Frederick Research Computing Environment

Connecting to FRCE & File Transfers

Access is only through ssh to batch.ncifcrf.gov from within the NIH network or while connected through VPN. There are several options depending on your laptop's operating system. Some of the more popular are listed here.
For Windows systems, options include

  • PuTTY
    Easy to configure and can be set up to have different profiles for each server to be connected to.
    File transfers are not handled within PuTTY and a dedicated file transfer application will need to be installed. No X11 server is built in but VcXsrv can be integrated with PuTTY.
    FYI, the venerable Xming is still available as an X11 server. Releases prior to 2019 are free, more recent releases are available for a £10/year license fee.
    Both PuTTY and VcXsrv can be installed without AA privileges.
  • MobaXterm
    Home Edition is free for individual use but has some limitations such as a limit on the number of simultaneous windows. Despite its name, the Home Edition license allows use within a corporate environment. A professional version is available for a smallish cost.
    An X11 display is built into the product as well as file transfer options.
    MobaXterm can be installed without AA provileges.
  • Bitvise
    This is not as widely used but appears to have many useful features.
    File transfer is built in but X11 is not so, as with PuTTY, a package like VcXsrv will need to be installed separately.
  • Windows now provides native SSH and SCP clients available through the command line. Use in a standard Windows cmd window works but is not customizable. Running under Windows Terminal provides a better interface but downloading from the Microsoft App Store is not possible. Other installation methods are listed on the projects github page. AA privileges will be required to install the package.

Mac and Linux users can use ssh directly from the command line and no extra packages are needed.
 The X11 server is no longer installed by default in MacOS. Quartz is the preferred application in this case.

A popular multi-platform file transfer program is Filezilla. It runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux and has a intuitive interface. For Windows platforms, WinSCP also provides a windowed file transfer package. 

rsync or gridftp are good choices and transferring data between Linux systems. You should not use rsync directly on the FRCE head node as it enforces a 5 cpu-minute time limit. Log into fsitgl-xfer03p for these transfers.