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Accessing the Shell through OnDemand

On this Page

  • How to open a shell session from the OnDemand portal
  • What you can do in it
  • What you should not do in it

Open OnDemand gives you command-line access to the cluster directly from your browser, without installing or configuring an SSH client. It is equivalent to connecting over SSH, and lands you on the same login node.

Opening a Shell Session

  1. Log in to https://ondemand.otago.ac.nz.

  2. From the top menu, go to Clusters > Aoraki Shell Access. There is also an Aoraki Shell Access tile among the pinned apps on the dashboard.

    The Clusters menu open on the OnDemand dashboard, with Aoraki Shell Access highlighted}{ .left

  3. A new tab opens with a terminal session on the aoraki-login node, showing the login banner and your shell prompt.

    A browser tab showing a terminal connected to aoraki-login.otago.ac.nz, with the Otago Compute Cluster login node welcome banner and a shell prompt}{ .left

What You Can Do

  • Run command-line programs and scripts.
  • Submit and monitor Slurm jobs with sbatch, squeue and sacct — including the jobs behind your OnDemand interactive sessions.
  • Navigate and manage your files with standard Linux commands, and reach storage the File Manager does not cover, such as Weka and Otago HCS.
  • Use text editors such as nano, vim or emacs.
  • Load software with module, or activate a conda or Apptainer environment — see the Software Overview.

The shell runs on the login node

The login node is shared by everyone and is not for computation. Do not run heavy work directly in this terminal — submit it as a batch job, or start an HPC Desktop or other interactive app so your work runs on a compute node.

Tips

  • Your shell session does not carry a Kerberos ticket automatically. If you need Otago HCS, run kinit first.
  • You can open multiple shell sessions at once.
  • If you are disconnected, just reconnect through the portal — anything you submitted with sbatch keeps running.

What's next?