SCC OnDemand Instructions

CS350 will be using SCC as the primary and intended platform for students to complete the homework assignments. Shared Computing Cluster (SCC) is a collection of tens of thousands of machines. Researchers, or in our case, students, can request some timeshare of these machines to run jobs.

There are many ways you can interact with SCC.

You can (in order of what we recommend):

Spin up a VSCode Server, which allows you to interact with an SCC machine through a vscode web interface.

See section VSCode Server Instructions

Spin up a Desktop, which allows you to interact with an SCC machine through a web desktop (though you will have to install/use a code editor within the desktop interface).

See section Desktop Instructions

Connect to SCC via ssh (if you are comfortable with this– feel free to try, though the login nodes may not be a great place to run experiments, etc)

To complete assignments you will first need to upload the template homework files to SCC . When you are finished, you will need to download the zipped homework file.

Contents

Uploading Files to SCC

VSCode Server Instructions

[Optional] Desktop Instructions

Uploading Files to SCC

Go to scc-ondemand.bu.edu
Login with your bu login/password
Click “Files > Home Directory” from the top menu bar.


The Menu Bar

Click “New Directory” and create a directory called “cs350-hws” (or whatever you would like).
Navigate into cs350-hws
Click the “Upload” button


The Upload File Button

Select the local homework folder you downloaded from piazza (hw1, hw2, etc.) and upload it to your SCC home directory.
Now when you connect to an SCC instance, you should see the folders you uploaded!
You can also DOWNLOAD from this file interface when you are done!

VSCode Server Instructions

Go to scc-ondemand.bu.edu
Login with your bu login/password
Click “Interactive Apps” from the top menu bar.


The Menu Bar

In the sidebar of the interactive apps page, scroll to the bottom, in the “servers” section, and click “VSCode Server”
Click “Launch Instance”

Set home directory to your user directory (this is selected as default)
Set #cores to 10
Set number of hours to 1-2

Don’t worry– when your session ends all your work is saved in your home directory. You can simply start another session and pick up where you left off!

Keep everything else the same:

VSCode Version: 4.14.1
GPUs: 0
Additional Modules: none
Project: cs350rm

Now wait for SCC to process your request for a VSCode server, it will say “Queued”

This may take several minutes if SCC is under heavy load.

Once your VSCode server is running you will see:


A Running VSCode Server

Click “Connect to VS Code”

This should open a new tab that looks identical to vscode, but in the browser!

Now it is time to open the terminal in VSCode.

Click on the three horizontal lines (sometimes this is called a hamburger menu), and then select, Terminal > New Terminal. A terminal window will appear at the bottom of your screen.


Opening a New Terminal

If you want more terminal windows, you can click the plus sign in the terminal pane.


Opening a Additional Terminal Tabs

If you have multiple terminals open, you can switch between them using the sidebar. See image below:


Navigating between Terminals

OPTIONAL: Set copy/paste keybindings

If you are in chrome, in the search bar, there should be a clipboard icon. Make sure that “Continue to allow this site to see the clipboard” is still checked.
To make copy/paste work with cmd+v and cmd+c, select the gear icon in the bottom left.
Select “Keyboard Shortcuts”
Search “editor.action.clipboardPasteAction”

Click on the edit icon, and press cmd+v

Search “editor.action.clipboardCopyAction”

Click on the edit icon, and press cmd+c

[Optional] Desktop Instructions

Go to scc-ondemand.bu.edu
Login with your bu login password
Click “Interactive Apps”


The Menu Bar

In the sidebar of the interactive apps page, click “Desktop”
Click “Launch Instance”

Set home directory to your user directory (this is selected as default)
Set #cores to 10
Set number of hours to 1-2

Don’t worry– when your session ends all your work is saved in your home directory. You can simply start another session and pick up where you left off!

OPTIONAL:

Add module: vscode/1.79.2

Keep everything else the same:

Command: xfce4-terminal
GPUs: 0
Project: cs350rm

Now wait for the desktop process to queue/run

Once ready you will see:


A Running Desktop Instance

Click “connect to Desktop”

This should open a Linux desktop for you to work in.

OPTIONAL: Open terminal.

Type code . and hit enter

HINT: the “code” command is installed with vscode, it opens a vscode editor at the path specified. “.” is a path meaning the current folder.

OPTIONAL:

Enter fullscreen mode with the sidebar on the far left of the browser window.
The fourth icon from the top enters fullscreen mode.


The Expanded Desktop Toolbar includes Clipboard Access and Full Screen Buttons