Who May Use the NIH Helix Systems
Accounts on the NIH Helix systems are for the use of researchers in NIH intramural research programs.
NIH Volunteers can maintain Helix/Biowulf accounts for the
duration of their NIH status, but will get access to fewer
Helix Systems resources than NIH employees and contractors.
User Responsibilities
The NIH Helix systems are for appropriate government use only
System resources are for the work-related use of authorized users only.
E-Mail
The NIH Office of Information Resources Management considers chain letters, joke messages, and ads to be inappropriate activities, subject to disciplinary action, according to an OIRM policy memo.
Internet
The NIH Senior IRM Official released a policy memo on December 8, 1995 stating "use of the NIH Internet services is limited to activities that support the NIH mission," subject to disciplinary action including suspension. Also see the HHS IRM Policy (2003) policy for personal use of IT resources.
Data Content
Helix users are forbidden from transmitting or storing any Personally Identifiable Information (e.g. patient data containing names or social security numbers) or sensitive data anywhere on the Helix systems, including their home and data directories.
Read the announcements!
Users are responsible for reading the system messages and announcements. These will appear as messages during login, and will also be sent to all Helix users by email. [Archive of Helix & Biowulf messages]
Account sharing among multiple users is prohibited
A separate Helix account must be set up for each user.
Access to data and applications is restricted
Please do not access files or directories belonging to another user without explicit permission.
System Usage
As the front-end machine for the Helix Systems, Helix
is not intended for major computational tasks. It should be used only for
reading mail via pine, administrative tasks like moving/renaming/copying
files, and running short interactive jobs. All memory-intensive (>2GB),
cpu-intensive (>4 hrs), or high-multiple (>2-3 simultaneous) jobs
should be performed on the Biowulf
cluster. Please contact the Helix staff (staff@helix.nih.gov, or 301-496-4825)
if you have questions about the appropriateness of your job for a particular
platform, or need more information about how to run your job.
Monthly Reboots
To improve system security and availability, a monthly maintenance cycle
has been instituted. This cycle will generally involve a reboot of both
Helix and the Biowulf login node (not the entire cluster). The reboots
are scheduled at 7 am on the first Monday of every month, or the
following Tuesday if that Monday is a holiday. Downtime during a reboot
will typically be 10-15 minutes.
Scheduled maintenance that requires a longer downtime
and emergency maintenance will be announced separately. Every effort
will be made to minimize disruptions.
Accounts on the NIH Helix systems are for the use of researchers in NIH intramural research programs.
NIH Volunteers can maintain Helix/Biowulf accounts for the duration of their NIH status, but will get access to fewer Helix Systems resources than NIH employees and contractors.
The NIH Helix systems are for appropriate government use only
System resources are for the work-related use of authorized users only.
The NIH Office of Information Resources Management considers chain letters, joke messages, and ads to be inappropriate activities, subject to disciplinary action, according to an OIRM policy memo.
Internet
The NIH Senior IRM Official released a policy memo on December 8, 1995 stating "use of the NIH Internet services is limited to activities that support the NIH mission," subject to disciplinary action including suspension. Also see the HHS IRM Policy (2003) policy for personal use of IT resources.
Data Content
Helix users are forbidden from transmitting or storing any Personally Identifiable Information (e.g. patient data containing names or social security numbers) or sensitive data anywhere on the Helix systems, including their home and data directories.
Users are responsible for reading the system messages and announcements. These will appear as messages during login, and will also be sent to all Helix users by email. [Archive of Helix & Biowulf messages]
A separate Helix account must be set up for each user.
Please do not access files or directories belonging to another user without explicit permission.
As the front-end machine for the Helix Systems, Helix is not intended for major computational tasks. It should be used only for reading mail via pine, administrative tasks like moving/renaming/copying files, and running short interactive jobs. All memory-intensive (>2GB), cpu-intensive (>4 hrs), or high-multiple (>2-3 simultaneous) jobs should be performed on the Biowulf cluster. Please contact the Helix staff (staff@helix.nih.gov, or 301-496-4825) if you have questions about the appropriateness of your job for a particular platform, or need more information about how to run your job.
To improve system security and availability, a monthly maintenance cycle has been instituted. This cycle will generally involve a reboot of both Helix and the Biowulf login node (not the entire cluster). The reboots are scheduled at 7 am on the first Monday of every month, or the following Tuesday if that Monday is a holiday. Downtime during a reboot will typically be 10-15 minutes.
Scheduled maintenance that requires a longer downtime and emergency maintenance will be announced separately. Every effort will be made to minimize disruptions.