Removing Tedium

Overview

There can be a fair amount of tedious things with HPC clusters. Check out Princeton's  Removing Tedium  guide to make your life a bit easier. I will summarize a few important components here.

SSH Keys

Entering a password every time you log in is annoying. This can be avoided by  using SSH keys . The process is simple:

Mac/Linux

    Run ssh-keygen -t rsa on your local machine and hit enter after each prompt.
    Run ssh-copy-id <NetID>@<ClusterName>.princeton.edu on your local machine, repeating the process for each machine you want to access.

Windows

    Make sure you have a terminal emulator installed as described in  🙏⁠⁠Getting Started⁠  so you can run the command below.
    Run ssh-keygen -t rsa on your local machine and hit enter after each prompt. This is easiest to do using the cmder program.
    Copy the text found in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub on your local machine into a new line of the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on all remote machine. Repeat this process for every machine you want to easily log into.

SSH Aliases

Having to type out the full username and hostname every time you want to log in is annoying. You can define aliases for each machine so that ssh tiger would SSH you into <NetID>@tiger-arrk.princeton.edu automatically, for instance. The process is simple — all you need to do is set up an ~/.ssh/config file on your local machine as shown below. As a bonus, the config file below will also help with  reducing the frequency of Duo requests , although you can still use the  Global Protect VPN client  to circumvent this entirely.

Mac/Linux

    Run ssh-copy-id <NetID>@tigressgateway.princeton.edu on your local machine
    Run mkdir ~/.ssh/sockets on your local machine
    Add the following text to the ~/.ssh/config file on your local machine (or make the file if it does not exist already). Make sure to replace <NetID> each time it is present.
Host tiger-arrk.princeton.edu tiger
  HostName tiger-arrk.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  ProxyJump tigressgateway.princeton.edu
  ControlMaster auto
  ControlPersist yes
  ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/%p-%h-%r

Host della.princeton.edu della
  HostName della.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  ProxyJump tigressgateway.princeton.edu
  ControlMaster auto
  ControlPersist yes
  ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/%p-%h-%r

Host della-gpu.princeton.edu della-gpu
  HostName della-gpu.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  ProxyJump tigressgateway.princeton.edu
  ControlMaster auto
  ControlPersist yes
  ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/%p-%h-%r

Host adroit.princeton.edu adroit
  HostName adroit.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  ControlMaster auto
  ControlPersist yes
  ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/%p-%h-%r

Host neuronic.cs.princeton.edu neuronic
  HostName neuronic.cs.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  ControlMaster auto
  ControlPersist yes
  ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/%p-%h-%r

Host tigressgateway.princeton.edu tigressgateway
  HostName tigressgateway.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  ServerAliveInterval 300
  ControlMaster auto
  ControlPersist yes
  ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/%p-%h-%r

Windows

    Add your local machine's id_rsa.pub info to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on <NetID>@tigeressgateway.princeton.edu
    Add the following text to the ~/.ssh/config file on your local machine (or make the file if it does not exist already). Make sure to replace <NetID> each time it is present.
Host tiger-arrk.princeton.edu tiger
  HostName tiger-arrk.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  MACs hmac-sha2-512
  ProxyJump tigressgateway.princeton.edu

Host della.princeton.edu della
  HostName della.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  MACs hmac-sha2-512
  ProxyJump tigressgateway.princeton.edu

Host della.princeton.edu della-gpu
  HostName della-gpu.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  MACs hmac-sha2-512
  ProxyJump tigressgateway.princeton.edu

Host adroit.princeton.edu adroit
  HostName adroit.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  MACs hmac-sha2-512

Host neuronic.cs.princeton.edu neuronic
  HostName neuronic.cs.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  MACs hmac-sha2-512

Host tigressgateway.princeton.edu tigressgateway
  HostName tigressgateway.princeton.edu
  User <NetID>
  MACs hmac-sha2-512
  ServerAliveInterval 300