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ACES User Guide

Welcome to the ACES User Guide. You can find the full list of topics on the left navigation bar under ACES.

Quick Start Topics

ACES Usage Policies

Access to ACES requires that you adhere to all Texas A&M HPRC and ACES-specific policies.

General policies can be found on the HPRC Policies page.

Getting Started

Researcher accounts on ACES are managed through ACCESS. Note that ACCESS is a national program funded by the National Science Foundation. It is not specific to Texas A&M University.

Getting an ACCESS Account

To get started with ACCESS and set up your ACCESS ID, follow our instructions at Helpful Pages: Getting Started with ACCESS.

Getting an Account on ACES

Researchers can request an Explore, Discover, and Accelerate allocations on ACES through ACCESS. All Researchers must be based in the US and associated with a US academic research institution. See the ACCESS "Get your First Project" page in the ACCESS documentation to learn how to apply.

You will also be given temporary access if you register for one of our Training sessions on ACES.

Portal login

Authorized ACCESS users can log in using the Web Portal:

https://portal-aces.hprc.tamu.edu

To learn more about the Web Portal, please visit the Portal kb page for additional information.

SSH login

Setup for Linux-like environment

Step 0: Precheck for existing references

Check known_hosts file in local .ssh directory on your local computer (ex: /home/LOCAL_USERNAME/.ssh) and make sure there are no references to aces-jump or login.aces. If so, delete any line(s) containing a reference to aces-jump or login.aces

Step 1: Generate the ssh key and download the pubkey pair files

ssh key is valid for 24 hours

Method 1: Generate from sshca app (Preferred for initial setup)

  • Login to the ACES portal https://portal-aces.hprc.tamu.edu
  • Go to the "Utilities" drop down menu and click sshca.
  • The sshca app will automatically run the key pair generation script.
  • Click "Open file app" link toward the bottom of this page and it will direct you to the key pairs location in the Portal Files app.
  • Download the pubkey pair files 'id_aces_tamu' and 'id_aces_tamu-cert.pub'. Note the location of the downloaded files.
  • Set the permissions: On your local computer, make sure to update the permissions of both 'id_aces_tamu' and 'id_aces_tamu-cert.pub' with the command chmod 600 as shown below. This restricts read and write permissions to just the owner of the files.
    chmod 600 id_aces_tamu
chmod 600 id_aces_tamu-cert.pub

Method 2: Generate from Portal Shell CLI

  • Login to the ACES portal https://portal-aces.hprc.tamu.edu
  • Open a terminal: Go to the Clusters drop down menu and click >_aces Shell Access

  • Run the script: 

    gen_ssh_cert.sh

  • Go to the "Files" dropdown on the portal and click "Home Directory"

  • Make sure the checkbox "Show Dotfiles" is checked
  • Navigate to the .ssh/aces directory
  • Download the pubkey pair files 'id_aces_tamu' and 'id_aces_tamu-cert.pub'. Note the location of the downloaded files.
  • Set the permissions: On your local computer, make sure to update the permissions of both 'id_aces_tamu' and 'id_aces_tamu-cert.pub' with the command chmod 600 as shown below. This restricts read and write permissions to just the owner of the files.
    chmod 600 id_aces_tamu
chmod 600 id_aces_tamu-cert.pub

The script also supports flags shown below:

[ACES_USERNAME@aces-login1 ~]$ gen_ssh_cert.sh --help
Genenerate certificate signed ssh key pair, with output in $HOME/.ssh/aces/
Usage: gen_ssh_cert.sh [option]
    --force       ignore last generated time check (1 hr)
    --help        this message
    -h            this message
    --status      show valid period of the pub key
    --debug       show debug message

Step 2: Use key to ssh into ACES

Method 1: Add to config file (preferred)

  • Create and edit the $HOME/.ssh/config file on your local computer

  • Add the following to the bottom of the file. Replace ACES_USERNAME with your ACES username and PATH_to_pubkey with the known location mentioned previously. Make sure there's a blank line between any previous entries in the file:

    Host aces-jump.hprc.tamu.edu
        Hostname aces-jump.hprc.tamu.edu
        User ACES_USERNAME
        IdentityFile "/PATH_to_pubkey/id_aces_tamu"
        Port 8822
        MACs hmac-sha1,hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512

Host login.aces.hprc.tamu.edu
        Hostname login.aces.hprc.tamu.edu
        ProxyJump aces-jump.hprc.tamu.edu
        User ACES_USERNAME
        IdentityFile "/PATH_to_pubkey/id_aces_tamu"
        Port 22
        MACs hmac-sha1,hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512

  • run the command below

    ssh login.aces.hprc.tamu.edu

Method 2: single line ssh command

Run the command below. Replace ACES_USERNAME with your user id on ACES and PATH_to_pubkey with the path to the known location of the key on your local system

ssh -o ProxyCommand="ssh -W %h:%p ACES_USERNAME@aces-jump.hprc.tamu.edu -p 8822 -i /PATH_to_pubkey/id_aces_tamu" ACES_USERNAME@login.aces.hprc.tamu.edu -i /PATH_to_pubkey/id_aces_tamu

When you first access ACES, you will be within your home directory. This directory has smaller storage quotas and should not be used for general purposes.

You can navigate to your home directory with the following command:

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ cd /home/username

Your scratch directory has more storage space than your home directory and is recommended for general-purpose use. You can navigate to your scratch directory with the following command:

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ cd /scratch/user/username

You can navigate to scratch or home easily by using their respective environment variables.

Navigate to scratch with the following command:

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ cd $SCRATCH

Navigate to home with the following command:

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ cd $HOME

Your scratch directory is restricted to 1TB/250,000 files of storage. This storage quota is expandable upon request. A user's scratch directory is NOT backed up.

Your home directory is restricted to 10GB/10,000 files of storage. This storage quota is not expandable. A user's home directory is backed up on a nightly basis.

You can see the current status of your storage quotas with:

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ showquota

If you need a storage quota increase, please contact us with justification and the expected length of time that you will need the quota increase.

Managing Project Accounts

The batch system will charge SUs from either the account specified in the job parameters, or from your default account (if this parameter is omitted). To avoid errors in SU billing, you can view your active accounts, and set your default account using the myproject command.

Finding Software

Software on ACES is loaded using hierarchical modules.

A list of the most popular software on our systems is available on the HPRC Available Software page.

To list all software installed as a module on ACES, use the mla utility:

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ mla

To search for a specific piece of software installed as a module on ACES using the mla utility:

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ mla keyword

To search for particular software by keyword, use:

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ module spider keyword

To see how to load a module, use the full module name:

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ module spider R/4.3.1

You will see a message like the following

You will need to load all module(s) on any one of the lines below before the "R/4.3.1" module is available to load.

      GCC/12.2.0  OpenMPI/4.1.4

Load the base dependency module(s) first, then the full module name

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ module load GCC/12.2.0 OpenMPI/4.1.4 R/4.3.1

To list all currently-loaded modules, use:

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ module list

To see what other modules can be loaded with the base dependency module (for example when GCCcore/10.2.0 is loaded)

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ module avail

To remove all currently-loaded modules, use:

[username@aces-login3 ~]$ module purge

If you need new software or an update, please contact us with your request.

There are restrictions on what software we can install. There is also regularly a queue of requested software installations.

Please account for delays in your installation request timeline.