Any SLURM jobs which request a walltime which would take them past Tuesday, May 11th, 2021 at 5:00pm EDT will not start and will remain in the queue until after the maintenance is completed.

We will provide an update by 9pm.

All Research Computing computational and data resources are expected to stay up and available. Queued and running compute jobs will not be affected, and scheduling will remain enabled. However, your ability to authenticate and connect to these resources during the outage may be impacted.

As a general rule, use of any Research Computing services that require you to enter your BoilerKey credentials (PIN,push or PIN,code) will be impacted. However, services that are based on SSH key-pair authentication will continue to be accessible. Please refer to the Accounts - Logging In - SSH Keys section in the user guide of each cluster for detailed instructions on how to set up SSH key pairs ahead of time.

The following is a list of resources and services that will be impacted by the central authentication outage. Please note that this list is our best effort approximation and not a guarantee.

Clusters:

• SSH connections to clusters: affected if you use BoilerKey to authenticate, not affected if you use an SSH keypair
• Remote Desktop (ThinLinc) via Web Browser
• Remote Desktop (ThinLinc) via installed Client: affected if you use BoilerKey, not affected if you use an SSH keypair
• Gateway
• RStudio Server

Data transfers:

• SMB/CIFS mapped network drives of cluster home, scratch, and Data Depot spaces: affected for off-campus users (require Purdue VPN that relies on BoilerKey).
• SCP, SFTP, RSYNC and other SSH-based data transfers to and from the clusters, Data Depot and Fortress: affected if you use BoilerKey to authenticate. However, users of SSH key-based authentication will not be affected.
• Globus: affected if you use "Purdue University - Main Campus" as your Organization when you login to Globus. Identities provided by other organizations (other universities, GlobusID, Google, ORCiD, etc) are not affected.

Services:

• Research Computing web site: quota and user management tools, purchases and order management, and other authenticated operations are affected. The web site itself will remain available, including documentation and user guides.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Research Computing staff members will monitor the status of all computing and data resources in an effort to ensure continuous availability.

Research Computing staff members will monitor the ticketing system throughout the holiday period and answer critical user questions. Non-critical user questions will be addressed beginning Monday, January 4th, 2021. There will also be no coffee hour consultations during this break.

Scratch file purging (on community clusters with scratch space) will continue as normal during the break, so be sure to archive your files in scratch storage or check for any upcoming purge warning email during the break. This does not apply to Data Depot or home directories -- only scratch storage.

Have a wonderful break, everyone, and we look forward to great things in the new year!

Our storage vendor has alerted us to a potentially serious bug on our global home and applications directory file system. In order to avoid loss of data, it is imperative that we patch the bug in a timely manner. Patching can not be done live and requires bringing these file systems down and unmounting them from all clusters that use them. With /home and /apps unavailable, users will not be able to login to the clusters nor use any of the provided software. Any service or system that requires access to these shared RCAC-wide file systems will be affected.

Research Data Depot and Github services are not affected. The Bell cluster has dedicated /home and /apps file systems and would not be directly affected by this outage, but will undergo a separate scheduled maintenance during a partially overlapping time window.

Any SLURM jobs which request a walltime which would take them past Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020 at 9:00am EST will not start and will remain in the queue until after the maintenance is completed.

We appreciate your understanding and apologize for a short notice caused by a narrow timeline suggested by the vendor based on potential severity of the bug. Preserving your data is of utmost importance to us.

We are currently experiencing an outage across the community clusters () and user facing services (such as the RCAC website).

Our engineers are working to resolve the issue. We will provide an update by noon today if not sooner.

We will provide an update by 1:00pm if the issue is not resolved sooner.

We will provide an update by 4pm.

During this time, WSC Hadoop will have minor operating system security patches and upgrades applied.

• SSH
• Thinlinc remote desktops
• CIFS access to cluster scratch

On-campus access to community clusters will remain unchanged, and VPN is not required for Globus data transfers.

Purdue's VPN network allows users to access campus resources, including the community clusters, from anywhere in the world at any time of day. If your department IT staff administers your computer, you will need them to install the VPN client for you. If you maintain your own computer, go to the AnyConnect WebVPN portal and follow the instructions to get connected.

Purdue's network is a large target and as such under attack regularly by cybercriminals trying to access sensitive information. To ensure the integrity of the Purdue network, ITaP began enforcing the use of BoilerKey on the WebVPN in September.

If you do not yet have BoilerKey, go to purdue.edu/boilerkey to sign up today. For VPN and BoilerKey assistance:

• GoldAnswers
• VPN FAQ
• BoilerKey FAQ
• YouTube instructional video

Tech Support:

• West Lafayette and IUPUI campuses: itap@purdue.edu or (765) 494-4000
• Purdue Northwest: csc@pnw.edu or (219) 989-2888
• After hours support for BoilerKey, as well as password resets, is available for all campuses by phone at (765) 494-4000.

Further information about using ITaP Research Computing resources can be found in the community cluster user guides or by contacting rcac-help@purdue.edu.

Thank you,

Preston Smith, Director of Research Services and Support, ITaP Research Computing

During this time, will have critical security patches made to the operating system.

Any PBS jobs which request a walltime which would take them past Wednesday, January 30th, 2019 at 8:00am EST will not start and will remain in the queue until after the maintenance is completed. Any jobs which are still running at Wednesday, January 30th, 2019 at 8:00am EST will need to be terminated. Unfortunately, due to the critical security nature of the work, these patches cannot be postponed to allow for normal job completion.

Direct access to Data Depot via Windows drives (SMB/CIFS) is no longer planned to be affected by this work.

Systems will be returned to service as soon as possible during the day, and we expect all systems to be back in service by 11:59pm. Please plan your work accordingly around this date. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.