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Options for ColdFront Tutorial

There are several ways to run through the ColdFront portion of the HPC Toolset Tutorial. We have provided different pre-seeded databases for the half day and the full day tutorial. These databases include some basic setup to save time and get right to the good stuff! Some of you may be coming here to test out ColdFront from stratch so we've also provided the detailed instructions to allow you to do it all yourself. Click on the link below for the experience you're interested in:

Full Day Tutorial
Half Day Tutorial
Start from Scratch

NOTE: The databases created for this were made for specific dates these tutorials were presented at conferences in 2023. Any examples related to allocation expiration dates will not match up if you're running these outside of the conference dates. You can review the pre-seeding steps to see what was done to replicate this in your testing.

Full Day Tutorial: Using ColdFront

If interested, you can view the steps taken to pre-seed the database for the extended version of the tutorial.

By default, the containers start with the database being pre-seeded for the full day tutorial. If you are starting from a different spot in these instructions, you may want to ensure you have the right database in place. To do so, stop (destroy) the containers, copy in the full day tutorial database, and then restart the containers, following these steps:

./hpcts destroy
cp coldfront/db_options/coldfront-full.dump database/coldfront.dump
./hpcts start

Once the containers are started, navigate to the ColdFront site - https://localhost:2443.

ColdFront Overview

This section should give you an idea of how ColdFront can be used in your center by PIs (principal investigators - also faculty, professors, project managers). PIs can manage access to resources for their research groups or classes, by your system administrators to manage the resources & grant the access, and your center director or other staff to review who has access and what type of research they're doing. It's just one short example but it provides the full product lifecycle so you can see how the different roles might utilize the software. The next section provides more details specifically for system administrators managing resources at an HPC center.

PI View: Annual Project Review, Allocation Renewal & Allocation Change Requests

  • Log in as cgray password test123
  • Click on the project and review the information we've added as part of the database pre-seeding. There is project information populated and several allocations listed. One allocation is coming up for renewal and will expire in less than a month. Notice the Needs Review label next to the project
  • Click on the Add Users button and in the search box enter csimmons then click the Search button
  • You'll be presented the user information for the csimmons account as well as a list of allocations on the project. You can choose to add the account to either of the allocations or all of them. You may also change the role of the account from User to Manager
  • Then click the Add Selected Users to Project button and you'll be returned to the Project Detail page
  • Click on the yellow Expires in X days Click to renew banner next to the allocation coming up on expiration and try to renew it. You should see a warning banner telling you it can't be done because the project review is due

NOTE: When a project review is required, a PI can't request new allocations or allocation change requests nor renew expiring allocations. They can, however, add/remove users, publications, grants, and research output.

  • Click the Review Project link to start the project review process. Provide a reason for not providing grant or publication information, check the box to acknowledge the update and click the Submit button
  • Now try to renew the expiring allocation. Your request should be accepted and the allocation should now be in the Renewal Requested status. It's now possible to request new allocations or allocation changes as well
  • Add a publication: Click the Add Publication button and in the search box enter the DOI: 10.1145/3437359.3465585 Click the Search button and it should display information about a ColdFront publication. Click on the checkbox next to the search result and then click the Add Selected Publications to Project button
  • Take a look at the other project sections such as Project Attributes, Grants, and Research Outputs
  • Log out

Center Director View: Project Review Approval

At part of the database seeding we did prior to the start of the tutorial, we configured the user sfoster with the proper account permissions to act as the Center Director. This allows sfoster to view all projects, allocations, publications, and grants. We've also given permission to view the pending project review list.

  • Log in as sfoster password ilovelinux to see what additional menus and functionality this account has access to
  • Navigate to the Director menu and click on Project Reviews
  • Click the Email button to see this functionality. Go back to the Project Reviews and click Mark Complete
  • Click through the different options in the Director menu if desired
  • Log out

Activate the allocation request

  • Log in as hpcadmin password ilovelinux
  • Navigate to the Admin menu and click on Allocation Requests
    Note: the project review status is a green check mark, indicating our Center Director has already approved the submitted project review.

At part of the database seeding we did at the start of the tutorial, we activated and set attributes on the allocations requested on the cgray project. Let's look at that allocation and how it was set up.

  • Click the Details button to review the Allocation Detail page
  • Notice that allocation status is Renewal Requested and there is a start and end date associated with it
  • Scroll down to look at the allocation attributes set. There is a slurm_account attribute as well as slurm_specs and slurm_user_specs attributes. This is what is used by the Slurm plugin to sync with the Slurm database
  • Click the Approve button to re-activate the allocation. This updates the status to Active and changes the expiration date to one year from today
  • Log out as the hpcadmin user

Try to run a job as the PI user

Now let's go outside of ColdFront to the command line and try to submit a batch job as the cgray user.

  • Log in to the frontend container:
ssh -p 6222 hpcadmin@localhost  
password: ilovelinux

Switch to the PI user account:

su - cgray  
password: test123
sbatch --wrap "sleep 600"

You will get an error message that you do not have permission to run on the cluster
sbatch: error: Batch job submission failed: Invalid account or account/partition combination specified

  • Let's see what slurm access cgray currently has:
sacctmgr show user cgray -s list

You should not see any Slurm account information for the cgray user.
This is because we have not synced the allocation information in ColdFront with Slurm yet.

  • Type exit to log out of the cgray account and you should be on the frontend logged in as the hpcadmin account

Run Slurm plugin to sync active allocations from ColdFront to Slurm

  • Log in to the coldfront container & set up ColdFront environment
ssh coldfront    
source /srv/www/venv/bin/activate
  • Now dump the slurm account/association info from ColdFront's active allocations:
coldfront slurm_dump -c hpc -o ~/slurm_dump
  • Let's see what was created:
ls -al ~/slurm_dump  
cat ~/slurm_dump/hpc.cfg
  • Load the slurm dump into slurm database:
sacctmgr load file=~/slurm_dump/hpc.cfg  
Type 'Y'  to add the new account & associations for cgray
  • Let's look at cgray's slurm account again:
sacctmgr show user cgray -s list
  • Let's look at csimmons's slurm account again:
sacctmgr show user csimmons -s list

NOTE: The csimmons user is under the cgray slurm account

  • Log out of ColdFront container
exit

Log in (or go back) to frontend container

NOTE: you should already be on the frontend but just in case you're not:

ssh -p 6222 hpcadmin@localhost  
password: ilovelinux

Switch over to the PI user account and try to run a job again:

su - cgray  
password: test123
sbatch --wrap "sleep 600"  
squeue  (the job should be running on a node)  
exit (log out from cgray account)

Tip: You can also view information about this job in OnDemand, even though you launched the job from the command line. Log in as the PI user and navigate to the Jobs menu, selecting Active Jobs from the drop down menu.

ColdFront Admin Tasks

Building on what you learned in the previous section, this part of the tutorial provides information on an array of administrative tasks and setup steps you'll need to know in order to set up ColdFront at your center. We'll step through a few of these tasks from the ColdFront administration page and then go back into the ColdFront front end to test these.

Elevating User to PI Status:

In order for a user to create a new project, they need to have PI status. Let's give the sfoster account PI access:

  • If necessary, log in as hpcadmin password ilovelinux
  • Go to Admin menu and click on ColdFront Administration
  • Scroll to the bottom under the User section and click on User Profiles
  • Click on sfoster check "Is pi" - click SAVE

Adding a Resource

The tutorial database comes with two resources already created. However, when running this at your center, you'll need to manually create a resource for each system or service you want your users to access. Let's add a cloud resource:

Still on the ColdFront Administration page:

  • Scroll to the Resource section and click on Resources
  • Click on the Add Resource button
  • Select Cloud for Resource Type, enter a name and a description
  • Make sure the checkboxes for Is available, Is public, and Is allocatable are checked
  • Under the Resource Attributes section, click Add another resource attribute
  • Select the option quantity_default_value and enter a number here
  • Select the option quantity_label and enter Enter number of CPU hours to purchase
  • Select the eula (End User License Agreement) option and enter the text you'd like your project managers to see when they're requesting allocations for this resource
  • Click the SAVE button

Allocation Change Requests

Allocation change requests allow a project manager to request a change on an active allocation without having to request a whole new allocation for that resource. They can request a date extension and/or a change on an allocation attribute. We don't necessarily want to let users request changes on all allocation attributes so we need to set the ability to make change requests on individual allocation attributes.

Still on the ColdFront Administration page:

  • Under the Allocation section click on Allocation Attribute Types
  • Let's allow project managers to request an increase in their storage quotas. Click on the number next to Storage Quota (GB)
  • Check the box Is Changeable and then click the Save button
  • Now we'll switch over to our PI user. Under the Authentication and Authorization section, click on Users then click on cgray
  • At the top right, click on Login As which redirects us to the ColdFront home page for the user cgray. Click on the project name to get to the project detail page
  • Click on the actions icon next to the Project Storage resource which takes you to the Allocation Detail page. Click on the Request Change button, select a date extension, enter a new amount of storage, and provide a justification. Then click the SUBMIT button. You should now see a pending allocation change request on the allocation detail page
  • Click on the release cgray button at the top in the yellow banner

We'll go back to activating that request in a bit....

For more information about configuring Allocation Change Requests see here

Create a New Project & Request Allocations for Cloud Resource

Now that you've set up the new cloud resource, let's create a new project and request an allocation it:

  • Using the ColdFront Administration page, use the "Login As" option: Under the Authentication and Authorization section, click on Users then click on sfoster
  • At the top right, click on Login As which redirects us to the ColdFront home page for the user
  • Click the Add a project button and fill out the Title and Description fields and select a field of science. Click the Save button
  • Once redirected to the project detail page, click Request Resource Allocation under the Allocations section
  • Select the cloud resource from the drop down, provide a justification, enter the number of CPU hours, and click the Submit button.
    Click on the release sfoster button at the top in the yellow banner

As the admin, let's configure and activate that allocation:

  • From the ColdFront Administration page, click on the View Site link at the top right
  • Navigate to the Admin menu and click on Allocation Requests
  • Click on the Details button next to the Research Cloud allocation request to configure and activate the allocation:
    click the Add Allocation Attribute button and select these allocation attributes from the drop down menu:
    Core Usage (Hours) Enter: 10000
    Cloud Storage Quota (TB) Enter: 10
    Cloud Account Name Enter: cgray
    Notice as you add the core usage and cloud storage quota attributes you see usage graphs displayed. These can tie into a plugin such as XDMoD or the OpenStack community developed plugins for usage information
  • Click the Approve button to change the allocation status to Active and set the expiration date out one year from now

Now let's go look at and activate the allocation change request submitted by cgray for the storage resource.

  • Navigate to the Admin menu and click on Allocation Change Requests
  • Click on the Details button to review and approve the allocation changes requested. As the admin you have the ability to approve the date extension, change it to another setting or select no extension You can remove the storage_quota request or change it. You can add notes for the PI and users on the allocation to see. Then you can take action such as Approve or Deny the request. For this demo, let's click the Approve button
  • At the bottom of the page, click the View Allocation button and notice the Storage Quota attribute value has changed from the origianl 10000 to whatever you set it as

Removing Access

When an allocation expires or is revoked, the users on that allocation should lose access to the resource. If the allocation has the freeipa_group attribute set, all allocation users are removed from the group when the FreeIPA plugin is run. If the allocation is for a Slurm resource, all Slurm user associations and the Slurm account are removed when the Slurm plugin is run. Let's expire a Slurm allocation and then run the slurm_check tool.

  • Navigate to the Admin menu, click on All allocations and click on the allocation for the HPC cluster resource

  • Change the status to Expired and the End Date to today. Click the Update button

  • If you're not still logged into the coldfront container, log back in via the terminal & activate the ColdFront virtual environment:

ssh -p 6222 hpcadmin@localhost  
ssh coldfront  
source /srv/www/venv/bin/activate
  • Use the Coldfront slurm_check tool to remove access for the expired allocation. This first command looks at everything in slurm and compares it to what's in ColdFront:
coldfront slurm_check -c hpc
  • For the tutorial we created slurm accounts for all the test accounts in the database. This allows the other parts of the tutorial to work independently of the ColdFront piece. However, when we run this command it's not finding allocations for all of these accounts so it wants to remove them. We definitely don't want that! We'll specify the cgray account so it only removes those:
coldfront slurm_check -c hpc -s -x -a cgray

The -s flag tells it to actually sync to slurm so you'll see it removed the user associations for cgray and csimmons and removed the cgray slurm account. You can use the -n flag to run in noop mode which will give a listing of what it will change without doing the sync.

  • Let's look at cgray's slurm account again:
sacctmgr show user cgray -s list

There should be no account or association listed any longer

Staff Member View

We have set up the astewart account as an example of what a center staff member might see in ColdFront.

  • Log in as astewart password ilovelinux to see what additional menus and functionality this account has access to
  • Navigate to the Staff menu and click through the menu options to get a sense of the access we recommend for staff members
  • Click on the User Search menu option and enter one of the other account names and click the Search button. Click on the username and then click on the View User Projects and Managers button. You'll see a list of projects the user is a member of and if they are a PI or manager on any of them
  • Log out

You can see how these different permissions were set up for the tutorial in the pre-seeding section below.

For more options on allowing permissions for various types of staff access, see the ColdFront manual: https://coldfront.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manual/users/

That wraps up the full day tutorial but there is a lot more you can do with ColdFront. See the steps we did to pre-seed the database for this tutorial and the documentation for more info.


Half Day Tutorial: Using ColdFront

If interested, you can [view the steps taken](#seeding-the-database-for-the-half-day-tutorial) to pre-seed the database for this condensed version of the tutorial.

Before beginning the tutorial, you must stop the containers, copy in the correct database, and then restart the containers. Follow these steps:

./hpcts destroy
cp coldfront/db_options/coldfront-half.dump database/coldfront.dump
./hpcts start

Once the containers are started, navigate to the ColdFront site - https://localhost:2443.

PI View: Annual Project Review, Allocation Renewal & Allocation Change Requests

  • Log in as cgray password test123
  • Click on the project and review the information we've added as part of the database pre-seeding. There is project information populated and several allocations listed. One allocation is coming up for renewal and will expire in less than a month. Notice the Needs Review label next to the project
  • Click on the Add Users button and in the search box enter csimmons then click the Search button
  • You'll be presented the user information for the csimmons account as well as a list of allocations on the project. You can choose to add the account to either of the allocations or all of them. You may also change the role of the account from User to Manager
  • Then click the Add Selected Users to Project button and you'll be returned to the Project Detail page
  • Click on the yellow Expires in X days Click to renew banner next to the allocation coming up on expiration and try to renew it. You should see a warning banner telling you it can't be done because the project review is due

NOTE: When a project review is required, a PI can't request new allocations or allocation change requests nor renew expiring allocations. They can, however, add/remove users, publications, grants, and research output

  • Click the Review Project link to start the project review process. Provide a reason for not providing grant or publication information, check the box to acknowledge the update and click the Submit button

  • Now try to renew the expiring allocation. Your request should be accepted and the allocation should now be in the Renewal Requested status. It's now possible to request new allocations or allocation changes as well

  • Navigate back to the project detail page and click on the actions icon next to the Project Storage resource which takes you to the Allocation Detail page. Click on the Request Change button, select a date extension, enter a new amount of storage, and provide a justification. Then click the SUBMIT button. You should now see a pending allocation change request on the allocation detail page.

  • Log out

Center Director View: Project Review Approval

At part of the database seeding we did at the start of the tutorial, we configured the user sfoster with the Staff Status role and gave the account permissions to act as the Center Director. This allows sfoster to view all projects, allocations, publications, and grants. We've also given permission to view the pending project review list.

  • Log in as sfoster password ilovelinux to see what additional menus and functionality this account has access to
  • Navigate to the Staff menu and click on Project Reviews
    Click the Email button to see this functionality. Go back to the Project Reviews and click Mark Complete
  • Log out

For more options on allowing permissions for various types of staff access, see the ColdFront manual: https://coldfront.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manual/users/.

Activate the allocation request

  • Navigate to the Admin menu and click on Allocation Requests
    Note: the project review status is a green check mark, indicating our Center Director has already approved the submitted project review.

At part of the database seeding we did at the start of the tutorial, we activated and set attributes on the allocations requested on the cgray project. Let's look at that allocation and how it was set up.

  • Click the Details button to review the Allocation Detail page
  • Notice that allocation status is Renewal Requested and there is a start and end date associated with it
  • Scroll down to look at the allocation attributes set. There is a slurm_account attribute as well as slurm_specs and slurm_user_specs attributes. This is what is used by the Slurm plugin to sync with the Slurm database
  • Click the Approve button to re-activate the allocation. This updates the status to Active and changes the expiration date to one year from today

Now let's go look at and activate the allocation change request submitted by cgray for the storage resource. As the HPC admin user, activate and set up the new allocation:

  • Navigate to the Admin menu and click on Allocation Change Requests
  • Click on the Details button to review and approve the allocation changes requested. As the admin you have the ability to approve the date extension, change it to another setting or select no extension You can remove the storage_quota request or change it. You can add notes for the PI and users on the allocation to see. Then you can take action such as Approve or Deny the request. For this demo, let's click the Approve button

For more information about configuring Allocation Change Requests see here

  • Log out as the hpcadmin user

Try to run a job as the PI user

Now let's go outside of ColdFront to the command line and try to submit a batch job as the cgray user.

  • Log in to the frontend container:
    ssh -p 6222 hpcadmin@localhost
    password: ilovelinux
    Switch to the PI user account:
    su - cgray
    password: test123
    sbatch --wrap "sleep 600"
    You will get an error message that you do not have permission to run on the cluster
    sbatch: error: Batch job submission failed: Invalid account or account/partition combination specified.
    This is because we have not synced the allocation information in ColdFront with Slurm yet.
  • Type exit to log out of the cgray account and you should be on the frontend logged in as the hpcadmin account

Run Slurm plugin to sync active allocations from ColdFront to Slurm

  • Log in to the coldfront container & set up ColdFront environment
    ssh coldfront
    cd /srv/www
    source venv/bin/activate
  • Let's see what slurm access cgray currently has:
    sacctmgr show user cgray -s list
  • Let's see what slurm access csimmons currently has:
    sacctmgr show user csimmons -s list
  • Now dump the slurm account/association info from ColdFront's active allocations:
    coldfront slurm_dump -c hpc -o ~/slurm_dump
  • Let's see what was created:
    ls -al ~/slurm_dump
    cat ~/slurm_dump/hpc.cfg
  • Load the slurm dump into slurm database:
    sacctmgr load file=~/slurm_dump/hpc.cfg
    Type 'Y' to add the new account & associations for cgray
  • Let's look at cgray's slurm account again:
    sacctmgr show user cgray -s list
  • Let's look at csimmons's slurm account again:
    sacctmgr show user csimmons -s list
    NOTE: The csimmons user is under the cgray slurm account
  • Log out of ColdFront container exit

Log in (or go back) to frontend container

NOTE: you should already be on the frontend but just in case you're not:
ssh -p 6222 hpcadmin@localhost
password: ilovelinux

Switch over to the PI user account and try to run a job again:
su - cgray
password: test123
sbatch --wrap "sleep 600"
squeue (the job should be running on a node)
exit (log out from cgray account)

Tip: You can also view information about this job in OnDemand, even though you launched the job from the command line. Log in as the PI user and navigate to the Jobs menu, selecting Active Jobs from the drop down menu.


Reference Section

The information in this section can be used for reference or to go through the tutorial pre-seeding steps and see how all the set up was done to get the database in the state we needed it for the half day and full day tutorials or to start from scratch.

Seeding the Database for the Full Day Tutorial

These steps were done in advance to allow for the presentation of a more hands-on tutorial which spends time on learning the features rather than the minutia of the set up. If you would like to go through these steps yourself, destroy the containers, delete the ColdFront database, and start the containers. This will create a new, empty ColdFront database. Then you'll be able to log in to ColdFront and follow these steps to populate the database. 
./hpcts destroy
rm database/coldfront.dump
./hpcts start

Log in to ColdFront, set up account permissions & create resource

URL https://localhost:2443/
You'll need to log in as some of the users for this tutorial to get things started. Do NOT use the OpenID Connect log in option at this point.

  • Log in locally as username hpcadmin password: ilovelinux
  • Log out
  • Log in locally as username cgray password: test123
  • Log out
  • Log in locally as username csimmons password: ilovelinux
  • Log out
  • Log in locally as username sfoster password: ilovelinux
  • Log out
  • Log in locally as username astewart password: ilovelinux
  • Log out
  • Log in locally as username admin password: admin
  • Go to Admin menu and click on ColdFront Administration Once there, scroll halfway down to the Authentication and Authorization section. Then click on the Users link
  • Click on the hpcadmin user and scroll down to the Permissions section
  • Make this user a superuser by checking the boxes next to Staff Status and Superuser Status - scroll to the bottom and click SAVE
  • Click on the sfoster account. Under the User Permissions section add permissions to make this user the Center Director
    allocation | allocation | Can manage invoice
    allocation | allocation | Can view all allocations
    grant | grant | Can view all grants
    project | project | Can view all projects
    project | project | Can review pending project reviews
    publication | publication | Can view publication
  • Scroll to the bottom and click SAVE
  • Click on the astewart account and check the box next to Staff Status. Under the User Permissions section add additional view permissions for projects and allocations to replicate what you might provide a center staff member
    allocation | allocation | Can view all allocations
    project | project | Can view all projects
  • Scroll to the bottom and click SAVE
  • Click on the Home link to go to back to the Admin interface, scroll to the bottom of the page under the User section and click User Profiles
  • Click on cgray check "Is pi" - click SAVE

Create a new cluster resource:

  • Click on the Home link to go to back to the Admin interface, scroll down near the bottom to the Resource section and Click on Resources then click the Add Resource button
  • Add a resource with the following settings:
    Resource type: select cluster
    Name: type hpc
    Description: enter anything you want
    Ensure that the following are checked: Is available, Is public, Is allocatable
    Under the resource attributes section, click Add another Resource attribute and select slurm_cluster from the drop down menu. In the value field, enter hpc
    Click Add another Resource attribute and select OnDemand from the drop down menu. In the value field, enter Yes
  • Then click SAVE
    See more info on the OnDemand plugin in the resources section below

Create a new storage resource:

  • Click the Add Resource button
  • Add a resource with the following settings:
    Resource type: select storage
    Name: type project storage
    Description: enter anything you want
    Ensure that the following are checked: Is available, Is public, Is allocatable
    Under the resource attributes section, click Add another Resource attribute and select quantity_label from the drop down menu. In the value field, enter Enter storage in 1TB increments
    Click Add another Resource attribute and select quantity_default_value from the drop down menu. In the 1
    Click Add another Resource attribute and select OnDemand from the drop down menu. In the value field, enter Yes
  • Then click SAVE

Create a project & request an allocation

As the PI user: Create a project and request an allocation for the new resource:

  • Log in as the PI using local account username: cgray password: test123
  • Click the Add a project button to create a new project, filling in the name, description, and selecting any field of science
  • Once redirected to the project detail page, request an allocation by clicking on the Request Resource Allocation button. Select the hpc resource from the drop down menu, provide any justification, and click the Submit button
  • Request another allocation by clicking on the Request Resource Allocation button. Select the Project Storage resource from the drop down menu, enter a quantity in TB or leave the default 1, provide any justification, and click the Submit button
  • Log out

Activate the allocation requests

As the HPC admin user, activate and set up the new allocation:

  • Log in using local account username: hpcadmin password: ilovelinux
  • Navigate to the Admin menu and click on Allocation Requests
  • Click on the Details button next to the HPC Cluster allocation request to configure and activate the allocation:
    click the Add Allocation Attribute button and select these allocation attributes from the drop down menu:
    slurm_account_name Enter: cgray
    slurm_specs Enter: Fairshare=100
    slurm_user_specs Enter: Fairshare=parent
  • Set the status to Active, set the start date to today, and set the expiration date to the end of this month. If you click the Approve button, this will set the status to Active and set the expiration date out to one year from today. For the purposes of this demo, we wanted to shorten the allocation length. See here for more on changing the allocation length default
  • Click the Update button
  • Return back to the Admin menu and click on the Allocation Requests
  • Click on the Details button next to the Project Storage allocation request to configure and activate the allocation:
    click the Add Allocation Attribute button and select these allocation attributes from the drop down menu and set their values:
    freeipa_group Enter: grp-cgray
    Storage Quota (GB) Enter: 1000
    add a description to let the user know the directory name: /projects/cgray
  • Click the Approve button

Annual Project Review

When the project review functionality is enabled (it is by default) a PI will be forced to review their project once every 365 days. We can force a project to be under review in less than a year which is what we'll do for the cgray project. See here for more on disabling the annual project review process.

  • If necessary, log in as hpcadmin password ilovelinux
  • Navigate to the Admin menu and click on the ColdFront Administration link. Scroll to the Project section and click on Projects then click on the project that we created earlier. Check the box next to Force Review
  • Scroll to the bottom and click the Save button NOTE: If there is a project you never want project reviews on, uncheck 'Requires review'

Starting from Scratch (Half Day Tutorial)

These steps were done in advance to allow for the presentation of a condensed half day version of the tutorial. If you would like to go through these steps yourself, destroy the containers, and delete the ColdFront database. Start the containers which will create a new, empty coldfront database. Then log in to ColdFront and follow the steps below: 
./hpcts destroy
rm database/coldfront.dump
./hpcts start

Log in to ColdFront, set up account permissions & create resource

URL https://localhost:2443/
You'll need to log in as some of the users for this tutorial to get things started. Do NOT use the OpenID Connect login option at this point.

  • Log in locally as username hpcadmin password: ilovelinux
  • Log out
  • Log in locally as username cgray password: test123
  • Log out
  • Log in locally as username csimmons password: ilovelinux
  • Log out
  • Log in locally as username sfoster password: ilovelinux
  • Log out
  • Log in locally as username astewart password: ilovelinux
  • Log out
  • Log in locally as username admin password: admin
  • Go to Admin menu and click on ColdFront Administration Once there, scroll halfway down to the Authentication and Authorization section. Then click on the Users link
  • Click on the hpcadmin user and scroll down to the Permissions section
  • Make this user a superuser by checking the boxes next to Staff Status and Superuser Status - scroll to the bottom and click SAVE
  • Click on the sfoster account. Under the User Permissions section add permissions to make this user the Center Director
    allocation | allocation | Can manage invoice
    allocation | allocation | Can view all allocations
    grant | grant | Can view all grants
    project | project | Can view all projects
    project | project | Can review pending project reviews
    publication | publication | Can view publication
  • Scroll to the bottom and click SAVE
  • Click on the astewart account and check the box next to Staff Status. Under the User Permissions section add additional view permissions for projects and allocations to replicate what you might provide a center staff member
    allocation | allocation | Can view all allocations
    project | project | Can view all projects
  • Scroll to the bottom and click SAVE
  • Click on the Home link to go to back to the Admin interface, scroll to the bottom of the page under the User section and click User Profiles
  • Click on cgray check "Is pi" - click SAVE

Create a new cluster resource:

  • Click on the Home link to go to back to the Admin interface, scroll down near the bottom to the Resource section and Click on Resources then click the Add Resource button
  • Add a resource with the following settings:
    Resource type: select cluster
    Name: type hpc
    Description: enter anything you want
    Ensure that the following are checked: Is available, Is public, Is allocatable
    Under the resource attributes section, click Add another Resource attribute and select slurm_cluster from the drop down menu. In the value field, enter hpc
    Click Add another Resource attribute and select OnDemand from the drop down menu. In the value field, enter Yes
  • Then click SAVE
    See more info on the OnDemand plugin in the resources section below

Create a new storage resource:

  • Click the Add Resource button
  • Add a resource with the following settings:
    Resource type: select storage
    Name: type project storage
    Description: enter anything you want
    Ensure that the following are checked: Is available, Is public, Is allocatable
    Under the resource attributes section, click Add another Resource attribute and select quantity_label from the drop down menu. In the value field, enter Enter storage in 1TB increments
    Click Add another Resource attribute and select quantity_default_value from the drop down menu. In the 1
    Click Add another Resource attribute and select OnDemand from the drop down menu. In the value field, enter Yes
  • Then click SAVE

Create a new cloud resource:

  • Click the Add Resource button
  • Add a resource with the following settings:
    Resource type: select cloud
    Name: type on-prem cloud
    Description: enter anything you want
    Ensure that the following are checked: Is available, Is public, Is allocatable
  • We will not set any resource attributes on this resource. Scroll to the bottom and click SAVE

Add an allocation attribute type:

  • Click on the Home link to go to back to the Admin interface. Under the Allocation section click on Allocation attribute types
  • Click Add Allocation Attribute Type button, select Text from the Attribute Type drop down menu and name it Storage Directory Make sure all checkboxes are unchecked and click the SAVE button

Make an allocation attribute changeable:

  • Under the Allocation section, click on Allocation Attribute Types
  • Click on Storage Quota check the box next to Is changeable and then click the SAVE button
  • Log out

Create a project & request an allocation

As the PI user: Create a project and request an allocation for the new resource:

  • Log in as the PI using local account username: cgray password: test123
  • Click the Add a project button to create a new project, filling in the name, description, and selecting any field of science
  • Once redirected to the project detail page, request an allocation by clicking on the Request Resource Allocation button. Select the hpc resource from the drop down menu, provide any justification, and click the Submit button
  • Request another allocation by clicking on the Request Resource Allocation button. Select the Project Storage resource from the drop down menu, enter a quantity in TB or leave the default 1, provide any justification, and click the Submit button
  • Log out

Activate the allocation requests

As the HPC admin user, activate and set up the new allocation:

  • Log in using local account username: hpcadmin password: ilovelinux
  • Navigate to the Admin menu and click on Allocation Requests
  • Click on the Details button next to the HPC Cluster allocation request to configure and activate the allocation:
    click the Add Allocation Attribute button and select these allocation attributes from the drop down menu:
    slurm_account_name Enter: cgray
    slurm_specs Enter: Fairshare=100:DefaultQOS=normal
    slurm_user_specs Enter: Fairshare=parent:DefaultQOS=normal
  • Set the status to Active, set the start date to today, and set the expiration date to the end of this month. If you click the Approve button, this will set the status to Active and set the expiration date out to one year from today. For the purposes of this demo, we wanted to shorten the allocation length. See here for more on changing the allocation length default
  • Click the Update button
  • Return back to the Admin menu and click on the Allocation Requests
  • Click on the Details button next to the Project Storage allocation request to configure and activate the allocation:
    click the Add Allocation Attribute button and select these allocation attributes from the drop down menu and set their values:
    freeipa_group Enter: grp-cgray
    Storage Quota (GB) Enter: 1000
  • Click the Approve button

Annual Project Review

When the project review functionality is enabled (it is by default) a PI will be forced to review their project once every 365 days. We can force a project to be under review in less than a year which is what we'll do for the cgray project. See here for more on disabling the annual project review process.

  • If necessary, log in as hpcadmin password ilovelinux
  • Navigate to the Admin menu and click on the ColdFront Administration link. Scroll to the Project section and click on Projects then click on the project that we created earlier. Check the box next to Force Review
  • Scroll to the bottom and click the Save button NOTE: If there is a project you never want project reviews on, uncheck 'Requires review'

This wraps up the setup done to the ColdFront database to prepare for the condensed half-day tutorial format.


More info on Allocation Change Requests

Allocation change requests are turned on by default. This will allow PIs to request date extensions for their allocations. The date ranges default to 30, 60, & 90 days but can be set changed or disabled completely in hpc-toolset-tutorial/coldfront/coldfront.env
See https://coldfront.readthedocs.io/en/latest/config/#coldfront-core-settings for more information.

If you want PIs to be able to request changes to allocation attributes (i.e. storage quotas, unix group) this needs to be set on the allocation attribute. For this demo, we allowed the PI to request changes on the Storage Quota attribute.

More info on the OnDemand Plugin

This is a very simple example of modifying the ColdFront configuration to use a plugin. This plugin allows us to provide a link to our OnDemand instance for any allocations for resources that have "OnDemand enabled".

We have already added the OnDemand instance URL to the ColdFront config. You can see this outside the containers in your git directory: See hpc-toolset-tutorial/coldfront/coldfront.env.

When creating the resource at the start of the tutorial, we added the OnDemand attribute to the hpc resource which tells it to display the OnDemand logo and link to the OnDemand URL for any allocations for this resource. Notice on the ColdFront home page next to the allocation for the HPC cluster resource you see the OnDemand logo. Click on the Project name and see this logo also shows up next to the allocation. When we click on that logo, it directs us to the OnDemand instance.

ColdFront Installation & Configuration

  • View hpc-toolset-tutorial/coldfront/install.sh to see how ColdFront is installed
  • View hpc-toolset-tutorial/coldfront/coldfront.env to see how ColdFront is configured
  • This is where you'd enable or disable any plugins and set variables for your local installation. Check out the full configuration options available in the ColdFront documentation
  • View hpc-toolset-tutorial/coldfront/coldfront-nginx.conf for an example of ColdFront web configuration

Tutorial Navigation

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