DeltaAI Login Methods

Note

If you don’t have an allocation on DeltaAI, go to DeltaAI Allocations to learn how to submit an allocation request.

Once you have a DeltaAI allocation, the primary methods for logging into DeltaAI are:

Direct Access Login Nodes

Direct access to the DeltaAI login nodes is via SSH using your NCSA username, password, and NCSA Duo MFA. The login nodes provide access to the CPU and GPU resources on DeltaAI. See the NCSA Allocation and Account Management page for links to NCSA Identity and NCSA Duo services.

ACCESS awarded projects - Your NCSA username is in your ACCESS Profile; once logged in, scroll to the bottom of the page to the “Resource Provider Site Usernames” table. If you don’t know your NCSA username, submit a support request for assistance.

Login Node Hostnames

Login Node Hostnames

Login Node Hostname

Description

dtai-login.delta.ncsa.illinois.edu

Preferred hostname. Alias that round-robin logs in to one of the DeltaAI login nodes.

gh-login[01-04].delta.ncsa.illinois.edu

There are four DeltaAI login nodes, gh-login01, gh-login02, gh-login03, and gh-login04.

The “gh” refers to “Grace Hopper”; DeltaAI is powered by the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip.

SSH Examples

In the examples below, replace username with your DeltaAI login (NCSA) username.

  • Round-robin log in to a login node

  • -l <user> <host> is an alternative syntax for <user>@<host>

    ssh -l username dtai-login.delta.ncsa.illinois.edu
    
  • -Y allows X11 forwarding from Linux hosts

SSH Key Pairs

Use of SSH key pairs is disabled for general use. This means that most individual users, even principal investigators (PIs), are not allowed to use SSH key pairs instead of 2-factor authentication to log in.

The one exception is if you are the PI of a Science Gateway allocation (this is not most projects). In that case, please submit a support request to get the Gateway account’s key pairs set up.

Maintaining Persistent Login Sessions: tmux

The tmux utility is available on login nodes to maintain persistent login shells. This is a great technique to keep your shell alive for days and between network disconnects.

After making note of the hostname, use the targeted login hostnames to attach to the login node where you started tmux. Avoid the round-robin hostname when using tmux.

See the tmux man page for more information.

SSH Keyboard-Interactive

For command line SSH clients, use the following settings if you have trouble logging in to DeltaAI:

ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=keyboard-interactive,password

Open OnDemand

With Open OnDemand (OOD), you can access DeltaAI, in a web browser! Go to Open OnDemand on DeltaAI for more topics including:

  • Shell interface.

  • Interactive apps: Jupyter Lab [coming soon: Code Server (VS Code) and Desktop (virtual Linux desktop)].

  • Jupyter Lab customization for conda Environments.

How to Log In to the DeltaAI OOD Dashboard

  1. Navigate to the Open OnDemand dashboard.

  2. Log in through CILogon with your NCSA username, password, and Duo MFA.

  3. Once logged in, navigate the dashboard using the menu bar at the top of the window.

    Open OnDemand home screen showing the "files", "jobs", "clusters", "interactive apps", and "my interactive sessions" options in the menu bar at the top of the window.

VS Code

Refer to VS Code - Remote SSH