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Setup

Prerequisites

Participants must have:

  • Laptop (preferably with Linux or macOS) with the following software installed:

  • Knowledge of the Python programming language

  • Smartphone with an Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) application installed (e.g. Google Authenticator):

Get Your API Keys

Participants will be guided by the instructors through these steps:

  1. Receive course credentials to access a real HPC system at CSCS.
  2. Open your web browser and navigate to https://developer.cscs.ch and set up MFA using your smartphone.
  3. Once MFA is configured, you will be able to see the API FirecREST-HPC v2 in the Developer Portal.
  4. Click on Applications at the top of the page, then click on DefaultApplication.
  5. On the left panel, click on Subscriptions. Click Subscribe APIs and subscribe to FirecREST-HPC v2, chosing Platinum Subscription Status.
  6. On the left panel, click on Production Keys, then click Generate Keys.

After this, you will see the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret -- you will need them for the next steps.

Warning

The Consumer Key and Consumer Secret are access keys to computational resources at CSCS. They are only meant for this course -- please do not share them. Keys and access to the systems will be deactivated after the tutorial.

Test the Setup

  1. On the Production Keys view, click Generate Access Token, then Generate, and finally the access token.
  2. Navigate to the FirecREST-HPC API OpenAPI specification.
  3. Click the Authorize button on the right.
  4. Under HTTPBearer (http, Bearer), paste the access token and click Authorize.
  5. Expand GET /status/systems, click Try it out, then Execute.

A successful setup returns a 200 response with a body similar to:

JSON response for GET /status/systems

{
  "systems": [
    (···)
    {
      "name": "daint",
      "ssh": {
        "host": "daint.alps.cscs.ch",
        "port": 22
      },
      "scheduler": {
        "type": "slurm",
        "version": "25.05.4"
      }
    }
  ]
}

What does the access token contain

You can check the content of the access token by using this Python script

Check access token content 
$ pip3 install jwt
$ python3
>>> import jwt, json
>>> token="..." # paste your token
>>> decoded_token = jwt.decode(token, options={"verify_signature": False})
>>> print(json.dumps(decoded_token, indent=2))
{
    "exp": 1777282411,
    (...)
    "iss": "https://auth.cscs.ch/...",
    (...)
    "preferred_username": "course_XXXXX",
    (...)
    "username": "course_XXXXX"
}

Tip

If you face issues setting up your API credentials, visit the CSCS documentation for clarification.

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