Our Policies

Usage Policies

Research computing resources at the University of Virginia are for use by faculty, staff, and students of the University and their collaborators in academic research projects. Personal use is not permitted. Users must comply with all University policies for access and security to University resources. The HPC system has additional usage policies to ensure that this shared environment is managed fairly to all users. UVA’s Research Computing (RC) group reserves the right to enact policy changes at any time without prior notice.

Login Nodes

Exceeding the limits on the login nodes will result in the user’s process(es) being killed. Repeated violations will result in a warning; users who ignore warnings risk losing access privileges.

Such prohibited processes to run on the login nodes include, but are not limited to: ai agents, running containers, installing large conda environments, and running your code/workflows. These processes, and other computationally intensive tasks, are best suited to be run on the compute nodes either via an interactive job or a batch job.

Scratch Directory

UVA HPC's scratch file system has a limit of 10TB per user. This policy is in place to guarantee the stability and performance of the scratch file system. Scratch is intended as a temporary work directory. It is not backed up, and files that have not been accessed for more than 90 days are marked for deletion. Users are encouraged to back up their important data. Home directories and leased storage are not subject to this policy.

Software Licenses

Excessive consumption of licenses for commercial software, either in time or number, if determined by system and/or RC staff to be interfering with other users’ fair use of the software, will subject the violator’s processes or jobs to termination without warning. Staff will attempt to issue a warning before terminating processes or jobs but inadequate response from the violator will not be grounds for permitting the processes/jobs to continue.

Inappropriate Usage

Any violation of the University’s security policies or any behavior that is considered criminal in nature or a legal threat to the University will result in the immediate termination of access privileges without warning.

Acceptable Use of the University’s Information Technology Resources

Research Computing users are required to comply with all applicable University policies governing acceptable use of information technology resources. This includes restrictions on downloading or using prohibited applications such as DeepSeek AI, TikTok, WeChat, and CapCut on RC resources. 

In addition, users are responsible for safeguarding research records in accordance with UVA policies and guidelines (see RES-002: Ownership, Retention, Safeguarding, Management, and Transfer of Research Records and University’s Generative AI Use Guidelines). This includes maintaining research records on University-owned and/or University-managed devices, systems, or services.

When using GenAI tools, the University requires the use of appropriately contracted and licensed tools when working with "Sensitive" or "internal Use" research data to prevent inadvertent exposure.