Running Fluent on a Remote Server

If your simulation requires more processing power, you may need to remotely run the calculations on a larger server. This tutorial is for those who have log-in access to the SimCafe server on Cornell University's Ithaca campus. The procedure for running FLUENT on other servers will be similar. Instructions are provided in the following video and summarized below:

Summary of the video above:

1. Append DNS suffix
   1. Go to Control Panel >> Network and Internet >> Local Area Connection
   2. Click Properties in the “Local Area Connection Status” window
   3. Select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
   4. Click Properties >> Advanced
   5. Go to the “DNS” tab and under the window “Append these DNS suffixes”, click Add
   6. In the “TCP/IP Domain Suffix” window, type in: mae.cornell.edu
      
      
2. Map Network drive
   1. Go to “My Computer” and select “Map network drive” on the top bar
   2. For “Folder”, type in: \\en-ma-simcafe1\workspace
   3. Click “Finish” and m ake n ote the drive letter (e.g., ‘Z:’)
       
3. Set up FLUENT
   1. Select “Use Job Scheduler”
   2. Select “Parallel per Job Scheduler Solver”
   3. Choose # of processes. (Note that the academic version of FLUENT is limited to 2 processes.)
   4. Under the “General Options” tab
      1. For working directory, type in the name of mapped drive (e.g., ‘Z:\’)
      2. For “Fluent Root Path”, enter: \\en-ma-simcafe1\fluent
   5. Under the “Scheduler” tab
      1. For Computer Cluster Head Node Name, enter: en-ma-simcafe1.mae.cornell.edu
   6. If you are using UDF, c heck “Setup Compilation Environment for UDF”  u nder the “Environment” tab
   7. Click OK to run FLUENT
   8. In the print-out console, make sure all licenses are available and simulation is running
       
4. Check progress of Fluent solver
   1.  Check that HPC Cluster Manager is installed on the computer
   2. Run HPC Job Manager 
   3. Select "active" on the left tab to view active jobs