{"id":90,"date":"2013-10-25T10:42:07","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T10:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/icsf\/?page_id=90"},"modified":"2026-01-29T11:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T11:02:07","slug":"getting-started-on-icsf","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/icsf\/getting-started-on-icsf\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Started on the iCSF"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The following page lists the most common items of info a new user will need. Links to relevant sections of the documentation are provided.<\/p>\n<h2>Requesting an Account<\/h2>\n<p>Please see the <a href=\"user-accounts\">user accounts<\/a> page for how to request an account, vistor\/collaborator access, extensions to accounts and policies applicable to all users.<\/p>\n<h2>The iCSF is used Remotely from your Desktop or Laptop Machine<\/h2>\n<p>The iCSF is accessed, remotely, from the comfort of your office (or home). Full details are provided in the <a href=\"\/icsf\/getting-started-on-icsf\/connecting-to-incline\/\">Connecting to iCSF<\/a> documentation, for access from Linux, MacOS and MS Windows.<\/p>\n<h2>Running Computational Work<\/h2>\n<p>The iCSF is a cluster of compute nodes, just like the <a href=\"http:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/csf3\">CSF<\/a>. However, there are <strong>no queues<\/strong> &#8211; there is no batch system. On login, users &#8220;arrive&#8221; immediately at the command-line prompt of a compute node and should simply <a href=\"\/icsf\/software\/\">start applications<\/a>, exactly as if using a Linux PC\/laptop.<\/p>\n<p>Please note that the iCSF does not have any GPUs. If you need GPUs you will need to use the <a href=\"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/csf3\/\">CSF3<\/a> which has <a href=\"\/csf3\/batch-slurm\/gpu-jobs-slurm\/\">range of GPUs<\/a> and popular <a href=\"\/csf3\/software\/applications\/#gpu\">GPU\/Machine Learning\/Deep Learning software<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>The iCSF is a Shared Resource \u2014 with<em>out<\/em> Queues<\/h2>\n<p>Each compute node may be in use by several users at the same time so it is possible that one user&#8217;s work will reduce the resources (memory, CPU cores, temporary disk) required by another&#8217;s. If a user&#8217;s work frequently <em>tramples<\/em> on that of others, it is likely that the iCSF is not a suitable place for running such computations &#8211; they should be relocated onto the <a href=\"http:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/csf3\">CSF<\/a> and submitted to the batch system there (this ensures jobs have the resources they request).<\/p>\n<h2>MS Windows Users<\/h2>\n<p>All nodes in the iCSF cluster run the Linux operating system. If you are a MS Windows user there are some common pitfalls you may encounter when starting to use the iCSF. Please read our guide on <a href=\"http:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/userdocs\/using-from-windows\/\">Using the CIR systems from Windows<\/a> to understand how best to use the iCSF from your MS Windows desktop\/laptop.<\/p>\n<h2>Training Courses<\/h2>\n<p>Users who are completely new to this kind of computational environment, and <em>research computing<\/em> in general, may also wish to consider attending IT Services <a href=\"https:\/\/www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk\/staff-learning-and-development\/learning-pathways\/professional-and-technical-development\/it-skills\/research-computing\/research-courses\/\">training courses<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Getting Help<\/h2>\n<p>The information given here is specific to the iCSF and assumes some familiarity with Linux and\/or working on HPC systems. The documentation is intended to be comprehensive but please do contact us via our <a href=\"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/hpc-help\">HPC help form<\/a> if you need any assistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following page lists the most common items of info a new user will need. Links to relevant sections of the documentation are provided. Requesting an Account Please see the user accounts page for how to request an account, vistor\/collaborator access, extensions to accounts and policies applicable to all users. The iCSF is used Remotely from your Desktop or Laptop Machine The iCSF is accessed, remotely, from the comfort of your office (or home). Full.. <a href=\"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/icsf\/getting-started-on-icsf\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-90","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/icsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/icsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/icsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/icsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/icsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/icsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1546,"href":"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/icsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90\/revisions\/1546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk\/icsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}