Messages & Announcements

  • 2018-05-19:  Crane: /work filesystem downtime resolved
    Category:  General Announcement

    The /work filesystem for Crane is restored as of 8:00pm.

    One of the storage servers crashed and rebooted. A filesystem check was completed with no errors found. Running jobs which were accessing /work stalled until the filesystem was restored. This may have caused jobs to exceed their time limit. There was no data loss from this outage.

    We believe the storage server crash was triggered by I/O delays as the RAID controller was rebuilding a failed disk drive. The rebuild and filesystem check completed successfully and we are monitoring the system.


  • 2018-05-18:  Crane: /work filesystem unplanned downtime
    Category:  System Failure

    The /work filesystem for Crane is partially unavailable. One of the storage servers is experiencing hardware issues. Pending jobs will be held until the maintenance is complete.


    The /work filesystem for Crane is partially unavailable. One of the storage servers is experiencing hardware issues. Pending jobs will be held until the maintenance is complete.

    A hard drive on a Crane storage server failed and was replaced with a spare. During the RAID rebuild, a second drive in the same volume performed poorly, causing the RAID controller to reset, eventually causing the server to crash. After removing the drive with performance issues, the RAID rebuild completed successfully.

    Filesystem checks are in progress. Once that completes successfully, the /work filesystem will be placed online and Crane back in normal service.

  • 2018-05-02:  Important Announcements: Duo Changes, File System Stability, and New User and Group Application Downtime
    Category:  General Announcement

    Duo Authentication Methods:

    Duo provides HCC with a limited number of what are called "telephony credits". These credits are utilized whenever the SMS message or phone call option is used during login two-factor authentication. Since our credits have been depleted, we have deactivated the SMS message or phone call options until further notice. Users will still be able to complete the two-factor authentication by using the Push Notification option or the use of a hardware token (YubiKey).

    If this change will impact your login ability, please consider one of the following options:

    1. Activate your Duo Mobile app by installing the application:

    If you have previously activated Duo Mobile and your phone number has NOT changed, this can be accomplished by emailing us at hcc-support@unl.edu with your login id.

    If you have previously activated Duo Mobile but now have a new phone number or you have never activated Duo Mobile before, please bring a university or government issued photo ID to one of HCC's offices to activate.

    2. Purchase a hardware token (YubiKey) to use. These cost approximately $25. These are available to purchase at one of HCC's offices (for payment with a cost object) or at the UNL bookstore (for other forms of payment).

    HCC offices are located in room 118 of the Schorr Center on UNL's campus or in room 152 of the Peter Kiewit Institute on UNO's campuses.

    New Account and Group Applications Unavailable:

    The new account application and new group application pages will be unavailable this weekend, beginning at 4:00 pm on Friday, May 4th and ending at 10 am on Monday, May 7th.

    File System Stability:

    As HCC's hardware ages, our file systems become increasingly error prone. Please protect yourself against data loss by regularly backing up your files stored on $WORK. Additionally, users may find that our new $COMMON file system is more reliable due to its newer age. As always, regular backups of files stored on HCC clusters are strongly recommended strongly regardless of location to prevent against accidental loss of data.

    For backup options, please visit: https://hcc-docs.unl.edu/display/HCCDOC/Preventing+File+Loss

    For questions or more information about any of the above, please contact us at hcc-support@unl.edu

    Thank you


  • 2018-05-02:  Sandhills: Unscheduled maintenance complete
    Category:  General Announcement

    Unscheduled maintenance has been completed on the Sandhills cluster.

    Jobs that were running prior to the maintenance have had their time limit extended.

    Please let us know of any troubles using the cluster by sending email to hcc-support@unl.edu


  • 2018-05-02:  Sandhills: Unscheduled maintenance required
    Category:  Maintenance

    Sandhills requires maintenance on one of the servers that provide the /work file system.

    Running jobs will be suspended and pending jobs will remain queued during the maintenance.

    Any access to files under /work will block on the login or the Globus transfer nodes during the maintenance.

    A follow-up announcement will be sent when the maintenance is completed.