https://theloginnode.com/series/hpc-from-scratch/ Recent content in HPC From Scratch on The Login Node Hugo -- gohugo.io en © 2026 Will Paik Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-06/ Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-06/ Without accounting, Slurm treats every user the same regardless of how much they have already consumed. Episode 6 of HPC From Scratch builds the full accounting layer: account hierarchy with sacctmgr, QOS policies with wall-time limits, and fair share scheduling with exponential decay. The result is a scheduler that adapts to actual usage and prevents any single user from dominating the queue. https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-05/ Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-05/ Getting Slurm running from source is more involved than installing from a package manager, but it gives you full control over version and build options. Episode 5 covers the complete setup: MUNGE for authentication, slurmctld on the controller, slurmd on compute nodes, and verifying everything works with a real batch job. https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-04/ Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-04/ A cluster where each node has its own home directory and user list is not really a cluster. Episode 4 fixes that by installing NFS for shared storage and FreeIPA for centralized authentication, so every node sees the same files and every user logs in with the same credentials from anywhere. https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-03/ Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-03/ Building a home HPC cluster does not require a perfect network on day one. Episode 3 covers setting up the login node on WiFi, planning a clean IP scheme for the cluster subnet, and getting SSH working reliably across all nodes while keeping the setup simple enough to upgrade later. https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-02/ Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-02/ Buying more RAM does not always mean your jobs get more of it. Episode 2 of HPC From Scratch covers the hardware upgrades made to the cluster nodes and explains how iGPU shared memory quietly reduces available system memory on compute nodes, with no error message to warn you. https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-01/ Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://theloginnode.com/posts/hpc-from-scratch-01/ University clusters have waitlists and cloud HPC gets expensive fast. This series documents building a real 6-node HPC cluster from consumer hardware for $1,264. Episode 1 covers hardware selection, how to assign node roles, and the decisions that actually matter before you buy anything.