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Help

Help

  • Online Requests
  • Technical How-To’s & Notes
  • Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Online Requests
  • Technical How-To’s & Notes
  • Frequently Asked Questions
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Accessing Our Services and Training

Can I provide a research collaborator access to the HBSGrid?
Non-HBS Collaborators of HBS faculty can gain access to the research computing grid by requesting a guest account.
How can I request a change to an existing project space on the HBSGrid, including requesting more storage space?
Please fill out this form. If you have any questions or your needs are not captured by the form, please contact RCS (research@hbs.edu or 5-6100).
How can I request a MariaDB account?
Please fill out this form. If you have any questions or your needs are not captured by the form, please contact RCS (research@hbs.edu or 5-6100).
How can I request a new project space on the HBSGrid?
Please fill out this form. If you have any questions or your needs are not captured by the form, please contact RCS (research@hbs.edu or 5-6100).
How can I request an account on the HBSGrid?
Please fill out this form. If you have any questions or your needs are not captured by the form, please contact RCS (research@hbs.edu or 5-6100).
How can I request research software?
Please review the information about research software supported by RCS and then fill out this form . If you have any questions or your needs are not captured by the form, please contact RCS (research@hbs.edu or 5-6100).
How can I work on the HBSGrid from off campus?
Please see information on connecting to the Grid via VPN here.
How do I get started on the HBSGrid?
Please access the research computing grid’s quick start guide here.
What is the best way to contact RCS?
The research inbox (research@hbs.edu) is the most prevalent method of contacting RCS and is recommended as it facilitates matching the request to the person on the team best suited to address the inquiry. Clients typically receive an email response within a business day.
What is the billing structure for our services?
Project work is billable to faculty research projects at a rate of $40/hour. Initial consultations, short inquiries, and research software acquisition for faculty and doctoral students are provided at no cost.
What kind of training do you provide, and how often do you provide it?
RCS offers training to HBS members and the wider academic community on a wide range of topics that are common threads in the research and discovery process. We also offer training on usage of our HBSGrid. Please see information here.
What services does RCS provide?
RCS divides its time between assisting with faculty research, providing research software to the HBS community, developing and supporting research infrastructure, and providing technology training.
Who is eligible for our services?
Primarily, we support faculty, and are also happy to provide guidance for doctoral students, RAs, and faculty support specialists supporting faculty research. Doctoral students are also welcome to consult with RCS staff, although we cannot take on non-faculty project work.

Logging into the HBSGrid

I'm having connectivity problems…

The most common connectivity problems stem from

  • being off-campus but not connecting to the HBS VPN first (VPN instructions)
  • being on-campus on the WiFi, but connected to HBS Guest instead of HBS Secure

Please see Logging In for more information.

NoMachine NX is reporting "connection" or "access error" messages

Our NoMachine NX GUI login can be very particular at times. You may receive "connection errors", "access denied errors", or the like. A few simple steps may remedy the problem:

  1. As noted in the other access FAQ, ensure you are connected via VPN if not on the HBS campus or on guest WiFi.
  2. Try connecting via the terminal using the instructions on this page. If not successful, ensure that you're using the correct username / password combination. Otherwise, contact RCS.
  3. If successful in connecting via terminal, ensure that you have completely exited NoMachine, and issue the command clean-nx-homedir in the terminal window. Now try connecting via NoMachine again.
  4. As a last attempt, quit NoMachine. Remove the .nx directory present in your home folder on your Mac or PC, and try connecting via NoMachine again.

If you still cannot get in, please contact RCS.

Running Jobs on the HBSGrid

Why are my jobs pending?

There could be a number of reasons why your jobs are still sitting in the queue and haven't dispatched:

  • See the FAQ: "I launched an application in NoMachine or Terminal. Why isn't it running?"
  • See the FAQ: "How can I tell if the cluster is busy?"

If you've looked at the job details (bjobs -l JOBID) for the reason and your jobs do not start after a number of hours, contact RCS.

How can I tell if the cluster is busy?

Sometimes you want to know the status of the cluster and scheduling -- this can help you determine why your jobs might be pending, or know that you need to reshape your jobs to ask for smaller resources to ensure you can get your jobs in and scheduled sooner than others.

Several commands, all in the terminal, will help give you a good picture:

  • bqueues will show you the different queues, how many jobs are running, and how many are pending
  • bjobs -u all will show you the list of jobs running and pending, and the order in which the scheduler is going to dispatch them. Note that this list/order will change frequently as resources become free and jobs finish sooner than expected
  • bhosts will show all the nodes in the cluster, include max and used core counts
  • lsload will also show all the nodes, but will also give %CPU utilization and well as how much memory is available for jobs
How can I tell whether my batch job is still running?

You can monitor a job either in Terminal / Command-Line via bjobs or by viewing the listing in the 'Jobs' window in Pac  (details here).

I launched an application in NoMachine or the terminal. Why isn't it running?

There are several reasons why an application may not appear to be running:

  • All of the licenses for the application may be in use by others.
  • More commonly, you may have reached the resource limit on your account (# of CPUs, memory limit, or # of interactive sessions).
  • If the compute grid is busy, there many not be enough RAM or CPUs on any of the compute nodes to run your application.

Open a terminal session and type bjobs on the command line (details here). Look for line where the STATus is PEND. Type bjobs -l JOBID (replace JOBID with the ID of the job that is PENDing. Look for the PENDING REASONS section to understand why your job is not running.

See Troubleshooting LSF Jobs for more information.

I need an interactive session with more RAM. How do I do this?

With Grid 3.0, you can now ask for more RAM in an interactive session. See our documentation for more information.

What are some common HBSGrid commands?
Please see information here.
Where can I find information about using a graphical user interface (GUI) on the HBSGrid?
If you wish to use applications on the Grid via a graphical user interface (GUI), please follow our Quick Start directions here.

Using Software on the HBSGrid

Can I use R/Python on the HBSGrid?
Yes! Both are available on the grid. Please see information here.
How can I run an older version of a software title?

Please see our documentation here.

How can I run Jupyter Notebooks on the HBSGrid?

JupyterLab is available on Grid 3.0. To get started with Grid 3.0, please see our documentation here.

How can I use the latest version of R or RStudio?

This page demonstrates how you can check to see which version of R or RStudio is currently the default on Grid 3.0.

What if I need to use a new version of Python?

This page demonstrates how you can check to see which version of Python is currently the default on Grid 3.0.

Using Storage on the HBSGrid

I need to restore a file in my home folder/project space from backup. How do I do this?

If you accidentally deleted a file, wrote over code, or have to restore a file, please email RCS with the following information:

  • Your name
  • Full path of the file’s location
  • File name
  • Date file was deleted (if you do not know the exact date, a best guess is helpful)
I think I've run out of space in my home/project directory. What can I do?

We urge individuals to review files and folders to remove old, unused, or temporary work. As a part of this process, you can compress and archive groups of files. See our HOWTO document for this. If space is still needed, contact RCS to request more space.

I'm getting 'permission denied' when trying to view files. What does this mean?

This occurs when either you or a collaborator have not correctly set permissions. Subsequently, the owner of the file will need to change the file's permissions. You can identify the owner (and other permissions details) via the command ls -l MyFile.txt. Please see our documentaation on File Ownership and Permissions. If you need assistance from RCS, please include the output from ls -l MyFile.txt in your email.

Why do file permissions change when files are copied to research storage home folders and/or project spaces?

File transfer programs, including the Mac Finder and Windows Explorer, try to do the best job possible matching permission when files are copies over. But since the operating systems are typically different between the source (your computer) and the destination (the storage on the compute grid), the programs often don't get it right. Please see our documentation here.

Miscellaneous

How can I transfer data using HBS resources?
Please see information here.
How do I connect to the HBS VPN?
Please see information here.
I would like to purchase data; whom should I contact?
Many user-friendly, web-based databases, such as Global Access, may be accessed through Baker Library's homepage. To purchase data that is not included in the library’s databases, please email data-licensing@hbs.edu in Baker Research & Data Services
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Research Computing Services (RCS) 
Harvard Business School
Baker Library, B90, 25 Harvard Way
Boston, MA 02163
Phone: 617.495.6100
Email: research@hbs.edu
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