# Passwordless configuration

**URL:** <https://community.openpbs.org/t/passwordless-configuration/1393>\
**Category:** Users/Site Administrators\
**Created:** [January 11, 2019, 11:22am UTC](https://community.openpbs.org/t/passwordless-configuration/1393 "2019-01-11T11:22:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![liuxiaopiao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@liuxiaopiao](https://community.openpbs.org/u/liuxiaopiao)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2019, 11:22am UTC](https://community.openpbs.org/t/passwordless-configuration/1393/1 "2019-01-11T11:22:36Z")

</div>

Hi Experts,

**Scenario1:**  
I have one question for PBS 18.1.3 and the cluster has two nodes:

1. pbs server node “serverNode”
2. pbs exectuion “node1”
3. both “serverNode” and “node1” have the same user “test”.
4. And I didn’t configure passwordless accessing between “serverNode” and “node1” by user “test”.

When I submit PBS job such like “echo “sleep 60” | qsub” on “serverNode” using user “test”, I can get the job output and error file successfully.

**Scenario2:**  
I have one question for PBS 18.1.3 and the cluster has two nodes:

1. pbs server node “serverNode”
2. pbs exectuion “node1” and “node2”
3. both “serverNode” , “node1” and “node2” have the same user “test”.
4. And I didn’t configure passwordless accessing between “serverNode”, “node1” and “node2” by user “test”.

When I submit PBS job such like “echo “sleep 60” | qsub” on “serverNode” using user “test”, I couldn’t get the job output and error file successfully. And the mom log said “Unable to copy file /var/spool/pbs/spool/0.pbspro-server.ER to [pbspro-server.pbspro.pbspro.oraclevcn.com](http://pbspro-server.pbspro.pbspro.oraclevcn.com):/home/test/STDIN.e0”.

**So my question is that:**

1. why scenario 1 can get the output/error file without passwordless configurations?

Thanks a lot for the help!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adarsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f07891/32.png) [@adarsh](https://community.openpbs.org/u/adarsh)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2019, 8:13pm UTC](https://community.openpbs.org/t/passwordless-configuration/1393/2 "2019-01-12T20:13:28Z")

</div>

Please share the output of PBS\_EXEC/unsupported/pbs\_dtj \<jobid ran in scenario 1 \> and the same for scenario 2.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![liuxiaopiao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@liuxiaopiao](https://community.openpbs.org/u/liuxiaopiao)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 3:59am UTC](https://community.openpbs.org/t/passwordless-configuration/1393/3 "2019-01-14T03:59:43Z")

</div>

Thanks a lot for the reply. I mistook the two cluster configurations and they can work fine now.

And I also want to confirm with you that:

1. I know if we want to let PBS job files can be staged in and out,we need to configure passwordless ssh from execution nodes to pbs server nodes.  
do we need to configure passwordless ssh from server nodes to execution nodes?

2. if we use openmpi inside pbs server(which is not a mom node),do we need to configure passwordless from server nodes to execution nodes?

Thanks a lot!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adarsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f07891/32.png) [@adarsh](https://community.openpbs.org/u/adarsh)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 9:56am UTC](https://community.openpbs.org/t/passwordless-configuration/1393/4 "2019-01-14T09:56:13Z")

</div>

> [@liuxiaopiao](#):
>
> do we need to configure passwordless ssh from server nodes to execution nodes?

Yes, server to node(s) , node(s) to server and node(s) to node(s)

> [@liuxiaopiao](#):
>
> if we use openmpi inside pbs server(which is not a mom node),do we need to configure passwordless from server nodes to execution nodes?

- yes passwordless-ssh is required (same as mentioned above)
- openmpi should be accessible across all the compute nodes ( in the same path )
- openmpi is not required to be on the PBS Server host.
- Usually, openmpi is compiled with PBS TM from a shared location accessible by all the nodes and users locally on those nodes.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![liuxiaopiao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@liuxiaopiao](https://community.openpbs.org/u/liuxiaopiao)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 2:31pm UTC](https://community.openpbs.org/t/passwordless-configuration/1393/5 "2019-01-14T14:31:57Z")

</div>

> [@adarsh](#):
>
> Yes, server to node(s) , node(s) to server and node(s) to node(s)

Thanks a lot for the patience to help me. So what’s the reason for server to node(s) passwordless accessing? Could you please give me a hand on this? It seemed that we don’t need copy file from server to nodes.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adarsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f07891/32.png) [@adarsh](https://community.openpbs.org/u/adarsh)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 7:29pm UTC](https://community.openpbs.org/t/passwordless-configuration/1393/6 "2019-01-14T19:29:24Z")

</div>

> [@liuxiaopiao](#):
>
> So what’s the reason for server to node(s) passwordless accessing?

**Stage in** – PBS Server side  
The process of moving one or more job-related files from a storage location to the execution host before running the job.

**Stage out** – PBS Mom side  
The process of moving one or more job-related files from the execution host to a storage location after running the job.  
Staging and execution directory  
The staging and execution directory is a directory on the execution host where the following happens:  
• Files are staged into this directory before execution  
• The job runs in this directory  
• Files are staged out from this directory after execution  
A job-specific staging and execution directory can be created for each job, or PBS can use a specified directory, or a default directory.

All the users should be able to ssh across server to nodes, nodes to nodes , nodes to server .

1. Implement host-based authentication (instead of key based)

- [OpenSSH/Cookbook/Host-based Authentication - Wikibooks, open books for an open world](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSSH/Cookbook/Host-based_Authentication)
- [How to Set Up Host-Based Authentication for Secure Shell - Managing Secure Shell Access in Oracle® Solaris 11.2](https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E36784_01/html/E37125/sshuser-12.html)  
\*[https://arc.liv.ac.uk/SGE/howto/hostbased-ssh.html](https://arc.liv.ac.uk/SGE/howto/hostbased-ssh.html)

2 The /etc/pbs.conf file on the PBS Server and Moms should have these lines, in the same order, append this to your existing pbs.conf and restart the services

PBS\_RCP=/bin/false  
PBS\_SCP=/usr/bin/scp  
PBS\_RSHCOMMAND=/usr/bin/ssh

1. Make sure StrictHostkeyChecking in the /etc/ssh/ssh\_config file is set to “no”

Please let us know if you are stuck with any log files or snapshots.

Thank you

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![liuxiaopiao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@liuxiaopiao](https://community.openpbs.org/u/liuxiaopiao)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 1:40pm UTC](https://community.openpbs.org/t/passwordless-configuration/1393/7 "2019-01-15T13:40:01Z")

</div>

Thanks a lot @adarsh. It is very helpful.
