Note: The Frontenac system is currently being built up, and our users are gradually moved to it. You can only access this system if access has been activated. We will contact you when this has happened. If you are interested in migrating ahead of schedule, please contact us at cac.help@queensu.ca

SSH Access

The standard way to access the Frontenac cluster is through ssh.

We are currently operating only one login node that is accessible from the outside through ssh. The IP address for this (CentOS Linux) login node is login.cac.queensu.ca:

$ ssh -X hpcXXXX@login.cac.queensu.ca
hpcXXXX@login.cac.queensu.ca's password:
Last login: Thu May 11 10:32:08 2017 from 130.15.59.215
hpcXXXX@caclogin01$

The first time you connect to a new system using SSH, your client will ask you something along the lines of: "do you want to connect to a system with host key fingerprint xxxxxxxx?". Pick/type "yes" to continue connecting.

Make sure X-forwarding is enabled, either by using the -X option in the ssh command, or including it in the default settings of the ssh client. This is necessary if you want to use any software with a graphics component. You will need your username and your system access password to get in (here, we use hpcXXXX).

Linux and Mac systems have an ssh client installed by default and don't require a special setup for this to work. On Windows systems, we suggest using MobaXterm, which is free for individual usage and has many useful features (such as an Xserver client, file transfer tool, and even a local "bash shell") built in.

Note for Mac Users

If you are using a Mac to login to our systems through ssh you may have to install XQuartz X11 Support on your computer. This is necessary to enable the display of graphics that was generated on a Unix server. Unfortunately, newer versions of OSX don't come with native X11-Windows support.