Jupyter

What are Jupyter Notebooks?

Jupyter notebooks are browser based environments for editing, compiling and executing code. For a brief overview, see this Nature News article. Until quite recently, these were developed exclusively for coding Python, although support has since expanded to accommodate a number of other languages. For a full list of language kernels, see here. Note that Igor Pro is not supported, and that many of these kernels are in alpha state and not suitable for daily use.

Which notebook servers are currently running?

We are currently running two Jupyter notebook servers in the CIN network, dubbed Callisto and Titan. Callisto is geared towards stability and is the recommended environment for those who wish to write standard Python scripts. It comes with the scipy stack preinstalled, which should be adequate for most scientific computing problems. The Callisto server will only be taken down after 6pm on Fridays, if at all, and should be functional again by the following morning.

Alongside this is a more experimental notebook server called Titan, which will be used for testing new computational tools including additional language kernels, parallelisation platforms such as Apache Spark, and GPU integration via CUDA. Titan will be down more frequently as new features are implemented and tested. If you have any features you would like to try out, or have implemented, let me know (luke.e.rogerson@gmail.com). If the implementations are sufficiently stable, we can migrate the content to Callisto at a later date.

How do I access the AG Euler Jupyter Notebooks?

To access the notebooks, you will have to specify the correct Putty configuration. A preconfigured file is available, and details for manual set up are given below.

Preconfigured Portable Putty

File:AG Euler - Portable Putty - 13.10.2015.zip

Manually Configure Putty

1. Open Putty, load your Cluster access configuration
2. Under Category, click the '+' to expand ssh
3. Click tunnels, and add the following:
   1. Destination 172.29.0.131:1610 .. Source: 1610
   2. Destination 172.29.0.131:1655 .. Source: 1655
4. Save your configuration in the session tab
5. Open the updated configuration by double clicking on it
6. Use your CIN user account to log into the headnode
7. Enter "ssh 'cn31'" to access the Euler group node where the servers are running
8. Enter either https://localhost:1610 or https://localhost:1655 to access Callisto or Titan respectively. This should then take you to a login screen (or directly to the directories).

v. Enter the password for the server (Case sensitive - Callisto: jupiter, Titan: saturn)