Connecting and Logging into Orca #

You can connect to Orca in two ways:

1. Via ssh (secure shell) using a terminal application.
2. Using Open OnDemand, a web-based interface.

Secure Shell (ssh) #

You can connect to Orca using ssh (secure shell) running through a terminal application. If you use Linux, Mac OS, or recent versions of Windows, a terminal application is included with the operating system. Windows users may also consider using MobaXterm or PuTTY.

You can connect to Orca by running ssh username@login.orca.pdx.edu, replacing username with your Orca username.

Authentication with SSH Keys #

Authentication to Orca uses SSH keys, which are a more secure and convenient way of logging in than with a password. You can either create a new key pair, or you can use an existing key pair if you have one.

1. Create a new key pair. (If you have an existing key pair, you can skip to the next step).
   • Linux or Mac OS. In the terminal application on your computer, run the command ssh-keygen and follow the prompts.
   • Windows. Recent versions of Windows support generating SSH keys. Open Windows PowerShell or Command Prompt and run ssh-keygen and follow the prompts. On older versions of Windows, you may need to use third-party tools such as PuTTYgen. See this tutorial for more information.
   • After completion, two files will have been created: a public key and private key. The public key will be uploaded to Orca in the next step. The private key is secret, and should not be shared. Note: Your SSH key files (both the private key and the public key) should be placed in your ~/.ssh directory before logging in. If they are not there, move them using the commands mv <keyname> ~/.ssh/ and mv <keyname>.pub ~/.ssh/, replacing <keyname> with your actual key filenames.
   • For more information, further documentation and tutorials can be found online (AWS, DigitalOcean).
2. Upload the public key to Orca. Using the web-based Orca Registry, upload the public key file to your account. You can have multiple public keys associated with your account. To upload your SSH public key to the Orca cluster:
   1. Log in to the Orca Registry: https://orca.pdx.edu/registry
   2. Click on your name in the top right of the page
   3. Select “My Profile (Orca)”
   4. Select “Authenticators” from the menu on the right side
   5. Select “Manage”
   6. Select “Add SSH Key”
   7. Choose your SSH public key, and select “Upload”
3. Connect via ssh. After completing the steps above, you should be able to connect via ssh by following the steps described above; you should be logged in automatically without being prompted to enter a password. You may need to configure ssh to use the newly created key pair for authentication. See the documentation (AWS, DigitalOcean) for detailed instructions. If you have trouble logging in after following these steps, contact us to get help.

Login Node #

The Orca login node is where users interface with the file system, scheduler, and other tools. The Orca login node can be accessed at login.orca.pdx.edu. The login node does not have a high-performance CPU or any GPUs. For compute-intensive work, a job should be run on one or more of the compute nodes (see the pages on Submitting Jobs).

Open OnDemand #

Open OnDemand provides a graphical web-based interface for some of Orca’s features (including Python Jupyter Notebooks). See the documentation on Open OnDemand.