Documentation
This page lists all the documentation available on the ARCHER Service and provides links to any other useful resources. We are continually working to improve the documentation and ask that if you spot any problems or have any suggestions you mail them to the helpdesk.
New Access to ARCHER Arrangements
This provides a step by step guide to getting on to ARCHER following the recent security incident and subsequent changes to the security and logon procedures.
Read the new Access to ARCHER guide....
Quick Start
The Quick Start provides the minimum information required to get up and running on ARCHER. This is aimed at people who have used other HPC services.
Essential Skills
This page provides links to material to develop the base skills people may need to exploit ARCHER as fully as possible.
Read the Essential Skills section...
ARCHER User Guide
The User Guide provides all the basic information for users on the layout and use of the ARCHER Service, including:
- Connecting and transferring data
- Filesystem layout and data management
- Application developer environment - compiling and linking
- Running jobs using the PBS job submission system
ARCHER Best Practice Guide
The Best Practice Guide provides more advanced and detailed information on getting the best out of the ARCHER service. It covers topics such as:
- Detailed information on the hardware.
- Using the compilers to produce efficient code.
- Advanced use of the job submission system.
- Profiling the performance of your code.
- Advice on tuning your code for best performance.
- Using the debugging tools to identify and eliminate problems.
Read the Best Practice Guide...
Software Packages Information
This section contains more detailed information on a number of software packages that are centrally available on ARCHER. The information available includes how to access the packages, and example job submission scripts. As the Service progresses we will add hints on getting the best performance and detailed compilation instructions.
Read the software packages information…
Data Management Guide
This guide covers best practise and tools for data management on ARCHER and the UK-RDF. This includes managing data on the systems, transferring data between ARCHER and the RDF, transferring data on/off ARCHER and the RDF.
Read the Data Management Guide...
UK Research Data Facility (UK-RDF) Guide
The UK Research Data Facility (UK-RDF), funded by EPSRC and NERC, is collocated with ARCHER and is housed at the ACF facility. It provides a high capacity robust file storage service and a persistent infrastructure that will last beyond any one national service
This guide describes the UK-RDF and provides information on how to use the facility.
The Knights Landing (KNL) Guide
The Knights Landing (KNL) system offers ARCHER users an opportunity to trial this manycore processor to run their applications, and enables software development aimed at optimising application performance for this processor type.
This guide describes the KNL system and provides information on how to use the facility.
SAFE User Guide
SAFE is an online ARCHER service management system. Through SAFE, individual users can request machine accounts, reset passwords, see available resources and track their usage. All users must be registered on SAFE before they can apply for their machine account. Go to the SAFE guide for individual users
Principal investigators (grant holders) and project managers (nominated by PIs) have overall authority over their allocated resources and can perform additional project management tasks in SAFE. Go to the SAFE Guide for principal investigators.
View account and current job status on a mobile phone or tablet (uses SAFE login credentials).
Troubleshooting Guide
The troubleshooting guide contains a list of commonly occurring errors and solutions.
ARCHER White Papers
White papers covering technical topics of interest to ARCHER users.
