JUSTUS2/Login

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< JUSTUS2
Revision as of 19:41, 28 October 2020 by C Mosch (talk | contribs) (Setup TOTP system)
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1 Set JUSTUS 2 service password

Log in to JUSTUS 2 is only possible with a service password. The password of your home organization is not accepted anymore. Therefore please set a service password for JUSTUS 2 by following link "Set password" of section "JUSTUS 2" on the [registration server of JUSTUS2] - if you have not done so already.

2 Setup TOTP system

For better security the log in to JUSTUS 2 is based on two factor authentication (2FA) methods. In addition to your service password, a time-based one-time password (TOTP) is required as second factor.

Usually you should have setup a hardware or software token for creating TOTPs already at this point. If this is still missing, then please follow the instructions for registering a new 2FA token on the following page: BwForCluster User Access/2FA Tokens

3 Login to JUSTUS 2

Prerequisites for login:

  • You have registered your account at the registration server for JUSTUS 2 (for registration, log in to the registration server of JUSTUS2 and click on "Register" in section "JUSTUS 2").
  • You have set a service password for JUSTUS 2 (to do so login at the registration server of JUSTUS2 and select "Set Password" in section "JUSTUS 2").
  • You have created a TOTP shared secret and imported that secret into a TOTP app on your smartphone (for details see email send by registration server right after account registration).

Thereafter you can access the bwForCluster JUSTUS 2 for Computational Chemistry and Quantum Sciences via ssh. Only the secure shell ssh is allowed for login.

From linux machines, you can log in using

ssh <UserID>@justus2.uni-ulm.de

During log in you must enter the current TOTP value (6-digit number) created with help of the TOTP app on your smartphone and your service password.

To run graphical applications, you can use the -X flag to openssh:

ssh -X <UserID>@justus2.uni-ulm.de

For better performance on slow connections you should use e.g. VNC.


The bwForCluster Chemistry in Ulm has four dedicated login nodes. The selection of the login node is done automatically. If you are logging in multiple times, different sessions might run on different login nodes.

The names of the four login nodes are justus2-login01.rz.uni-ulm.de, justus2-login02.rz.uni-ulm.de, justus2-login03.rz.uni-ulm.de, justus2-login04.rz.uni-ulm.de.

These names can be used to access a specific one of the login nodes. In general, you should use justus2.uni-ulm.de to allow us to balance the load over the four login nodes.


3.1 About UserID / Username

<UserID> of the ssh command is a placeholder for your username at your home organization and a prefix denoting your organization. Prefixes and resulting user names are as follows:

Site Prefix Username
Freiburg fr fr_username
Heidelberg hd hd_username
Hohenheim ho ho_username
Karlsruhe ka ka_username
Konstanz kn kn_username
Mannheim ma ma_username
Stuttgart st st_username
Tübingen tu tu_username
Ulm ul ul_username

3.2 Allowed activities on login nodes

The login nodes are the access point to the compute system and its $HOME directory. The login nodes are shared with all the users of the cluster. Therefore, your activities on the login nodes are limited to primarily set up your batch jobs. Your activities may also be:

  • compilation of your program code and
  • short pre- and postprocessing of your batch jobs.

To guarantee usability for all users of the bwForCluster you must not run your compute jobs on the login nodes. Compute jobs must be submitted as Batch Jobs. Any compute job running on the login nodes will be terminated without any notice.

4 Further reading