Hardware and Software Requirements for PICSciE Workshops

Many of the workshops offered by PICSciE have a hands-on component where participants will have the opportunity to directly work through the material on their laptop. To participate in the hands-on lessons one will need:

  • A laptop with sufficient battery power and the ability to connect to the eduroam wireless network
  • You will need to be able to Duo authenticate to use campus resources
  • An SSH client installed on your laptop (see below)
  • Most workshops require that participants have an account on our Adroit HPC training cluster
  • Make sure you can SSH to Adroit before attending the workshop (see below)

SSH clients

An SSH (secure shell) client is a piece of software that allows one to connect securely to a remote machine and run commands on that machine. You will need to have an SSH client installed on your laptop before the workshop in order to participate in the hands-on lessons. Here is how to obtain a client for each of the three major operating systems:

  • Linux: You have a built-in SSH client available on the command line
  • macOS: Use the built-in Terminal app located in /Applications/Utilities
  • Windows 10: Use the built-in OpenSSH client via PowerShell
  • Windows 10 with Windows Subsystem for Linux: Use the SSH client available in Linux
  • Windows 8: We recommend that you install either PuTTY or MobaXTerm

An alternative to an SSH client is to run shell commands via the web portal https://myadroit.princeton.edu. From the menu at the top of the page, choose "Clusters" then "Adroit Cluster Shell Access". From off-campus the GlobalProtect VPN should be installed on your laptop and be running when connecting to MyAdroit.

SSHing to Adroit

After connecting to the eduroam wireless network enter the following command in a terminal:

$ ssh <YourNetID>@adroit.princeton.edu

Enter your password when prompted. If this is your first time connecting to Adroit then answer yes and hit then return key. If the connection is successful then you will arrive at the command line. To disconnect type exit and then press the return key.

Note that you cannot connect to Adroit from off-campus without taking special steps.