New Account and Login for Param Himalaya Supercomputing facility at IIT Mandi
Faculty, Project Staff, PG, and UG Students
To request a new account, please use the (Offline Form for Param Himalaya) (for students, faculty, and project staff). Accounts will be created after approval. Once you’ve completed the form, submit a printed copy to the A* DCS Office near Stable Complex South Campus. Tel: 01905267000. For any questions, please contact the HPC administrator at it_helpdesk@iitmandi.ac.in. Emails must be sent from official IIT Mandi email IDs; requests from non-official email IDs will not be entertained for security reasons.
Logging in to the Cluster
Once your PARAM Himalaya account has been created and your username has been assigned, you can access the cluster securely using SSH. Follow the appropriate instructions based on your operating system.
Open a terminal and connect to the PARAM Himalaya login server using:
ssh yourusername@paramhimalaya.iitmandi.ac.in -p 4422- Replace yourusername with your assigned PARAM Himalaya username.
- Complete the CAPTCHA verification.
- Scan the QR code using the Google Authenticator app (only during the first login).
- Register the QR code in the Google Authenticator app.
- Enter the 6-digit One-Time Password (OTP) generated by Google Authenticator.
- Enter your PARAM Himalaya account password.
- After successful authentication, you will be logged in to the PARAM Himalaya cluster.
Install an SSH client such as PuTTY or MobaXterm.
Connect to the following server:
Host : paramhimalaya.iitmandi.ac.in
Port : 4422
Protocol : SSHOr using the SSH terminal in MobaXterm:
ssh yourusername@paramhimalaya.iitmandi.ac.in -p 4422- Complete the CAPTCHA verification.
- Scan and register the QR code in Google Authenticator (first login only).
- Enter the 6-digit OTP generated by Google Authenticator.
- Enter your PARAM Himalaya account password.
- You will then be logged in to the cluster.
- Change your password after your first successful login using the
passwdcommand. - Keep your Google Authenticator device secure, as it is required for future logins.
- Do not share your username, password, or OTP with anyone.
Please raise a support request by emailing it_helpdesk@iitmandi.ac.in.
If you need to transfer files between your local computer and the HPC cluster, it is recommended to use
rsync instead of scp.
rsync is faster, more reliable, and transfers only the portions of files that have changed,
making it highly efficient for large datasets and repeated synchronizations. It also supports resuming
interrupted transfers, allowing data transfer to continue from where it left off in the event of a network
failure or other interruption.
Copy files from your local computer to the HPC:
rsync -avz /path/to/local/file_or_directory @paramhimalaya.iitmandi.ac.in:~/destination/ Copy files from the HPC to your local computer:
rsync -avz @paramhimalaya.iitmandi.ac.in:~/source/ /path/to/local/destination/ <username> with your HPC username and update the source and destination paths as required.
Guest Access
Guest users are invited to experience the advanced capabilities of the PARAM Himalaya facility at SCF. Access for guest users is available on a paid basis as per the institute policy.
For any queries, kindly email us at: it_helpdesk@iitmandi.ac.in
File Systems
Two file systems are available on the HPC clusters:
/home/username: This is your home directory with a soft limit of 8 GB and a hard limit of 10 GB. Please use the command `quota -s` to check your quota. Once you have reached the hard limit, you will not be able to add or modify files.
/home/scratch/username: This is the working directory where most of your working data should be stored. There is a soft limit of 2 TB on the `/home/scratch/username` directory. Please use the `du -h` command in `/home/scratch/username` to check your usage.
