Connecting to the Cluster

Connecting from within the Kennedy

The BRMC login nodes (“cluster1.bmrc.ox.ac.uk”, “cluster2.bmrc.ox.ac.uk”, “cluster3.bmrc.ox.ac.uk” and “cluster4.bmrc.ox.ac.uk”) are directly accessible from the Kennedy network.

Connecting from outside the Kennedy

Connections from outside the Kennedy should be made via the university VPN. If connecting using an apple mac computer, the CISCO anyconnect client is needed for a stable connection. It can be obtained from the Univerity’s IT service.

Client ssh configuration

An example of a client-side .ssh/config is provided in client-side/ssh/config:

Host *
     UseKeychain yes
     AddKeysToAgent yes
     ServerAliveInterval 120

Host bmrc1
     hostname cluster1.bmrc.ox.ac.uk
     user xxxxxx
     ForwardAgent yes
     ForwardX11Trusted yes
     ControlMaster auto
     ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/ssh-socket-%r-%h-%p
     ControlPersist 24h

Host bmrc2
     hostname cluster2.bmrc.ox.ac.uk
     user xxxxxx
     ForwardAgent yes
     ForwardX11Trusted yes
     ControlMaster auto
     ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/ssh-socket-%r-%h-%p
     ControlPersist 24h

Host bmrc4
     hostname cluster4.bmrc.ox.ac.uk
     user xxxxxx
     ForwardAgent yes
     ForwardX11Trusted yes
     ControlMaster auto
     ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/ssh-socket-%r-%h-%p
     ControlPersist 24h

Note

Replace “xxxxxx” with your BMRC user name.

Note

You will need to create the “.ssh/sockets” directory if it does not exist:

mkdir ~/.ssh/sockets

In the example, the “ControlMaster”, “ControlPath”, and “ControlPersist” directives mean that you should only have to authenticate once a day, with all connections being automatially multiplexed through a single master connection.