Interactive Session

An interactive session is a way to temporarily grab resources on the Tufts HPC.
- Particularly good for debugging and working with software GUI.
The following is the basic layout of the command to get an interactive session:

srun [options] --pty [command]

What does this mean?

Command
- command to run an application, given the module is already loaded.
- bash for a bash shell
Options
- Pseudo terminal --pty
- Partition -p
  - Default batch if not specified
- You can start interactive sessions on any partition you have access to
- Time -t or --time=
  - Default 15 minutes if not specified on non-"interactive" partition
- Number of CPU cores -n
  - Default 1 if not specified
- Memory --mem=
  - Default 2GB if not specified
- GPU --gres=
  - Default none
- X Window --x11=first
  - Default none

Example of Getting an Interactive Session

srun -p batch --time=1-2:10:00 -n 2 --mem=8g --pty bash

What does this mean?

Starting an interactive session of bash shell on preempt partition with 2 CPU cores and 2GB of RAM, with X11 forwarding for 1 day, 2 hours, and 30 minutes (use exit to end session and release resources).

You will have notice that your prompt changed from:

[your_utln@login-prod-01 ~]$

To:

[your_utln@c1cmp044 ~]$

This means you have been placed on a compute node!