Why Clunky SSH Login Friction Stops Independent Computational Chemistry Work
Computational chemistry, Locally? My rant on SSH
I argue that the excessive friction of logging into university HPC clusters via VPN, SSH, and 2FA discourages independent researchers from pursuing computational chemistry projects. While remote clusters offer power, the clunky workflow kills motivation. Fortunately, tools like Claude Code now make installing software like OpenMolcas on local Macs easier, and for small tasks, local performance can surprisingly outperform remote clusters.
If there are too many intermediate steps to get started to work on something, I become less motivated to work on it, forget about it, and in the worst case scenario just drop the endeavour entirely.
- fxwin
OP is not ready for corporate environments if "VPN + ssh + 2FA" already "feels like too much" lol
I also wonder how they didn't come across X Forwarding at all? When i used a remote machine for my thesis that was one of the first things i set up, just so i could do small experiments on GPU and look at results more easily.
Basically every issue they seem to have is solved by using VSCode + Remote development (Transferring files, Customizing hotkeys, looking at outputs)
>And as for compute, I also realised that there are many small tasks that can actually be run on my machine
Yes, if you have a $3000 Computer, you can do many things that other people would need to use remote compute for. Depending on the "Cluster" they are talking about, the mac might even have better specs lol
- NullifyNAN
It seems like you’re so close but yet so far. It’s interesting that you concluded that Claude makes it easier to run tasks locally but did not conclude that claude makes it easier to use the cluster. Feels we’re in need of a part 2 where you use CC to automate all of the mundane cluster work.
Also just a hot tip, if you’re able to keep any always-only PC on a university subnet (your PI should have some form of a server) you can use tailscale as a jump proxy and bypass the whole VPN dance.
- JR1427
> You know those really annoying shower controls in fancy hotels when you need to adjust two separate knobs for the pressure and temperature separately? That's clunky.
I like being able to control those two variables separately.
- n4r9
Recently Claude Code said my authentication credentials had become invalid and I needed to log in again. I recorded the ridiculous number of steps this took:
- Copy-paste link to browser
- Wait several minutes while page load hangs
- Click refresh a couple of times, page finally loads
- Type in work email
- Redirect to work portal, type in work email again
- Asked for work password: open KeepassXC and type in Keepass database password
- KeepassXC additionally demands that I enter my laptop PIN
- Copy work password into work portal
- Asked for Authenticator code: go look for phone
- Find phone, load up authenticator app, type into work portal
- Wait several minutes while page load hangs
- Click refresh a couple of times, eventually get code to paste back into Claude session.
- eluusive
I'm so glad I left my previous job. As an SRE, I had to use about 10 tools regularly, and they all had 2 minute timeouts with "SSO" + 2fa. I literally spent about 30 minutes out of every hour just logging in to shit.
The security team wouldn't budge things up to 1 day even.
When you have 2 or 3 factors on every tool -- even things like prometheus. It gets excessive.