Welcome

to the Research & High-Performance Computing Support (RHPCS) resource wiki

Learn more about RHPCS

Research Computing

This site focuses on research computing, which is provided through a support contract with Research & High-Performance Computing Support (RHPCS). Many of the most common questions and problems are addressed in the Documentation section of this site. For further assistance, please contact rhpcs@mcmaster.ca.

If you are looking for department-specific documentation, please see one of the following:


Supported Systems

RHPCS is able to provide limited support to all major desktop operating systems, namely

  • Linux
  • MacOS
  • Windows 10

All support is subject to personnel expertise.


Support Priorities

Incoming requests will be prioritized according to the following:

Top Priority - Emergencies

  1. System failure on multi-user systems
  2. System failure on desktop systems
  3. Patching of high-risk security holes.

Non-Emergency Work

  1. Requests which can be taken care of in a minute or two.
  2. Account administration.
  3. Set up of new systems.
  4. System updates deemed important by the analysts.
  5. Work which benefits many researchers (e.g. "upgrade Maple on spruce").
  6. Work which removes an obstacle to progress of one or more researchers (e.g. "I can't compile the program on which my thesis depends without libfoo.so, and I can't find libfoo").

The first item on the list above has a corollary: any non-emergency request, no matter how important to a researcher or group, may be deferred or even dropped if it takes too much time. The researchers involved will be consulted before such a decision is made.