01
Learn the account, command-line, data, and incident basics required before using lab systems.
IT & research computing / course 9.0.0
Follow one lesson.
Verify the result.
The IT Passport is the lab's guided course for setting up tools and practising safe research-computing tasks. Research computing means the software, storage, and shared computers used to produce research. The Passport selects the lessons needed for your work, remembers where you stopped on this computer, and checks each submitted exercise.
This preview stores no identity or progress. Your real passport runs on your computer and publishes only exercise results from which private information has been excluded.
01 / ORIENTOne current lesson
The start guide opens your local Passport. Each lesson names the machine, task and expected result.
02 / PRACTICEReal tools
Run the task where instructed: your computer; GitHub, the website for shared code; Blade, the lab's remote Windows desktop; or Euler, ETH's shared research computers.
03 / VERIFYWork you can verify
Automatic checks verify fixed rules. Access and ownership decisions stay with the person named in the instructions.
3operating systems
24guided lessons
0paid tools required
1current lesson at a time
Preview the course topics
Topics covered
Only what your work requires.
02
Select this if you will change code or documentation shared on GitHub. Git records file versions; GitHub stores the shared project and its reviews.
Git Contributor
Explore topic03
Select this if you will run or edit Python code. Python is a programming language. A package adds reusable code; an environment keeps one project's Python and packages separate so the setup can be recreated.
Reproducible Python
Explore topic04
Select this for programs that should run on Euler, ETH Zurich's service made of many managed computers for research calculations. A CPU is the general-purpose processor used by most programs.
Euler CPU
Explore topic05
Select this for programs written and tested to use a GPU, an accelerator for compatible software, on Euler. The CPU lessons come first because CPU and GPU work use the same Euler connection and scheduling system.
Euler GPU
Explore topic06
Select this if you need the NAS, the lab's durable shared drive reached through the ETH network, for approved project data, saved program or model states, results, or deliverables.
IDEAL Lab NAS
Explore topic07
Select this if you decide where shared datasets and results belong, who may access them, or how they are handed to the next person. A dataset is a collection of research data.
Research Data Steward
Explore topic08
Select this if you need the lab's shared remote Windows computer for licensed graphical engineering software such as computer-aided design (CAD) or simulation pre/post-processing.
Blade User
Explore topic09
Select this if you choose a person's onboarding lessons, approve access, own research data, or organize the transfer of work when someone joins or leaves.
Supervisor and Staff
Explore topic10
Select this if you will use a coding agent: an AI tool that can read or edit files and run commands after your approval in a lab project folder. Ordinary chatbot use outside lab work is not included.