JupyterHub

Introduction

"JupyterHub, a multi-user Hub, spawns, manages, and proxies multiple instances of the single-user Jupyter notebook server. JupyterHub can be used to serve notebooks to a class of students, a corporate data science group, or a scientific research group."

JupyterHub eliminates the requirement for users to install their own version of Jupyter Notebook; they can connect to the application using only a recent web browser.

Compute Canada initiatives

Some regional initiatives offer access to computing resources through JupyterHub.

Note that the compute nodes running the Jupyter kernels do not necessarily have internet access (e.g. Beluga compute nodes don't have internet access). You may have problems if your code performs downloads or uploads (e.g. in machine learning where downloading data from the code is often seen). You can however upload/download files from/to your computer using the JupyterLab interface.

JupyterHub on clusters

On the following clusters, use your Compute Canada username and password to connect to JupyterHub:

• JupyterHub on Béluga provides access to JupyterLab servers spawned through jobs on the cluster Béluga
• JupyterHub on Hélios provides access to Jupyter Notebook servers spawned through jobs on the GPU cluster Hélios.
• JupyterHub on Niagara is a node which has been designated as a Jupyter Hub and it can run Jupyter Notebook sessions. To learn more, see the SciNet JupyterHub wiki page.

JupyterHub for universities and schools

• The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences in collaboration with Compute Canada and Cybera offer cloud-based hubs to universities and schools. Each institution can have its own hub where users authenticate with their credentials from that institution. The hubs are hosted on the Compute Canada Cloud and are essentially for training purposes. Institutions interested in obtaining their own hub can visit http://syzygy.ca. See Compute Canada and PIMS launch Jupyter service for researchers.

Server Options

Server Options form on Béluga's JupyterHub

Once logged in, depending on the configuration of JupyterHub, a user can set different options for their Jupyter server before pressing the Start button. It is similar to requesting resources for an interactive job.

Compute resources

For example, Server Options available on Béluga's JupyterHub are:

• Account to be used: any def-*, rrg-*, rpp-* or ctb-* account a user has access to
• Time (hours) required for the session
• Number of (CPU) cores that will be reserved on a single node
• Memory (MB) limit for the entire session
• (Optional) GPU configuration: at least one GPU
• User interface (see below)

User Interface

While JupyterHub allows each user to use one Jupyter server at a time on each hub, there can be multiple options under User interface:

• Jupyter Notebook (classic interface) - Even though it offers many functionalities, the community is moving towards JupyterLab, which is a better platform that offers many more features
• JupyterLab (recommended, modern interface)
• Terminal (for a single terminal only) - It gives access to a terminal connected to a remote account, which is comparable to connecting to a server through an SSH connection

Note: JupyterHub could have also been configured to force a specific user interface. This is usually done for special events.