Accessing

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.

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.

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 25 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-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com,umac-128-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-sha2-256,umac-128@openssh.com

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-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com,umac-128-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-sha2-256,umac-128@openssh.com

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