The UVA HPC systems (Rivanna and Afton) are accessible through a web portal, secure shell terminals, or a remote desktop environment. For of all of these access points, your login is your UVA computing ID and your password is your Eservices password. If you do not know your Eservices password you must change it through ITS.
Off Campus?
Connecting to Rivanna and Afton HPC systems from off Grounds via Secure Shell Access (SSH) or FastX requires a VPN connection. We recommend using the UVA More Secure Network if available. The UVA Anywhere VPN can be used if the UVA More Secure Network is not available. Only Windows and Mac OSX operating systems are supported by the Cisco client provided by ITS. Linux users should refer to these unsupported instructions to install and configure a VPN. The More Secure Network requires authentication through Duo; users should follow the instructions on the dialog box to enter "push" as the password.
Open OnDemand users do not need a VPN to access Rivanna.
Web-based Access
Open OnDemand is a graphical user interface that allows access to HPC via a web browser. The Open OnDemand access point is ood.hpc.virginia.edu. Within the Open OnDemand environment users have access to a file explorer; interactive applications like JupyterLab, RStudio Server & FastX Web; a command line interface; and a job composer and job monitor to submit jobs to the Rivanna and Afton clusters. Detailed instructions can be found on our Open OnDemand documentation page.
Secure Shell Access (SSH)
UVA HPC is accessible through ssh (Secure Shell) connections using the hostname login.hpc.virginia.edu.
Windows
Windows users must install an ssh client application. We recommend MobaXterm, but you may also use other clients such as PuTTY.
Mac OSX and Linux
OSX and Linux users may connect through a terminal using the command
ssh -Y mst3k@login.hpc.virginia.edu
SSH key authentication is also permissible.
Using X11 Applications with ssh
X11 applications can be run via an ssh connection as long as it is configured correctly. The -Y option specifies this for the command-line application run in a terminal.
Windows users who install MobaXterm do not need to add -Y in an ssh session since this is the default for MobaXterm. Other clients such as PuTTY must be configured to allow X11 packets to be transferred.
Mac users must install XQuartz in order to be able to run graphical (X11) applications locally.
Graphical X11 applications may be slow through a standard ssh login. For extensive use of graphical applications we recommend FastX.
For more details and for troubleshooting information, please see our ssh page.
Remote Desktop Access
Users who wish to run X11 graphical applications may prefer the FastX remote desktop web interface. The FastX web client is accessible at fastx.hpc.virginia.edu. Your login credentials are your UVA computing ID and your Eservices password.
