Infrastructure

The InfolabComputeServersStats lists our big memory servers. These are first come first serve (nobody is managing the resources). If you are on a tight deadline or you feel that somebody is hogging the machine talk to them or talk to your local sysadmin.

You can access this machines by logging in via ssh with your CSID. Here's an example:

~$ ssh tommy@madmax5
tommy@madmax5's password: 
Last login: Sun Oct  4 10:54:11 2015 from whale.stanford.edu
tommy@madmax5:~$ 

Using Windows? Use PuTTY or Cygwin.

Which server to pick?

The one that's feeling lonely (shows zero or little utilization). As a general rule of thumb Chris' students should go for raidersX machines and Jure's students should go for madmaxX machines.

How do I set up passwordless/key based ssh?

You do not. It's a limitation of our configuration. You need to supply your password on login. Of course you can be resourceful and do:

~$ ssh tommy@madmax5
tommy@madmax5's password: 
Last login: Tue Oct  6 00:52:52 2015 from whale.stanford.edu
tommy@madmax5:~$ ssh madmax3
Last login: Fri Oct  2 09:05:37 2015 from whale.stanford.edu
tommy@madmax3:~$ 

Did you notice that we never got asked for a password when logging into madmax3? Magic, huh? It could be just Kerberos.

But I hate typing in my password all the time!

No problem. Install Kerberos on your workstation. Here are some installation notes: KerberosMac | KerberosWindows.

Can I login from home?

Depends where home is. Logins over ssh should work from almost1 any network on Stanford Campus. If you're not on campus you have three options.

1) whale

Login via ssh to whale.stanford.edu first. Whale is on one of our networks so you can ssh to other machines from there. Here's an example session.

~$ ssh tommy@whale.stanford.edu
tommy@whale.stanford.edu's password: 
Last login: Sun Oct  4 10:53:42 2015 from c-76-111-212-54.hsd1.ca.comcast.net
tommy@whale:~$ ssh madmax3
Last login: Tue Oct  6 01:17:08 2015 from madmax5.stanford.edu
tommy@madmax3:~$ hostname
madmax3.stanford.edu
tommy@madmax3:~$ exit
logout
Connection to madmax3 closed.
tommy@whale:~$ exit
logout
Connection to whale.stanford.edu closed.

Hey... and this has an added benefit of only typing your password once. Yay!

2) Stanford VPN

Setup the Stanford VPN connection, establish the connection and you're done.

3) Infolab VPN

Check out the instructions on the VPN page. The benefit of this VPN service is that it looks like regular https traffic... so it should work from most hotels, airports, etc.