Designate Cluster Users and Administrators in Windows HPC Server 2008

  • Article

Applies To: Windows HPC Server 2008

You can designate HPC cluster users and HPC cluster administrators for your cluster. For information about the differences between an HPC cluster user and an HPC cluster administrator, see Understanding Roles of HPC Cluster Users and Administrators.

Important

As a best practice for enhanced security in your cluster, we recommend that you arrange for the creation of two custom groups in Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) for the users and the administrators of your HPC cluster. After those groups are created in AD DS, use this procedure to add them to the appropriate HPC role (HPC cluster user or HPC cluster administrator). At the same time, if the list of HPC cluster users includes the built-in groups Domain Users, Authenticated Users, and Interactive, use this procedure to remove those groups. Otherwise, the users in those built-in groups can run jobs and can view the names of compute nodes in the HPC cluster. For more information about the default groups, see "Understanding defaults and making adjustments to HPC cluster users and HPC cluster administrators" in Understanding Roles of HPC Cluster Users and Administrators.

To designate users and administrators

  1. To open HPC Cluster Manager, click Start, point to All Programs, click Microsoft HPC Pack, and then click HPC Cluster Manager. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.

  2. In Configuration, in the Navigation Pane, click To-do List.

  3. In the To-do List, click Add or remove users.

  4. To remove existing users or administrators (or to take the first step in changing their roles), under Users, select the user or group name, and then in the Actions pane, click Remove.

  5. Designate the users for your HPC cluster:

    1. In the Actions pane, click Add User.

    2. Type the user name or group name that you want to add, and then click Check Names. For more information, on the Select Users or Groups window, click examples.

    3. Repeat the previous action until you have added all the HPC cluster users that you want to add.

    4. Click OK.

  6. Designate the administrators for your HPC cluster:

    1. In the Actions pane, click Add Administrator.

    2. Type the user name of the administrator that you want to add, and then click Check Names. For more information, on the Select Users or Groups window, click examples.

    3. Repeat the previous action until you have added all the HPC cluster administrators that you want to add.

Additional considerations

  • For more information about how the built-in groups called Domain Users, Authenticated Users, and Interactive are added by default to the list of HPC cluster users, see "Understanding defaults and making adjustments to HPC cluster users and HPC cluster administrators" in Understanding Roles of HPC Cluster Users and Administrators.

  • You cannot remove the domain Administrator account from the list of HPC cluster administrators.

  • When you add a member to HPC cluster administrators in HPC Cluster Manager, it is the same as adding the member to the local Administrators group on the head node (and vice versa). Similarly, when you add a member to HPC cluster users in HPC Cluster Manager, it is the same as adding the member to the local Users group on the head node (and vice versa).

  • Windows HPC Server 2008 propagates memberships to the local accounts on the compute nodes approximately every five minutes (depending in part on the order in which a particular compute node is contacted by the head node). On each compute node, HPC cluster administrators are added to the local Administrators group, and HPC cluster users are added to the local Users group.

Additional references