Remote Job Submission

Remote Job Submission in Altair Compute Console (ACC) is implemented as an alternative to a local run.

It assumes that all input files necessary to run are present on a local machine (==client) either on local disks or on remote shares mounted locally. You are able to run the example locally, at least in a check mode (although obviously the client; for example, laptop, could be too small or too slow to solve it). Single change of a selector will tell ACC to collect all necessary files, ship them to a remote server, trigger solution there, and recover results back. In most cases, you can disconnect (or shutdown) local host and connect later, potentially from a different location or even different computer.

Naming Conventions

  • client machine: machine running Altair Compute Console GUI
  • remote machine: machine where the job runs

Supported Solvers

  • OptiStruct
  • Radioss (-onestep is not supported)
  • AcuSolve
  • Altair Manufacturing Solver
  • HyperXtrude
Possible combinations are:
Client > Remote
Supported/Unsupported
Linux/Windows > Linux
Supported
Windows > Windows
Unsupported
Linux/Windows > PBS (Linux)
Supported
Linux/Windows > PBS (Windows)
Unsupported

Prerequisites

  1. Install HyperWorks on both client machine and remote machine.
    Note: ACC version should be same on both client and remote machine.
  2. Establish passwordless connection from client machine to the remote machine.
    • Linux as client machine
      • Execute ssh-keygen on client machine to generate public/private keys.
      • Copy public key to the authorized_keys file in remote machine.
      • Make sure client machine connects to the remote machine without asking for a password.
    • Windows as client machine

      OpenSSH and Putty are the tools used to login to a remote machine using SSH.

Windows 10 - Supports both OpenSSH and Putty. In Windows10, OpenSSH (that contains ssh, sshd, scp) is required to establish SSH passwordless connection. Recent versions (at least 1803 build) of Windows 10 comes with OpenSSH by default, just enable the services. sshd should always be running in order to do remote job submission.

Go to Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools > services and enable OpenSSH SSH server, OpenSSH Authentication agent services.

Once the services are enabled, on the DOS command line do the following:
  • Execute ssh-keygen to generate public/private keys.
  • Copy public key to the authorized_keys file in remote machine.
  • Make sure client machine connects to the remote without asking for a password.
Note: If Windows 10 version is older than 1803 build, the Putty should be used for ssh connection.
Windows 7 - Download Putty with all the packages on the client machine.
  • Run puttygen to generate public key and private key. Save locally.
  • Copy public key to the authorized_keys file in remote machine.
  • Test on theDOS command line, if the passwordless connection is established using the command plink -i <Path of privateKey> <remotemachine>
  • Copy the path of saved private key location when configuring the remote machine

Configure Remote Server

After the passwordless connection is established with client machine and remote machine, add the remote machine to Altair Compute Console from GUI.


Figure 1.


Figure 2.


Figure 3.
Note: For the PBS server, Maintain SSH connection must be set to no. For Windows server, it must be set to yes.
The fields of the Remote Server configuration are:
Field Name
Description
Name of server
Generic name for the server to be configured.
Host name
Actual full server name.
Host Type
Regular Linux machine or a Linux machine running PBS. Linux/PBS.
Username
User login name of the server.
Altair Home
Path of altair directory. It is usually <HW installation path>/altair.
Connection Protocol
Protocol used to connect to remote server. Supports SSH/putty.
Private Key Location
Path of private key (of the client machine) for putty connection. Only needed when putty is selected.
Maintain SSH connection
yes
As soon as the job is submitted, it will show the status from a log window. The log window will open immediately (unless Use solver control option is selected). When the job is finished, results are copied automatically to the client machine. When ACC is closed after a job is submitted to remote machine, the job will continue to run on the remote machine, but the results are not copied automatically when the job is finished. There is no way to check status of that job from GUI of ACC afterwards.
no
As soon as the job is submitted to remote, it disconnects from remote machine. In this case, the status of the job can be checked from View > Remote Jobs. The results are copied only when the status is checked. Until then, the results will be on the remote machine.
Stage Directory
Path to be used to copy all files during submission and where actual run is executed. This is generally a shared disk.
Run Directory
Local path on the execution host, where the files from stage directory are copied to and the run is executed.
Once the remote machines are added, they will be available in the Remote Servers form and in the Main form.


Figure 4.