Internet Access Disabled on Compute Nodes

Overview

From November 19, 2025, direct Internet access will been disabled on Oscar compute nodes to enhance system security.

Compute nodes are now divided to two categories:

Gateway nodes will continue to have Internet access. These include:

Any task that accesses the internet will fail on regular nodes. Some examples:
- apptainer pull
- conda install
- git commands like clone, fetch, and push, that access remote repositories
- huggingface commands/programs requiring online access for data or repos
Open OnDemand (OOD) apps run on compute nodes. Thus, they will not be able to access the Internet if they are running on regular nodes.
Jobs or workflows requiring Internet access must be split so that the Internet-dependent steps are executed on the Internet-facing nodes.

All file transfer methods remain unaffected and continue to support Internet access.
Users can still install packages via mirror servers hosted at Brown. These mirror servers can be accessed from any Oscar node.
- Python pip install (Instructions)
- R from CRAN install.packages() (Instructions)
- R from Bioconductor BiocManager::install() (Instructions)

If you would like to test your Oscar workflow to prepare for the upcoming change, you can access our test cluster.

To access this cluster, run ssh login92 on any of the Oscar login nodes.
You can start jobs on the batch or gpu partition on this cluster using sbatch or interact commands.
You cannot test Open OnDemand jobs on this test cluster.

The CCV team is here to support you in adapting your workflow so that the new Internet access policy has minimal impact.

You are welcome to attend CCV office hours every Friday from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM.
Alternatively, you may schedule an appointment by contacting us at [email protected].

Last updated 1 month ago

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