Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my login freeze when I’m trying to log into Nightingale?

If you are trying to log in from outside the University of Illinois campus (not on the U of I network), you must be connected to either the University of Illinois VPN or the NCSA VPN; failing to connect through a VPN can cause your login to freeze (see Accessing Nightingale using a VPN).

Why isn’t my job running?

Slurm will block your job from starting if there is a reservation scheduled to start before your job would finish. If a reservation is blocking your job from starting, the squeue command will return a message like ReqNodeNotAvail, Reserved for maintenance for your job. You may be able to shorten the runtime of your job to fit in before the reservation starts. Refer to the System Reservations section for more details.

How should I acknowledge the use of Nightingale in my research?

Suggested acknowledgement text: “This research used resources of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) which is supported by funds from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.”

How do I get help if I can’t find the answer in the documentation?

If you can’t find the answer in the documentation (or via the search bar in the upper left corner) please submit a support request. The ticket that is initiated will be used by NCSA staff to communicate with you to find a path to resoultion.