HAL Tutorial
   Jul 4, 2022     2 min read

Hal manual for BIOE 488

“I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H-A-L plant in Urbana Illinois on the 12th of January 1992.” – HAL 9000

HAL Wiki Page

HAL Ondemand

HAL Ondemand Brief Guide

Registration

  1. Familiarize yourself with basic information about Hal on HAL Wiki Page and HAL New User Guide
  2. Follow the instructions on HAL New User Guide. You are recommended to use your NetID as your NCSA username.

  3. You might need to wait for a few days to get approved. Once you are approved, you should be able to log in on Hal’s log-in nodes through ssh: ssh <username>@hal.ncsa.illinois.edu

  4. Verify that you have access to Hal on-demand

Interactive Jupyter Notebook Sessions on Hal-on-Demand

Jupyter Notebook

  1. Locate “Jupyter Lab” in “Pinned Apps” or in the “Apps” dropdown menu in the banner.
  2. Configure the Jupyter Lab instance as instructed by your MP document. Then click on “Launch”.
  3. Wait for your scheduled session to be ready. Once it’s ready, click on “Connect…”
  4. Be sure to choose the Python kernel/environment as instructed by the MP document. A Python virtual environment contains the Python interpreter, packages and scripts. You will be able to restart the Python kernel and change the environment later too.

Uploading data and files

  1. Open “Files” page from the “Files” dropdown menu.
  2. Here you can upload or download files from/to the Hal Jupyter server. You’ll have 5TB of storage space under your home directory available, which is far more space than what you need for the class.

    Python kernel and environment

Managing Interactive Sessions

  1. If you are disconnected from your interactive session such as accidentally closing the webpage, go to “My Interactive Sessions”, and you will be able to connect back again.
  2. Once you are done, you can delete your interactive session to release the resources.