Some projects may wish to have a common account to allow for different privileges than their regular user accounts. These are called community accounts, in that they are shared among multiple users, belong to a project, and may be able to submit jobs. Community accounts are accessed using the sudo command.
A community sudo account has the following characteristics:
- Selected users in the project have sudo privileges to become the community sudo user.
- The community sudo account has different privileges than the other users in the project, which may or may not include job submission.
- Community accounts can not be used to SSH into OSC systems directly.
- The community sudo account can only be accessed after logging in as a regular user and then using the sudo command described below. The community sudo account does not have a regular password set and is therefore is not subject to the normal password change policy.
- SSH key exchange to access OSC systems from outside of OSC with community accounts is disabled. Key exchange may be used to SSH between hosts within an OSC cluster.
How to Request a Community Account
The PI of the project looking to create a community account needs to send an email to OSC Help with the following information:
- A preferred username for the community account
- The project code that the community account will be created under
- The elevated privileges desired (such as job submission)
- The users who will able to access the account via sudo
- The desired shell for the community account
OSC will then evaluate the request.
Logging into a Community Account
Users who have been given access to the community account by the PI will be able to use the following command to log in:
sudo -u <community account name> /bin/bash
Once you successfully enter your own password you will assume the identity of the community account user.
Submitting Jobs From a Community Account
You can submit jobs the same as your normal user account. The email associated with the community account is noreply@osc.edu. Please add email recipients in your job script if you would like to receive notifications from the job.
Add multiple email recipients in a job using
#SBATCH --mail-user=<email address>
Adding Users to a Community Account
The PI of the project needs to send an email to OSC Help with the username of the person that they would like to add.
Checking jobs in XDMoD
To check the statistics of the jobs submitted by the community account in XDMoD, the PI of the project will need to send an email to OSC Help with the username of the community account.
Data Management
The owner of the data on the community account will be the community account user. Any user that has assumed the community account user identity will have access.
Access via OnDemand
The only way to access a community account is via a terminal session. This can be either via an SSH client or the terminal app within OnDemand. Other apps within OnDemand such as Desktops or specific software can not be utilized with a community account.
