# How to manage Performance issues when using VSCode to connect to an HPC login node

**URL:** <https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/t/how-to-manage-performance-issues-when-using-vscode-to-connect-to-an-hpc-login-node/4408>\
**Category:** Discussion Zone\
**Tags:** hpc, systems, programming-for-hpc\
**Created:** [March 7, 2026, 8:42pm UTC](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/t/how-to-manage-performance-issues-when-using-vscode-to-connect-to-an-hpc-login-node/4408 "2026-03-07T20:42:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jfossot](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/user_avatar/ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/jfossot/32/932_2.png) [@jfossot](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/u/jfossot)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2026, 8:42pm UTC](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/t/how-to-manage-performance-issues-when-using-vscode-to-connect-to-an-hpc-login-node/4408/1 "2026-03-07T20:42:07Z")

</div>

**The core problem:** VSCode users connecting to an HPC login node cause performance issues, mainly through heavy file I/O (VSCode’s file watcher crawls the filesystem aggressively).

**Recommended solutions, in order of popularity:**

1. **Open OnDemand (OOD)** – The most widely adopted solution. Multiple institutions (Iowa State, University of Vermont, University of Delaware, etc.) provide VSCode Server as an interactive app through OOD, which runs the session on a compute node with proper resource constraints.

2. **SSH Tunneling to a compute node** – Start an interactive job, launch VSCode Server on the compute node bound to a port (e.g. 8080), then use SSH port-forwarding to access it from a local browser. More flexible but requires some admin setup.

3. **Registered SSH Tunnels / Code Tunnels** – Iowa State and University of Vermont use code tunnels (via tmux + VSCode tunnel) so users can connect from their local VSCode with the Remote Development extension.

4. **Dedicated VSCode landing node** – At least one institution set up a separate node specifically for VSCode connections, keeping load off the main login nodes.

5. **Restrict VSCode’s file watcher** – As a mitigation (not a full fix), users should edit their `config.json` to limit which paths VSCode crawls, which significantly reduces filesystem I/O load.

**Bottom line:** The consensus is to keep VSCode off login nodes entirely and route it through compute nodes, with OOD being the most common and admin-friendly approach.

Here are the links and resources supporting the solutions:

1. **Purdue HPC step-by-step guide** – Covers using VSCode locally and connecting to compute nodes (including interactive use like Jupyter/RStudio): [https://rcac-bioinformatics.github.io/guide/vscode/#vscode-step-by-step-instructions](https://rcac-bioinformatics.github.io/guide/vscode/#vscode-step-by-step-instructions)

2. **Iowa State University guide** – Three methods: OOD, registered tunnel, and SSH to a separate login node: [https://research.it.iastate.edu/using-vs-code-cluster](https://research.it.iastate.edu/using-vs-code-cluster)

3. **University of Delaware – vscode-shell-proxy utility** (by Jeff Frey) – Eliminates issues with the VSCode Remote-SSH extension on HPC clusters. Available on GitHub, with full details on their wiki:

4. **UoU Arbiter** – A tool for managing resource usage on login nodes (not VSCode-specific, but relevant for enforcing limits): [https://github.com/chpc-uofu/arbiter/tree/main](https://github.com/chpc-uofu/arbiter/tree/main)

5. **Open OnDemand** – The platform used by many institutions to provide browser-based VSCode access on HPC. Not a direct link from the document, but the official resource is: [https://openondemand.org](https://openondemand.org)