Connecting to RCS HPC Systems

RCS maintains and operates various systems and clusters which can be connected to from within the University of Calgary campus network or via the University of Calgary IT General VPN.

Cluster	Hostname	Access	Accessible by
ARC	arc.ucalgary.ca	SSH	All ARC users
ARC DTN	arc-dtn.ucalgary.ca	SSH	All ARC users
TALC	talc.ucalgary.ca	SSH	All TALC users
MARC	marc.ucalgary.ca	Citrix	MARC users

Connecting to the University VPN

All connections made to our infrastructure must be made from the University of Calgary campus network or via the University of Calgary IT General VPN.

For additional help, refer to:

• The General VPN knowledge base article for help on setting up your General VPN connection on your computer.
• The VPN software knowledge base article for information on where to obtain FortiClient.

Here is how to connect to the UofC network:

From Windows: https://ucalgary.service-now.com/it?id=kb_article&sys_id=f0ec8ad513d1a2406f3afbb2e144b072

From MacOS: https://ucalgary.service-now.com/it?id=kb_article&sys_id=a83016d01343a2c009fbbc62e144b0ff

From Linux: https://ucalgary.service-now.com/it?id=kb_article&sys_id=9fa2830d1311ea008246d7b2e144b061

After connecting to the General VPN, you will then be able to connect via SSH or Citrix to our compute infrastructure.

Getting the FortiClient VPN

The FortiClient VPN software can be downloaded from the UofC software distribution web site:

https://iac01.ucalgary.ca/SDSWeb/

Alternatively, the FortiClient VPN software can also be downloaded for free from the FortiClient web site:

https://www.forticlient.com/downloads

Once you have downloaded the client you will need to configure it.

Before you do that, you should test if you have VPN access. The best way to do this is to login to the VPN using your web browser:

https://gpvpn2.ucalgary.ca:10443/

If you can login there, you can then install the VPN client and configure it with following information:

• Host: gpvpn2.ucalgary.ca
• Port: 10443
• User: your_uofc_user.name

If you cannot login, then you will have to raise a ticket with the help desk at

https://ucalgary.service-now.com/it

Connecting with SSH

Secure Shell (SSH) is an encrypted network protocol that allows secure communication between your computer and a server.

On Linux or MacOS computers, SSH is most likely installed and can be used by opening a terminal and running:

ssh username@arc.ucalgary.ca

For work requiring X11 forwarding, pass in the -X flag.

ssh -X username@arc.ucalgary.ca

On Windows, there are various clients that can be used to connect to our cluster including:

• PuTTY
• MobaXterm