Setting up MobaXterm for file transfers with the JHPCE cluster

If you use MobaXterm to access the JHPCE cluster, and you want to transfer large files to ofr from the cluster, you should set up a separate SFTP session in MobaXterm using the “jhpce-transfer01.jhsph.edu” data transfer node, rather than the“jhpce01.jhsph.edu” login node. The “jhpce01.jhsph.edu” node is only meant to be used for logging into the cluster, and not transferring large files. The “jhpce01.jhsph.edu” node only has a 1 Gb/s network connection to the JHU network, whereas the “jhpce-transfer01.jhsph.edu” node has a 40 Gb/s connection. While an individual file transfers would not be able to achieve the full 40Gb/s speed, it will be significantly faster than using the 1Gb/s connection on the “jhpce01.jhsph.edu

You can set up an SFTP session in MobaXterm using the following steps.

  1. Startup MobaXterm.  You likely already have a “jhpce01.jhsph.edu” session configured for logging into the JHPCE cluster
  2. Click on the “Session” icon in the upper left corner.  This will bring up a window where you can create new sessions.
  3. Select “SFTP”
  4. In the “Remote host” field, enter jhpce-transfer01.jhsph.edu.  In the “Username” field, enter your JHPCE user ID.
  5. Click on the “Advanced Sftp Setting” tab.
  6. Check the box marked “2-steps authentication”.  Optionally, if you have an SSH key, you can check the “Use private key” box, and then enter the path to your private key.
  7. When you click “OK”, you will be prompted for you “Verification Code” (which will be from Google Authenticator) and “Password”.  After you enter your password, you will be prompted to “Save Password?”, and be sure to respond “No’.  
  8. You should now see the list of files your home directory from the JHPCE cluster displayed on the screen.  You can transfer files to and from the JHPCE cluster by dragging-and-dropping them onto this file list.
  9. To access you scratch space, you can enter the path “/fastscratch/myscratch/USERID” (where USERID is your JHPCE cluster user id.
  10. When you are done with your sftp session, you can close the session by clicking on the red X on the “jhpce-transfer01” tab.  This red X will show up when you hover your cursor over the right hand side of the tab.