Using ColdFront

What is ColdFront?

ColdFront is NMSU's central administration portal for managing High-Performance Computing (HPC) research projects, user access, and resource allocations on the new Colibri cluster.

Whether you are starting a new research project, requesting cluster access, or adding lab members to an existing allocation, all administrative management is handled through ColdFront. Our compute infrastructure provides faculty, researchers, students, and staff with high-throughput CPU/GPU clusters, parallel storage, and scientific software environments.

Central Allocation Portal myNMSU / Aggie Login 1 TB Default Storage Allocation

Getting Started in ColdFront

Getting started on the Colibri cluster follows a simple three-step workflow depending on your role:

1. Principal Investigators (PIs) & Project Leads

  1. Create a Project: Log in to ColdFront and set up your research project details (funding sources, research domain, and abstract). You may host multiple projects with different team members.
  2. Request an Allocation: Submit an allocation request under your project for dedicated storage. Default storage is 1 TB, but projects may request more with justification. Note: An IRB or IRB exemption may be required for access to additional storage space.
  3. Add Users: Search for and add students, postdocs, or collaborators to your project allocation. Important: Students must already have logged into the cluster/portal before you can add them.

2. Researchers & Students

  1. Log In to ColdFront: Sign in with your NMSU credentials to verify and initialize your account profile.
  2. Join a Project: Ask your PI or Project Lead to add you to their active ColdFront project allocation.
  3. Complete Onboarding: If required, complete the brief HPC onboarding module before your access is activated.

Accessing Compute Resources

Once your ColdFront allocation is active, you can interact with the Colibri cluster using your preferred environment:

  • Open OnDemand (Web GUI): Access command-line shells, file managers, and interactive desktop environments or applications (Jupyter, RStudio, MATLAB) directly from your web browser without installing additional software.
  • Command Line (SSH): Connect via SSH/SFTP to submit non-interactive or batch jobs via the Slurm workload manager. NMSU VPN Required Off-Campus
  • Slurm Job Scheduler: Utilize NMSU job submission templates and the Slurm script generator to launch high-performance compute jobs.

ColdFront & HPC Learning Resources

Learn how to manage allocations, optimize batch jobs, and get help from the NMSU Research Computing team:

Go to ColdFront Portal Documentation & Guides

Workshops & Training

We host regular hands-on workshops throughout the academic year covering HPC fundamentals, Linux, Slurm, and parallel programming.

Consultations & Office Hours

Need help optimizing code, setting up containerized workflows, or estimating compute resources for a grant proposal? Contact our team at hpc-team@nmsu.edu.