account and authorize to OnDemand too)

Troubleshooting

In case of any problems, use the standard Troubleshooting and User support channels to get help. Sometimes it may be unpractical or difficult to describe the problem or use screenshots. In this case you can use the shareable link (bottom right corner) to capture real-time behaviour of your job. Metacentrum user support does not work 24/7, so please keep in mind to agree on given time to demonstrate your problem.