The Rocket HPC platform is based on Linux and an SSH client application is needed to login and interact with the service.

The instructions below detail the most common methods for configuring and using an SSH client on Windows, Linux and Mac OS, in order to access Rocket whilst you are operating within the University Campus network.

For remote access when away from the University, please check the Access - Connecting from off-Campus page.

Windows

Until recently an SSH client was not supplied as standard with Windows operating system. Common applications include PuTTY and MobaXterm.

PuTTY in particular should be available to all users as an installable option from within Software Centre, but is limited in that it does not have a built in file transfer component, nor native X11 (graphics) forwarding facility. Many people prefer to use Mobaxterm since it bundles all of these features together.

Requirements:

• Membership of an existing HPC Project group
• Your university username and password
• SSH client (e.g. Mobaxterm, PuTTY, command line SSH in latest Windows 10/11 versions)

Configure your SSH client to use rocket.hpc.ncl.ac.uk as the server name, using port 22. Your username should be your real university username (normally of the form nabc123).

Linux/Mac OS

No special configuration is needed to access Rocket from a Linux or Mac OS client. Use the standard command line ssh application as you would for any other unix server you wanted to connect to.

Requirements:

• Membership of an existing HPC Project group
• Your university username and password
• SSH client (e.g. OpenSSH or similar)

Example command line (replace yourNewcastleusername with your real username; normally of the form nabc123):

ssh yourNewcastleusername@rocket.hpc.ncl.ac.uk

Other Platforms

For any other unlisted platforms, please use the following details:

• Server name: rocket.hpc.ncl.ac.uk
• Port: 22
• Protocol: SSH
• Authentication: interactive/password*

 * Unless you configure SSH keys after initial login to Rocket.

Points To Note

1. Your username and password are case sensitive on Rocket; the user nbc123 is different to user nBC123
2. You may wish to use SSH key based authentication for Rocket. You can do this after your first initial username/password logon.
3. If your use case involves lots of terminal output enabling compression (in OpenSSH this is via the '-C' parameter) can increase the responsiveness of the remote terminal. Most SSH clients support this option.
4. If you need to run any applications which have an X11 output, you can enable X11 forwarding in OpenSSH with the '-X' parameter (in OpenSSH). Using compression (with '-C') at the same time can also help with X11 forwarding speed. Not all Windows SSH clients support X11 forwarding, but Mobaxterm does.

Basic Directory Layout & File Transfer

You can transfer files to/from Rocket and your computer using SCP/SFTP. MobaXterm has this functionality built in, if you use another SSH client you may need to configure file transfer seperately.

The various directories that you have access to on Rocket, and their intended use, are summarised in the table below. 

It is important to note that long-term file storage on Rocket is not supported; any long term data storage should user either your University H: drive for personal data/files or RDW shares for group data/files.