Introducing the RCO Users Group

Ed Davis
Bioinformatics Manager

Center for Quantitative Life Sciences, Oregon State University

2026-01-14

Today’s Agenda

  1. Welcome & Semester Kickoff — Ed Davis
  2. New Default Group IDs — Ed Davis
  3. DGX Spark: How they work & How to Get Access — Chris Sullivan
  4. Supercomputer and 3 Storage Service Updates — Dirk Petersen
  5. Using Claude Code with OSU GPUs — Dirk Petersen

Note

Room location (ALS 3005) may change in future meetings — check announcements!

The Research Computing Office (RCO)

Established January 1, 2026 to unify OSU’s research computing ecosystem

Why centralize?

  • 2023 task force found centralization enhances competitiveness for major research funding
  • Peer institution analysis of 13 universities
  • Positions OSU to maximize the Huang Complex NVIDIA supercomputer (arriving late 2026)

Core objectives:

  • Manage advanced computing, storage, and AI applications
  • Expand researcher access across disciplines
  • Coordinate computing systems and security compliance
  • Provide training and knowledge-sharing

Read the full announcement

Why We’re Combining

BUG (Bioinformatics Users Group) + Supercomputer Townhall = RCO Users Group

The Problem:

  • Both meetings were at the same time
  • Shared audience members had to choose
  • We didn’t want to compete with one another

The Opportunity:

  • Reach more people across interest groups
  • AI/HPC focus meets Bioinformatics focus
  • Cross-pollination of ideas and expertise

What to Expect

A unified forum bridging practical needs and the future of HPC at OSU

Shape the Future

Input on the $25M Huang Complex AI supercomputer

Solve Today’s Problems

Peer-to-peer expertise: Python, SQL, metagenomics, data storage, and more

Skill Building

Workshops from basic command-line to advanced AI architecture

Bi-weekly on Wednesdays, 12-1pm
• No experience necessary
• Free pizza!

New Default Group IDs

Changes coming to the Wildwood HPC cluster

The Change

Current behavior on Wildwood:

  • Default group = your lab group (e.g., core, bpp, micro)
  • User davised → default group cqls

New behavior:

  • Default group = same as your username (matches ONID)
  • User davised → default group davised

Why the Change?

Security as HPC infrastructures merge

  • As more clusters connect (e.g., College of Engineering users accessing Wildwood), security requirements increase
  • Not all HPC clusters on campus have the same default settings
  • Syncing UID/GID expectations across clusters prevents permission conflicts

The goal: When users from other colleges connect to Wildwood, their UID and GID expectations are already synchronized.

The Solution: setgid Bit

Ken Lett and Ed Davis will set the setgid bit on NFS lab directories

What does setgid do?

  • Files and directories created inside inherit the parent directory’s group
  • Your personal default group doesn’t matter — the lab group is applied automatically
# Setting the setgid bit on a directory
chmod g+s /path/to/lab/directory

setgid Example

# Current state of /nfs4 lab directories
$ ls -l /nfs4/BPP
drwxr-xr-x  4 root     root         4 Jun  1  2020 Anderson_LeBoldus/
drwxrwx--x 14 megrawm  megraw_lab  16 Oct  9 21:02 Megraw_Lab/
drwxrwx--x 25 uehlinje uehling_lab 28 Jan 13 11:33 Uehling_Lab/

# With setgid bit set (note the 's' in group permissions)
drwxrws--x 14 megrawm  megraw_lab  16 Oct  9 21:02 Megraw_Lab/
#     ^-- setgid bit

# Now any file created inside Megraw_Lab/ will automatically
# have group ownership of 'megraw_lab', regardless of who creates it

What You Need to Know

We’ll handle:

  • Setting setgid on top-level NFS lab directories
  • Coordinating the infrastructure changes

You may need to:

  • Set setgid on new subdirectories you create:

    chmod g+s /path/to/new/subdir

  • Existing files won’t change group ownership automatically

Timeline: TBD — we’re starting to get infrastructure in place

Winter 2026 Schedule

Date Topic Presenter(s)
Jan 14 Introducing the RCO Users Group Ed Davis, Chris Sullivan, Dirk Petersen
Jan 28 Using scratch space effectively with Slurm Ed Davis (CQLS)
Feb 11 HCIC/AI focus (TBD) Dirk Petersen (UIT)
Feb 25 HPC focus (TBD) Fabian Wittmers (Microbiology)
Mar 11 HCIC/AI focus (TBD) Dirk Petersen (UIT)

Wednesdays, 12-1pm • ALS 3005 (subject to change) • Zoom available

More Information

Links:

Join us:

Questions? Reach out to Dirk Petersen, Ed Davis, or Brent Kronmiller