Frequently Asked Questions¶
When to follow the course¶
When should I follow this course?¶
When you want to transfer files.
When should I consider to not follow this course?¶
These are the reasons to consider to not follow this course:
Reason 1: you want to learn advanced things¶
When you have done your first file transfers and expect to learn new and more advanced things.
In this case, the course will go too slow for you.
However, you will probably be put to work by the teachers to help out other learners. If you like to test your own knowledge by teaching others, you will likely thrive in the course.
Reason 2: you have social anxiety¶
When you have social anxiety.
In this case, the course will be too social for you.
However, in this course, it is perfectly OK to give a wrong answer or to say 'I do not know'. This is what a former learner had to say on this:
You are welcome to try and leave anytime you want. The course material is made for self-study too, with videos for all exercises. Do fill in the evaluation when you leave early :-)
Prerequisites¶
Why are there so many prerequisites?¶
Because of constraints.
While planning the course, we started out with two hour to teach about login and filesystem navigation, and four hours to do actual fle transfer.
When the constraint was added that the
course must be maximally three hours,
it meant that we would teach what the course
is about in the minority of the time.
As teachers, we accepted this at first,
and would only teach FileZilla and rsync.
However, then another constraint was added: there should be more file transfer tools discussed.
Instead of lecturing (we should not [Hattie, 2023]),
we decided to add prerequisites instead
What are the prerequisites for following this course?¶
See prerequisites.
How can I check if I have registered?¶
You should have gotten a welcome email within a couple of days.
When it doubt, register another time :-)
How to find the course's Zoom room?¶
Want to see this in a video?
Watch the YouTube video NAISS File Transfer course: How to find the course's Zoom room?
Track 1a: You are already in a project on a cluster¶
- If you are already working on a Swedish HPC cluster, we assume you can log in and you will be emailed the Zoom room's URL about a day before the.
- We will use your information in the registration in SUPR to check this!
Track 1b: You have a project but ere interested in transferring files between clusters¶
- As an (optional) exercise there are instructions to copy files between clusters.
- If interested, follow the steps 2-5 in Track 2 below by;
- applying for membership in the course project and
- activate a user account on the cluster of Tetralith and Dardel that you do not already have.
Track 2: You are new to a HPC resource¶
Here is how to find the course's Zoom room. In total, these steps may take 2 days at minimum, due to multiple waiting steps:
- Step 1: Register at SUPR.
After doing so, it may take one evening before you are registered. You will get an email when being registered.
- Step 2: After registration,
on SUPR, ask for membership of
the course project
NAISS 2025/22-717
After doing so, it may take some days being granted membership. You will get an email when being granted access.
- Step 3: After having been granted membership on SUPR, activate your user accounts on Dardel and Tetralith. Tetralith is the HPC cluster that is recommended for this course.
After doing so, it may take some hours before your user account is activated. You will get an email when being granted access.
- Step 4: Log in to your HPC cluster. Tetralith is the HPC cluster that is recommended for this course.
- Step 5: On your HPC cluster, find the URL of the Zoom room
| HPC cluster | Path to folder |
|---|---|
| Dardel | /cfs/klemming/projects/supr/transfer_course/zoom_url.txt |
| Tetralith | /proj/transfer_course/zoom_url.txt |
How can I check if I have a NAISS account?¶
When you can login at https://supr.naiss.se/.
How does that look like?
It should look similar to this:
How can I check if I can login to an HPC cluster using SSH?¶
This depends on the HPC cluster you are using.
How does that look like on UPPMAX's Rackham?
For UPPMAX's Rackham, it look similar to this:
How can I login to an HPC cluster?¶
Follow the instructions of your favorite HPC center or the UPPMAX instruction
Below is an overview with documentation and videos. For beginners: use the bold login method.
| HPC cluster | Login method | Documentation | YouTube video |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alvis | SSH | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Alvis | Website | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Bianca | SSH | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Bianca | Website | Documentation | YouTube video |
| COSMOS | Local ThinLinc client | Documentation | YouTube video |
| COSMOS | SSH | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Dardel | Local ThinLinc client | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Dardel | SSH | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Kebnekaise | Local ThinLinc client | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Kebnekaise | SSH | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Kebnekaise | Website | Documentation | YouTube video |
| LUMI | SSH | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Pelle | SSH | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Pelle | Local ThinLinc client | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Rackham | Local ThinLinc client | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Rackham | SSH | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Rackham | Website | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Tetralith | Local ThinLinc client | Documentation | YouTube video |
| Tetralith | SSH | Documentation | YouTube video |
Is it OK if I can login to an HPC cluster using other methods?¶
Probably: yes
- Using a website: yes
- Using a local ThinLinc client: yes
How to install MobaXterm?¶
This is for Windows users only.
Install MobaXterm from the MobaXterm website.
How to check that I've installed MobaXterm?¶
Run it. If it shows up, you've installed MobaXterm.
How to install rsync?¶
This is for Linux and Mac users only.
For Linux, in a terminal, run:
For Mac, in a terminal, run:
According to this post, for Windows 11, in a terminal, run:
How to check that I've installed rsync?¶
In a terminal, type:
If you see the rsync version displayed, you've installed rsync.
How does that look like?
Your output will look similar to this:
richel@richel-N141CU:~$ rsync --version
rsync version 3.2.7 protocol version 31
Copyright (C) 1996-2022 by Andrew Tridgell, Wayne Davison, and others.
Web site: https://rsync.samba.org/
Capabilities:
64-bit files, 64-bit inums, 64-bit timestamps, 64-bit long ints,
socketpairs, symlinks, symtimes, hardlinks, hardlink-specials,
hardlink-symlinks, IPv6, atimes, batchfiles, inplace, append, ACLs,
xattrs, optional secluded-args, iconv, prealloc, stop-at, no crtimes
Optimizations:
SIMD-roll, no asm-roll, openssl-crypto, no asm-MD5
Checksum list:
xxh128 xxh3 xxh64 (xxhash) md5 md4 sha1 none
Compress list:
zstd lz4 zlibx zlib none
Daemon auth list:
sha512 sha256 sha1 md5 md4
rsync comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you
are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. See the GNU
General Public Licence for details.
How to install FileZilla?¶
Under Ubuntu, you can can use the Ubuntu App Center.
How does the Ubuntu App Center look like?
Here:
For non-Ubuntu users, search the web, download and install.
Where can I find it?
The FileZilla website can be found at https://filezilla-project.org/.
Clicking on 'Download FileZilla client' takes you to the FileZilla download page at https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=client.
Download the file, maybe unzip it and run the installer
How to check that I've installed FileZilla?¶
Run it. If it shows up, you've installed FileZilla.
Which HPC clusters have FileZilla installed?¶
| HPC Cluster | Has FileZilla installed? |
|---|---|
| Alvis | Yes |
| Berzelius | Unknown, as this is not a NAISS cluster |
| Bianca | No |
| COSMOS | No |
| Dardel | No |
| Kebnekaise | Unknown, as this is not a NAISS cluster |
| LUMI | No |
| Pelle | No |
| Rackham | Yes |
| Tetralith | No |
| Vera | Unknown, as this is not a NAISS cluster |
How can I check if I have a good Zoom setup?¶
- You are in a room where you can talk
- You talk into a (standalone or headset) microphone
- Others can clearly hear you when you talk
- Others can see you
- You can hear others clearly when they talk
How can I get a good Zoom setup?¶
- Find/schedule/book a room where you can talk
- Buy a simple headset
What if I don't have a good Zoom setup? Is that OK?¶
No.
You will feel left out, as the course in highly interactive. It would be weird to the other learners.
Teaching¶
Why is the course learner-centered?¶
Because that is good teaching.
This course defines good teaching as 'evidence-based methods to let learners
acquire new skills and the monitoring of this acquisition'.
This means that it should be observed that learners need more/less to time
to practice and following the schedule based on that. Learner-centered teaching
has an effect size from 0.36 [Hattie ranking]
or 0.64/0.70 [Cornelius-White, 2007][Hattie, 2012].
Website¶
Why is the repository owner UPPMAX instead of NAISS?¶
Because NAISS does not have a GitHub owner page yet.
References¶
[Cornelius-White, 2007]Cornelius-White, Jeffrey. "Learner-centered teacher-student relationships are effective: A meta-analysis." Review of educational research 77.1 (2007): 113-143.[Hattie, 2023]Hattie, John. Visible learning: The sequel: A synthesis of over 2,100 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge, 2023. The effect size of lecturing can be found on page 363, which has an effect size of -0.26 with a robustness index of 4 out of 5 and is based on 3 meta analyses using 273 studies using 27,296 people, measuring for 614 effects with a standard error of 0.08. One example open access study is[Knight & Wood, 2005].[Hattie ranking]The Hattie Ranking[Knight & Wood, 2005]Knight, Jennifer K., and William B. Wood. "Teaching more by lecturing less." Cell biology education 4.4 (2005): 298-310. paper