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Transfer Files

Between Your Computer and NSCC Systems

Once you have access to the login nodes of the HPC systems, you can transfer the necessary files (e.g., code, data) from your computer to the systems to run your computational jobs, and transfer the results back. Below are a few options for file transfer.

FileZilla

FileZilla provides a graphical user interface with an intuitive drag-and-drop method for transferring files between your computer and the HPC systems. After launching the application, you will see an interface similar to the one shown below.

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Fill in the following fields:

  • Host: The login node for your organisation (see previous step: Connect to the Systems)

  • Username: Your NSCC user ID

  • Password: Your NSCC password

  • Port: 22

Click Quickconnect. Once connected, you can navigate the filesystem of the HPC systems in the right-hand panel and drag-and-drop files between them and your computer.

MobaXterm

MobaXterm is another GUI application that supports file transfer (among many other features). Refer to the live demo (under SSH-Browser) for instructions on how to use it.

Command-Line Tools

You can also transfer files from your preferred command-line terminal. The most commonly used utility is scp. Replace the placeholders in the commands below as described:

  • <userid>: Your NSCC user ID

  • <login-node>: The login node for your organisation (see previous step: Connect to the Systems)

  • <source-file>: The path to the file you want to transfer

  • <path-to-destination>: The path on the destination system

From your computer to HPC system
scp <source-file> <userid>@<login-node>:<path-to-destination>
From HPC system to your computer
scp <userid>@<login-node>:<path-to-source-file> <path-to-destination>

Refer to this tutorial for more advanced scp usage, such as transferring multiple files or entire folders in a single command.

You can also explore other commonly used command-line utilities for file transfer, such as sftp and rsync.

Download Files from the Internet

Warning

Do not use login nodes to download large files, as they are shared with other users. Instead, submit a job to a CPU node to perform the download.

You can download files on the Internet (e.g., data, software packages) directly to the HPC systems. For example, to download a software package such as ScaLAPACK, run the following command from the login node of the system. Replace the URL with the link to the file you wish to download.

wget https://github.com/Reference-ScaLAPACK/scalapack/archive/v2.2.2.tar.gz