The Firebird computing cluster runs the Open OnDemand system, which provides access to files, jobs, and an interactive desktop via a web browser.

1 Accessing the site
2 Features
- 2.1 Interactive Desktop
- 2.2 File Browser
- 2.3 Jupyter Notebooks
  - 2.3.1 Jupyter Application
  - 2.3.2 Configuring Jupyter via Miniconda
- 2.4 Shell / Terminal Session
- 2.5 Slurm Jobs

Accessing the site

You must have a Firebird account set up to use Open OnDemand.

In a web browser, go to https://firebird.swarthmore.edu
You will be presented with a CILogon page; under Select an Identity Provider, choose Swarthmore College
Click Log On. You will be directed to Swarthmore’s single sign-on page.
Once you have authenticated, you should be logged into Open OnDemand.

Open OnDemand requires VPN when accessing the site from off-campus.

Features

Open OnDemand is feature-rich, though certain features available from the Open OnDemand menus and interface may be unavailable. The most useful applications are the file browser, Slurm job lists, the interactive desktop, and Jupyter Notebooks.

Interactive Desktop

It is possible to launch an interactive desktop from within Open OnDemand, which provides a graphical Linux desktop environment running on a Firebird worker node. This can be useful for running a graphical program such as MATLAB, Mathematica, Stata, etc. There are time and resource limits, so the interactive use is not designed for long-running or intensive compute jobs. To launch an interactive desktop session after logging in:

From the top menu bar, click Interactive Apps
Click Firebird Desktop
Adjust values in the form (e.g., cores, memory, and whether you require a GPU) and click Launch
You may have to wait a minute for the session to start; when it does, click Launch Firebird Desktop
- note that if insufficient resources are available to create the desktop immediately, you may have to wait for resources to become available; if so, you can elect to receive an email when your desktop is available

File Browser

Open OnDemand provides a helpful file browser, which shows a list of your files on Firebird and makes it easy to manage them. It is possible to upload and download files as well as view and edit text files, which can be handy for simple changes.

From the top menu bar, click Files → Home Directory

Jupyter Notebooks

Users have two options to access Jupyter Notebooks via Open OnDemand. It is possible to launch a basic Jupyter Notebook through a pre-defined application. In certain cases, however, such as when specific Python libraries or a GPU are required, it makes more sense to create a specific miniconda environment and launch custom Jupyter notebooks through the interactive desktop; nevertheless, this generic option can be useful for testing, class use, etc. Moreover, from within the Jupyter interface, it is possible to open an interactive Python console, as well as a shell / terminal session.

Jupyter Application

From the top menu bar, click Interactive Apps
Click Jupyter Notebook
Adjust form values as needed (most can be left blank or at the default value, but it may especially be helpful to adjust the time needed) and click Launch
You may have to wait a minute for the session to start; when it does, click Launch Jupyter Notebook
- note that if insufficient resources are available to create the notebook immediately, you may have to wait for resources to become available; if so, you can elect to receive an email when your notebook is available

Configuring Jupyter via Miniconda

It is possible to configure a Miniconda environment to run Jupyter Notebooks or Jupyter Lab, which is useful if you need to customize your environment with additional packages, or if you need to run on a GPU node, etc. These instructions assume you have installed Miniconda and are working within an interactive virtual desktop session (instructions above):

conda create -n jupyter
conda install notebook
jupyter notebook

This should launch a Jupyter Notebook session in a web browser. If you prefer to work within Jupyter Lab instead, you can use these commands instead:

conda create -n jupyter
conda install jupyterlab
jupyter lab

Shell / Terminal Session

It is possible to open a terminal session from within Open OnDemand. Doing so, however, requires a password to be associated with your account. If you would like to enable this feature, please open a ticket (by sending an email to support@swarthmore.edu or at https://support.swarthmore.edu) requesting shell access through Open OnDemand. Once you have access, to access the terminal:

From the top menu bar, click Clusters → Firebird Shell Access
As an alternative method, from the top menu bar, click Files → Home Directory
In the upper-right of the screen, click Open in Terminal

Slurm Jobs

See a list of Slurm jobs running on Firebird. The default view shows only your jobs, but it can be changed to view all jobs. Expanding a job shows more details. While it is also possible to submit jobs from this interface, for most cases it is easier to use the command line:

From the top menu bar, click Jobs → Active Jobs