What is Zoidberg

Zoidberg is a very powerful server with 4 NVIDIA Telsa K80 GPUs. It is part of the HPC Cluster in name and location only. It's treated as mostly separate, and can be used outside of Slurm. Zoidberg is by far the most powerful HPC node as well, potentially the most powerful machine in the entire CSL.

It can be used to run large machine learning projects that require a lot of power.

Accessing Zoidberg

First, ssh into TJ's remote access server, using your TJ Username (e.g. 2021jdoe)

ssh tj-username@remote.tjhsst.edu

Afterwards, ssh into zoidberg.

ssh zoidberg

Miniconda

To run machine learning projects with python, it is reccomended to set up virtual environments for each project (so each project can use different versions of python packages if needed).

To achieve this, it is best to use Conda, specifically Miniconda, on the Zoidberg environment.

Conda is a package management tool that is pretty powerful. If you want to learn more about it, here are the docs for Conda and Miniconda.

Installing Miniconda on Zoidberg

First get the installation script:

wget https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh

Then run the installation script:

sh Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh

Follow the instalation instructions given by the script.

How to use Miniconda

Creating a new environment

conda create -n VENV_NAME python

Activating a new environment

conda activate VENV_NAME

Deactivating a new environment

conda deactivate

Installing a package

conda install PACKAGE_NAME

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