Access and use the Bowdoin HPC cluster for research computing, including job submission with Slurm, GPU computing, file transfers, and over 130 installed scientific software applications.
Bowdoin College provides a Linux-based High-Performance Computing (HPC) cluster for faculty, students, and researchers. The cluster offers approximately 1,400 CPU cores, GPU computing, up to 2 TB of RAM per node, and a variety of scientific software. This article provides an overview of HPC resources and how to get started.
Instructions for connecting to the Bowdoin HPC environment using SSH, the HPC Web Portal, JupyterLab, or RStudio. Covers SSH access from macOS and Linux, VPN requirements for off-campus use, and SSH configuration tips for dropped connections.
A comprehensive reference of software available on the Bowdoin HPC Linux cluster, including commercial packages such as MATLAB, Gaussian, Mathematica, Stata, and COMSOL, as well as over 130 open-source scientific applications. Includes instructions for using the module system to load software and detailed usage guides for each commercial package.
Reference information for the Bowdoin HPC Slurm cluster, including queue (partition) descriptions, job policies and resource limits, and a hardware overview suitable for grant proposals.
Instructions for submitting, monitoring, and managing jobs on the Bowdoin HPC Slurm cluster. Covers writing job scripts, using sbatch and the hpcsub wrapper, running parallel processing jobs (SMP and OpenMPI), running interactive jobs, and controlling jobs with squeue and scancel.
Instructions for transferring files between your local computer and the Bowdoin HPC environment. Covers the HPC Web Portal file browser, mounting the HPC research space via SMB from macOS or Windows, SFTP from the command line, and using Gluster temporary scratch storage for running jobs
Instructions for requesting GPU computing, high-memory nodes, and other specialized resources on the Bowdoin HPC Slurm cluster. Covers available NVIDIA GPU cards and request syntax, memory reservation options, mixed GPU and CPU jobs, and the experimental NVIDIA Grace Hopper system.
The Bowdoin HPC Web Portal (Open OnDemand) provides browser-based access to the HPC environment for command-line sessions, graphical applications, file management, and job monitoring. The portal is accessed at hpcweb.bowdoin.edu using Firefox or Chrome.