Login checkpoint and first commands

Ten minutes: short orientation, then try-time, then questions

Quick checkpoint: does everyone have a shell prompt on Isambard 3?

  • If you do not have a prompt yet, raise a hand now and a helper will stay with you
  • Anyone still stuck on login can follow along on-screen
  • Editor route for today: open VS Code in the browser via the BriCS browser tunnel guide when we need an editor; if you already brought desktop VS Code, vim, or another editor fully set up, keep using that

We are going to cover three small things: where you can put files, how to get at pre-built software, and a shared list of commands you will run in a moment.

Storage: what goes where

Three storage areas, three jobs — pick the right one before you write

Variable Quota Purpose Lifetime
$HOME 100 GiB Shell config, scripts, submission, job logs Kept until project end
$PROJECTDIR 20 TiB Shared project material (collaborators) Kept until project end
$SCRATCHDIR 5 TiB Working data and job outputs Purged after 60 days of no access

None of these are backed up. Storage on BriCS is working storage — keep an off-system copy of anything you cannot afford to lose.

Rule of thumb: before writing anything, ask whether it belongs in home, project, or scratch.

Full details (paths, $LOCALDIR, $PROJECTDIR_PUBLIC, quota checks): https://docs.isambard.ac.uk/user-documentation/information/system-storage/

Try these now

Five minutes — helpers are circulating, raise a hand if anything is unclear

# Who and where am I?
whoami
hostname
pwd

# Storage areas
echo $HOME
echo $PROJECTDIR
echo $SCRATCHDIR

# Move between them
cd $PROJECTDIR
pwd
cd
pwd
# Scratch quota
# (same form works for $HOME or $PROJECTDIR)
lfs quota -hp \
  $(lfs project -d $SCRATCHDIR | awk '{print $1}') \
  $SCRATCHDIR

# Preview the module system
module list
module reset
module list
module avail python

Stretch: pipe module avail through grep -i to look for a tool you already use.

Quota form from the Isambard 3 storage docs — works against any of the three areas by substituting the variable.

Discussion

Discussion

Questions? Comments? Anything you found interesting?