Coldfront is an open source resource allocation system designed to provide a central portal for administration, reporting, and measuring scientific impact of HPC resources. Coldfront was created to help HPC centers manage access to a diverse set of resources across large groups of users and provide a rich set of extensible meta data for comprehensive reporting. Coldfront is written in Python and released under the GPLv3 license.

• Allocation/Subscription based system for managing access to resources
• Collect Project, Grant, and Publication data from users
• Define custom attributes on resources and subscriptions
• Email notifications for expiring/renewing access to resources
• Integration with 3rd party systems for automation and access control
• Center director approval system and annual project reviews

1. Coldfront requires Python 3.6, memcached, and redis.

Install EPEL then install required packages:

sudo yum install epel-release
sudo yum install python36 python36-devel memcached redis

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/python-3.6
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3.6 python3.6-venv memcached redis-server

2. Clone Coldfront in a new directory and create a Python virtual environment for Coldfront

mkdir coldfront_app
cd coldfront_app
git clone https://github.com/ubccr/coldfront.git
python3.6 -mvenv venv

3. Activate the virtual environment and install the required Python packages

source venv/bin/activate
cd coldfront
pip install wheel
pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Copy config/local_settings.py.sample to config/local_settings.py.

cp config/local_settings.py.sample config/local_settings.py

Open config/local_settings.py and update the following:

• Update SECRET_KEY. Consider making the length at least 50 characters long.
• Update TIME_ZONE if necessary

5. Copy config/local_strings.py.sample to config/local_strings.py and update if desired.

cp config/local_strings.py.sample config/local_strings.py

6. Run initial setup

python manage.py initial_setup

7. Setup an admin user

python manage.py createsuperuser

8. Optional: Add some test data

python manage.py load_test_data

9. Start development server

python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

10. Point your browser to http://localhost:8000

You can log in as admin with password test1234. You can log in as a PI using username ccollins with password test1234. You can log in as center director using username michardson with password test1234.

Password for all users is also teset1234.

• core - The core Coldfront application
• common - Common code shared between applications
• extra - Extra applications that can be configured in Coldfront

Coldfront is released under the GPLv3 license. See the LICENSE file.