1. Request Condor access or support

1.1. Accessing Condor

To access Condor you will need the following:

  1. A Surrey University IT account with Linux access

Important

If you are in FEPS you will have this by default. If you are from another faculty you will need to Open a support ticket requesting Linux access.

  1. To meet the access requirements of the Condor pool you want to use.

There are several different Condor Pools currently in operation at Surrey, each with different access requirements. Please see Condor pools to find out which condor resources you can access.

Once you have a valid linux account and have confirmed you meet the access requirement for a condor pool, you can access it by logging into one of the pools submit nodes via SSH with your Surrey username and password.

From Linux or a Mac connected to the University Network this is as simple opening a terminal and running the following command:

Connecting via SSH to the aisurrey-condor submit node
$ ssh abc123@aisurrey-condor.surrey.ac.uk

You will need to substitute your username and also the hostname of the Condor submit node you want to connect to. Details on condor submit nodes can be found on the Condor pools page.

1.2. Get Condor support

1.2.1. Open a support ticket

Research Computing operate from 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday, except for Holidays.

You can submit a support request any time via:

Hint

Put “CONDOR” in the e-mail subject to reduce the time it takes for the ticket to get assigned to our team

You can help us and yourself by following these best practices when submitting tickets:

  • 📖 Do your research before submitting a support request. What does the documentation or user guide say? Have you searched the internet for key phrases from your jobs log files / error messages? What have you changed since the last time your job succeeded? These are all the things that the support consultant responding to your ticket will do or ask you.

  • 🎯 Be precise in your description of your problem. What did you do? What happened? Verbatim error messages and other meaningful output are very helpful. Where relevant provide details of storage directories your job might be using, jobs scripts, Job ids, Modules you were using, hostnames of servers your jobs are running on etc.

  • 🤔 Manage your expectations. Consultants can address system issues and answer questions about the clusters, job schedulers etc. But they can’t teach parallel programming in a support request and might not know anything about the package you are using. They may offer advice that might help you to build, debug or optimise your code but you shouldn’t expect these things to be done for you.

  • ⏱ Be patient it may take a day for a consultant to respond to your support request, especially if your issue is complex. it may take a few messages before you and the consultant are on the same page. If your jobs are paused/held by the admins its not punitive. When the system is being impacted or in danger of crashing they may not have time to notify you before acting.

  • 📰 Subscribe to Research Computing Community on Microsoft Teams

1.2.2. Research Computing Community on Microsoft Teams

Another great way to get support is from your peers and colleagues here at Surrey. There is an open community on Microsoft teams where you will find plenty of knowledgeable and experienced Condor users already discussing all things Condor. This is also a great way to speak directly to us in the IT Services Research Computing team, and get updates on scheduled maintenance and system outages.

Get involved…

Join our Research Computing Community on Microsoft Teams