The main file transfer method that people use is scp which allows one to transfer data from any machine to HPC. However, there are several filesystems mounted on HPC that are also mounted elsewhere. (A filesystem is a storage area, such as a hard drive or CD, and "mounting" means making a local or remote filesystem accessible to your computer.) In particular, the UMBC AFS filesystem is mounted in /afs, and the UMBC Research Data Storage filesystems can be mounted on HPC if your PI requests it. Any data on those filesystems is directly accessible on HPC without the need to use scp. For details about these file transfer options, read on:

Method 1: Secure Copy (scp)

This cluster only allows secure connection from the outside. Secure Copy is the file copying program that is part of Secure Shell (ssh). To transfer files in and out of the HPC, you must use scp or similar secure software (such as WinSCP or sshfs). On unix machines such as Linux or MacOS X, you can execute scp from a terminal window.

Let me explain the use of scp by the following example: the user username has a file hello.c in sub-directory math627/hw1 from his home directory on HPC. To copy the file to the current directory on another Unix/Linux system with scp, use

scp username@hpc.rs.umbc.edu:math627/hw1/hello.c . 

Notice carefully the period "." at the end of the above sample command; it signifies that you want the file copied to your current directory (without changing the name of the file). You can copy data in the other direction too (from your machine to HPC). Let's say you have a file /home/bobby-sue/myfile.m on your machine and you want to copy it to a subdirectory matlab/ of your your HPC home directory:

scp /home/bobby-sue/myfile.m username@hpc.rs.umbc.edu:matlab/

The / after matlab ensures that scp will fail if the directory matlab does not exist. If you had left out the / and matlab was not a directory already, then scp would create a file matlab that contains all of /home/boby-sue/myfile.m's contents (which is clearly not what you want). Coincidentally, that means you could also do this:

scp /home/bobby-sue/myfile.m username@hpc.rs.umbc.edu:matlab/herfile.m

which would copy /home/bobby-sue/myfile.m to the file matlab/herfile.m in your home directory on HPC. Note that the source and destination have different file names now.

As with ssh, you can leave out the username@, if your username is the same on both machines. That is the case on the gl login servers and the general lab Mac OS X and Linux machines. If you issue the command from within UMBC, you can also abbreviate the machine name to hpc.rs. See the scp manual page for more information. You can access the scp manual page (referred to as a "man page") on a unix machine by running the command:

man scp

Method 2: AFS

Another way to copy data is to use the UMBC-wide AFS filesystem. The AFS filesystem is where your UMBC GL data is stored. That includes your UMBC email, your home directory on the gl.umbc.edu login servers and general lab Linux and Mac OS X machines, your UMBC webpage (if you have one) and your S: and some other drives on the general lab windows machines. Any data you put in your AFS partition will be available on HPC in the directory /afs/umbc.edu/users/u/s/username/ where username should be replaced with your username, and u and s should be replaced with the first and second letters of your username, respectively. As an example, suppose you're using a Mac OS X machine in a UMBC computer lab and you've ssh'd into HPC in a terminal window. Then, in that window you can type:

cp ~/myfile.m /afs/umbc.edu/users/u/s/username/home/

and your file myfile.m in your HPC home directory will be copied to myfile.m in your AFS home directory. Then, you can access that copy of the file on the Mac you're using, via ~/myfile.m. Note that it is only a copy of the file – ~/myfile.m on your Mac is not the same file as ~/myfile.m on HPC. However, ~/myfile.m on your Mac is the same as /afs/umbc.edu/users/u/s/username/home/myfile.m on both your mac and HPC.

See this page for more information.

Method 3: UMBC Research Data Storage and Other Filesystems

You can rent storage space from OIT's Research Data Storage system. When you rent that space, you can request that it be mounted on machines at UMBC. It is typically mounted by NFS, a filesystem used by all unix machines, including Mac OS X. OIT has also set up Samba which will let Windows machines mount the research data storage, but they have not yet tested Samba since no users have needed it yet. On HPC, this storage space is usually mounted at /umbc/PI-username/dataX where PI-username is the username of the Principal Investigator and X is a number, usually 1. If you are interested in purchasing or inquiring about Research Data Storage space, see our UMBC Research Data Storage page.

Some groups have already made other storage arrangements. In particular, the ASL group has its own file servers that are accessible on HPC. If you are part of the ASL group (you'll know if you are) then contact your PI or user support for information. If you would like to look into other storage arrangements, contact user support.