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TeraGrid grants allocations to research projects that have been approved for a specified amount of compute cycles on TeraGrid resources. How to obtain a TeraGrid account will depend on whether you need a brand new allocation or if you only need to be added as a user of an existing allocation.
Regardless of the allocation, once your initial TeraGrid account has been approved and created, you will receive a start up package via regular mail. In this package will be your account information for all the sites to which you requested access. There is also a User Responsibility Form. The last page of this form must be signed and returned within 30 days. You may start using your account as soon as you receive this package. You should immediately login to all the sites to which you have been given access and change your password(s).
To request a new allocation on the TeraGrid, refer to the TeraGrid Allocation Guide and follow the process described there.
If your institute/research group already has a TeraGrid allocation, you may be added to this allocation. This is something your PI must do. They will need to fill out the "Add User" form. To access the form they must first login to the TeraGrid User Portal. Then click on the "My TeraGrid" tab and select "Add/Remove User". After the application has been reviewed and accepted, the new user(s) will receive a packet via conventional (postal) mail that contains their account information in about two weeks.
Refer to the TeraGrid Allocation Guide for more information.
To get an account on Purdue TeraGrid resources, you will need to either be a local user with an existing Purdue career account, or you will need a User Certificate. For more information about user certificates, refer to the Certificates section of the User Guide. Once you have a certificate or Purdue career account, send an email to the TeraGrid HelpDesk including your certificate DN or career account name and ask to be given access to Purdue TeraGrid resources.
In order to log in and interactively use a shell on any TeraGrid resource, you must use a GSI-SSH or SSH client. GSI-SSH client software such as "gsissh" may be installed on Linux, Mac OSX, or other Unix variants. GSI-SSH allows SSH access to machines using your user certificate for authentication instead of a password.
We strongly urge you to use a GSI-SSH client and a proxy grid certificate to log in to remote TeraGrid resources rather than a standard SSH client. However, if that is not possible, standard SSH may be used to some TeraGrid resources. Standard SSH clients will either require the password defined at each TeraGrid resource for your account there or may be accessed using an SSH key. If you find GSI-SSH is not available to you, we have more information on setting up SSH keys.
Email services are not supported on Purdue TeraGrid systems. Outgoing email will be delivered, but incoming email will be forwarded to the address supplied when your TeraGrid account was requested. If that address is incorrect, please send your correct forwarding address to the TeraGrid HelpDesk.
When your account is first activated, your shell will be set to tcsh, an enhanced version of the Berkeley UNIX C shell (csh). If you would like to use another shell (e.g. bash, the GNU Bourne-Again SHell), please send a request to have your shell changed to the TeraGrid HelpDesk.