Testing Two-factor Authentication on NEMO

Published: 8 Aug 2023 by NEMO Team

UPDATE: 09.08.2023: OTP is now enabled for password and SSH key logins.

We are currently testing two-factor authentication for NEMO logins. Currently, this security feature can be tested on our vis1/2 visualization nodes for password logins.

Please visit https://login.bwidm.de/user/twofa.xhtml to generate a new token if you do not already have one. If you have already generated a second factor on https://login.bwidm.de for bwUniCluster or JUSTUS2, you are good to go. See https://wiki.bwhpc.de/e/Registration/2FA for more information.

In the coming weeks and months, we will extend this to NEMO login nodes. We hope to be able to secure SSH keys with OTPs as well, but currently the SSH server version is too old to support some of the needed functionality.

An SSH configuration issue on the login nodes has been fixed. SSH keys stored in local authorized_keys files are no longer accepted. This behavior was never intended - please use SSH keys configured in login.bwidm.de instead.

Over the holiday period, we’re increasing queue limits to 10,000 jobs while reducing cluster capacity for energy savings. Normal operation resumes automatically on January 7, 2026.

NEMO2 has undergone a rolling upgrade with security, firmware/BIOS, and Slurm 25.05.5 updates. We planned and executed all steps to keep downtime for users as minimal as possible. Running jobs continued without interruption throughout the process.