File Transfers

Transfering files to and from the clusters.

 

Files can be moved both to and from the clusters in a variety of ways:

SCP

To copy a file from another linux or Mac machine into nova, issue the following command on that machine:

  scp file <ISU NetID>@novadtn.its.iastate.edu:  

This will copy the file into your home directory on nova. novadtn is the data transfer node. Your home and group working directories are mounted on all nodes of the cluster, including novadtn. 

Larger files should be kept in the group working directory (/work/<group>/<user>, where group is your group name, and user is your user name). On a remote machine issue

  scp file <ISU NetID>@novadtn.its.iastate.edu:/work/<group_directory>/<user>

to copy files directly to the group working directory. To find out your group, on Nova issue "groups" command and search for the group name that starts with "its-hpc-nova-". The group directory name usually will be the last part of the group name.

It is also possible to ftp from Nova. This is faster than scp for large files because the file is not encrypted.

scp is usually available on Linux, Mac (in terminal) and Windows 10 (in Windows PowerShell).

For older Microsoft Windows based machines, ssh is available as part of Windows ITS downloads under the link for Secure Shell.

 

Globus Online (recommended)

Globus instructions are here

 

Rclone

To back up files to cloud storage (Google Drive, Box etc) from HPC cluster, use Rclone. Remember to use Data Transfer Node for all file transfers.

 

FileZilla

FileZilla can be used to transfer files in sftp mode.   None of clusters support standard ftp as that would send your username and password in the clear which is both a bad idea and agaisnt ISU policy. Remember to use a data transfer node instead of the login node.

Tips to set up FileZilla:

In FileZilla click on the “File” menu section and choose “Site Manager”. In the Site Manager window click on “New Site”, enter Host (e.g.novadtn.its.iastate.edu), set Protocol to SFTP, set Logon Type to Interactive, type your NetID in the User field. You will also want to open the "Transfer Settings" tab and check "Limit number of simultaneous connections." Set the "maximum number of connections" to "1" If you do not do this you will be prompted for your verification code and password many times.  Click on Connect and a small window will open, showing message from the cluster prompting for Verification code. In the Password field enter the 6 digit number generated by the GA running on your mobile device. Next you will be prompted for password.