We are unifying the account experience for our HPC services. As part of this, your local account must be connected to the National High Performance Computing (NHR) Community Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure (CAAI).
This linking is mandatory to keep access to your HPC account. Please link your account by June 31, 2026.
TL;DR
The following section summarizes the actions required to keep your HPC account active. Detailed explanations and instructions are provided throughout this email.
– External users with an existing RWTH account: Please link your home organization identity with your RWTH account as described on IT Center Help [1], if you have not already done so.
– All users (internal and external): Please log in once to the RWTH RegApp [2] via your home organization (SSO) to keep access to your HPC account.
– Applicants for computing time (JARDS): Use the new home organization login as described in the JARDS manual [3].
What has changed and why?
Previously, you logged in to the RWTH RegApp directly with your RWTH account to manage your HPC account.
Last year, we introduced the NHR CAAI as an identity proxy in front of the RegApp:
1. You now first log in via NHR CAAI using your home organization credentials.
2. You are then forwarded to the RWTH RegApp.
This allows external users to use our HPC systems seamlessly with their home organization identity.
If you have not used the RWTH RegApp since this change, your RegApp account is probably not yet mapped to your NHR CAAI account. We need this mapping to maintain a unified and consistent user account lifecycle.
What is required for external users with an RWTH account?
If you are not a member of RWTH Aachen University, but you do have an RWTH account:
1. Link your home organization account to your RWTH account as described on IT Center Help [1], if you have not done this yet.
2. Afterwards, follow the steps for all users below.
This ensures that your home organization login and your RWTH account are correctly associated.
What must all users (internal and external) do?
All users (RWTH-internal and external) have to:
1. Go to the RWTH RegApp [2].
2. When redirected to NHR CAAI, select your home organization (e.g., RWTH, your external institution, your ORCID or your Google account).
3. Log in with your home organization’s Single Sign-On (SSO) credentials.
During this process, an NHR CAAI account is created (if necessary) and mapped to your existing RWTH RegApp account.
Verify that it worked
We strongly recommend that you verify the result:
1. Open the RWTH RegApp [2].
2. Go to: “Registered services” → “RWTH High Performance Computing”.
3. Check that the displayed HPC username matches your actual HPC username.
If the RWTH High Performance Computing service is missing, or if the username is incorrect, please contact the IT-ServiceDesk (servicedesk@itc.rwth-aachen.de).
Will this affect my current HPC usage?
For now, your ability to connect to and authenticate on the HPC systems is not affected by the state of your RegApp account, until we start deactivating unlinked accounts in six months.
This means:
– If anything goes wrong during the procedure, you can continue to use the HPC service for the time being.
– We will notify users who have not completed the migration.
– We will also monitor and investigate cases where the migration appears to have failed.
If you have any reason to believe that you have lost access to your RWTH RegApp account due to this migration, please contact the IT-ServiceDesk (servicedesk@itc.rwth-aachen.de).
Did anything change for the computing time application as well?
Until now, you have been able to log in to JARDS via an email callback in order to apply for computing time. The JARDS login was also switched to a federated SSO login via CAAI on April 2, 2026.
We recommend that you use this new login method from now on and sign in to JARDS using the account of your home institution.
To keep your existing JARDS account when switching to the new home-organization login (SSO), your home organization’s Identity Provider (IdP) must transmit the same email as you previously used for the JARDS email callback. To ensure this, please follow these instructions:
1. Log in here: https://login.nhr-verein.de
2. Navigate to “Index → My E‑Mail Addresses”.
3. If the email is not the same as you used as JARDS email callback, add the email.
4. Confirm the email you receive.
5. Log in to JARDS via SSO.
Until October 1, 2026, you can continue to apply for compute time (“JARDS.application”) either via the existing email callback (not recommended) or via the new SSO login (recommended). For all reviewers (“JARDS.review”), the email callback will remain available even after October 1, 2026.
If you have any questions or problems, the team at the IT-ServiceDesk (servicedesk@itc.rwth-aachen.de) will be happy to help you.
Kind regards,
Your HPC Team
[1] https://help.itc.rwth-aachen.de/service/rhr4fjjutttf/article/9a42e86854ab43049d0f27b17e3ff601/
[2] https://regapp.itc.rwth-aachen.de
[3] https://jards.itc.rwth-aachen.de/jards/WEB/application/showloginhelp.php
