vscode-remote-hpc

A one-click script to setup and connect vscode to a Slurm-based HPC compute node directly from the remote explorer.

Features

• Automatically starts a batch job, or reuses an existing one, for vscode to connect to.
• No need to manually execute the script on the HPC, just connect from the remote explorer and the script handles everything automagically through ProxyCommand.

Requirements

• sshd must be available on the compute node, installed in /usr/sbin or available in the PATH
• A typical sshd installation is required, it must read login keys from ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
• You must be allowed to run sshd in a batch job on an arbitrary port above 10000, and connect to it from the login node
• The nc command (netcat) must be available on the HPC login node
• Names of Slurm nodes must resolve to their internal IP addresses
• You must have SSH access to the HPC login node

These requirements are usually met, except if explicitly changed or forbidden by your system admin.

Setup

Git clone the repo on the HPC login node (replace HPC-LOGIN with your own) and run the installer.

ssh HPC-LOGIN
git clone git@github.com:gmertes/vscode-remote-hpc.git
cd vscode-remote-hpc
bash install.sh

The script will be installed in ~/bin and added to your PATH.

Open the installed script ~/bin/vscode-remote with your favourite editor and edit the SBATCH_PARAM_CPU and SBATCH_PARAM_GPU parameters at the top according to your Slurm system. It is recommended to keep the job time (-t) as default or less, to not waste resources.

On your local machine, generate a new ssh key for vscode-remote:

ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/vscode-remote -t ed25519 -N ""

Copy the public key to your HPC authorized_hosts, you can use ssh-copy-id:

ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/vscode-remote HPC-LOGIN

In VS Code, change the remote.SSH.connectTimeout setting. Set this to the maximum time in seconds you expect a new job to start on your HPC. The script default is 300.

"remote.SSH.connectTimeout": 300

Add the following entry to your local machine's ~/.ssh/config. Change USERNAME and HPC-LOGIN accordingly:

Host vscode-remote-cpu
    User USERNAME
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/vscode-remote
    ProxyCommand ssh HPC-LOGIN "bash --login -c 'vscode-remote cpu'"
    StrictHostKeyChecking no

You can change vscode-remote cpu to vscode-remote gpu to start a GPU job.

Usage

The vscode-remote-cpu host is now available in the VS Code remote explorer. Connecting to this host will automatically launch a batch job on a CPU node and connect to the node.

If a running job is already found, it will simply connect to it. You can also open as many remote windows as you like and they will all share the same running job.

The vscode-remote command installed on your HPC offers some commands to list or cancel running jobs. Type vscode-remote help for help on its usage.