Case 3) Logging in from an EOS Vista lab machine.
Long computational jobs on the blade center should be run as batch jobs
submitted by LSF. GUI based interactive jobs may be helpful for
pre and post processing, for viewing results, etc.
Using HPC VCL nodes (32 bit or 64 bit)
for GUI based applications is convenient (and also polite to other users).
Using an HPC VCL node gives a
user access to the HPC file systems and also exclusive use of a node.
Though GUIs can be instantiated on the login
nodes, they are likely to run slowly there due to competition with other
users. Moreover, other users on the login nodes may find their activities
such as editing and compiling files are slow when other users are
performing GUI based processing. When several users simultaneously
pop GUIs on the login nodes they can lock up and require rebooting.
To get an HPC VCL node, use your browser to go to vcl.ncsu.edu.
Select the HPC VCL application (32 or 64 bit). After the
Connect button gives an IP address, use ssh (or from
a Windows box ssh or putty) to login.
Case 2) Logging in from a Windows workstation.
While Linux, Unix, and related operating systems (such as Mac OS X)
come standard with X-Window server and ssh client, Microsoft Windows
operating system does not supply either one. To display an X-Windows
GUI on a Windows workstation both an X-Window server and an ssh client
that can tunnel X-Window traffic must be obtained and installed on
the Windows workstation.
Once these have been installed, start the X-Window server, then use
the ssh client to connect to the Linux cluster login node. Note that
some X-Window servers provide a capability to display a remote desktop.
This is not the correct method to connect to the Linux cluster. The
X-Window server should just be running - it should not be used to
establish the connection to the cluster.
Next configure the ssh client to tunnel X-Window traffic. For Putty
this is done from the menu items Go to Connection->SSH->Tunnels
and check the box "Enable X11 forwarding".
Now use the ssh client to connect to a Linux cluster login node.
Once connected, verify that the command line command
>echo $DISPLAY
returns something like "localhost:16.0". The particular number 16 could
be some other small positive integer. If so, verify that
>xclock &
command pops up a small xterminal clock on your screen.
There are explicit instructions at
http://www.eos.ncsu.edu/software/xwin32/
X-Win32 is available to all current NC State faculty, staff, and students.
An open source option is X/Cygwin.
In the case of putty, the DISPLAY variable is forwarded only if X11
forwarding in enabled on the client machine putty program. Go to
Connection->SSH->Tunnels and check the box "Enable X11 forwarding".
Make sure X-Win32 is already running before again logging into
henry2.
