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Olin has access to Unity, a supercomputer that is part of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Cluster. This document will help you understand what you can and cannot do with Unity.
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To use pi_super_olin_edu you must complete a training with a Supercomputer Assistant.
Please sign up for a training here. You will need to be logged in with your Olin ID.
If you've never used a command line to control a computer, welcome! We are so glad that you are learning new things with us. Please familiarize yourself with the command line following this tutorial.
All users, regardless of experience, must fill out the introductory Linux worksheet before a training.
Unity is great for anything that is tricky to run on your laptop. Use it for running
- many instances of the same code (for example, 200 simulations with different parameters)
- tasks that take a long time (ex: 40 hours of API queries)
- projects that require heavy GPU processing (ex: this project).
- live dashboards and interactive pages (ex: Shiny)
Unity is for open data projects! Unity cannot be used for projects involving personally identifiable information, personal health information, controlled unclassified information, payment card information, FERPA-controlled information, etc. If we learn you have placed any sensitive data on Unity, we will revoke your user account.
Make sure everything you do aligns with Unity’s terms of service: https://docs.Unity.rc.umass.edu/about/terms-of-service/ This includes no web scraping!
- We want you to learn and explore. Expect to make mistakes! Jobs will die in four seconds. You'll typo a path and request 200GB for something that needs 2. That's normal; you'll get it right next time.
- Be kind. We are here to support one another!
- Only request resources that you need. Over-requesting time, memory, or GPUs makes you wait longer in the queue and blocks other people.
seff [jobid]after every job tells you what you actually used. Never hesitate to request what you need, but don't monopolize the whole account.Roughly, most projects onpi_super_olin_edushould be less than 100 GB and not use more than 25 cores at a time. If your project needs more resources, that's great! We will work with you. Please reach out to a supercomputer assistant for guidance. - Clean up when you are done. If you're done with a project, move your files onto your personal computer and delete the Unity files. If your files are not used for a significant amount of time, we may delete them to create space.
- This is a shared machine and your neighbors are real people at Olin. An idle GPU you're sitting on can mean someone else is waiting. A full disk means your classmates can't do their homework. An excessive CPU request means that a professor can't do their research.
- Humans are the best part of supercomputing. Don't hesitate to reach out to Carrie or the Supercomputer Assistants for help!
No personally identifiable information, personal health information, controlled unclassified information, payment card information, or FERPA-controlled information. Unity is password-protected but is not a high-security environment, and Olin's account is for open-data projects.
This means no survey data with names attached, no interview recordings or transcripts with identifiable speakers, no scraped data with usernames, no medical or biometric datasets, no grades or student outcomes.
If you're unsure whether your data counts, ask before you upload, not after — deleting a file doesn't un-share it.
Uploading personally identifiable information puts Olin at legal risk. In order for Olin to support this Unity account and allow everyone to use this resource, we need to ensure that this rule is followed. If it is not followed, we will revoke your access to Unity.
If you have any questions about this, please reach out to Prof. Carrie Nugent.
Always back up your files to your own computer! There are no automatic backups on Unity. We may be forced to delete extremely large files if our disk quota is exceeded. In addition, we may delete files that appear to be abandoned for long periods of time to free up space for active users.
The default on pi_super_olin_edu is that everyone can see and even delete everyone else's files. You can protect your files from accidental deletion by changing the permissions of the files following this tutorial. Don't hesitate to reach out for help if you're confused about this!
Changing the permissions on your files will not prevent Carrie or the Supercomputer Assistants from reading or deleting your files. We try hard not to delete files but will (for example) if your files are preventing others from using the resource, or if you do not seem to be actively using the files for a long period of time.
There are so many ways to ask for help!
Attend Supercomputer Assistant office hours! Dhvan has office hours Wednesday 1-2 in the upper level of the library. Evi will have regular office hours after trainings are complete.
Ask on the #supercomputer channel of the Shop slack. Ask here for anything Olin-specific! Also a great, friendly place to ask general questions or get help if you're stuck.
Unity has great documentation! Here's a few links that answer frequently asked questions.
- Quick start
- OnDemand
- SSH
- Running things ("Jobs")
- Using Git on Unity
- Scratch workspaces
- Python virtual environments
- JupyterLab OnDemand
- Unity helper scripts (
Unity-slurm-*)
For specific technical questions, join the Unity slack and ask on their #help-desk channel: https://account.unityhpc.org/community-slack. Feel free to ask a question on the Olin #supercomputer slack first; we'll answer it if we can and direct you to #help-desk if we don't know the answer.
Carrie Nugent is the faculty Supercomputer Liaison. Feel free to chat with her about PI (faculty/staff-level) accounts and specialized compute needs.