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Computing environment

Remote Unix Desktop

The remote Unix Desktop is used for remotely accessing experimental and computational resources at SSRL. This is a client/server application: the free client needs to be installed on the user's home computer. The user will then be able to run all command line and X-Window based applications available at the macromolecular crystallography beam lines from that computer. The server side runs on a SSRL computer and it performs the bulk of the computation work. The client require minimal CPU and memory resources on the client computer. Only 20 kbps of network bandwidth is required for excellent performance.

The users access the beamline computers via a Linux desktop (NX client), which provides the same computing environment found at the crystallographic beamlines, including access to the data processing servers (BLCPUs) and the beamline control software (Blu-Ice).

NX clients are available for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and Solaris.

Installation

Before accessing the NX Linux desktop for the first time, the user must follow a simple procedure to install and configure the NX client. See:

Troubleshooting

  • An error occured while connecting to the server computer:
    • Check that you network connection is active.
    • Check for typos in the server name: smbnxs1.slac.stanford.edu or smbnxs2.slac.stanford.edu
    • Occasionally an NX server may be down for maintenance and upgrades. If smbnxs1 does not respond, try reconfiguring your client to connect to smbnxs2 instead, and vice-versa.
  • The NX Client window opens but then suddenly closes:
    • The client may be trying to connect to a damaged session. Although the NX Client software has a feature that allows you to kill a process, sometimes it does not work. In addition, sometimes the software will not allow you to open a ''new'' session and automatically reconnects you (and others using the same account) to the hung session. You can try to connect to the NX server using ssh and search for running sessions as follows:
      1. ssh smbnxs2.slac.stanford.edu (or smbnxs1.slac.stanford.edu)
      2. List the running NX client sessions : ps -fe | grep $USER | grep nxagent
      3. Kill the nxagent process: kill -9 "process_id"
      If this does not work, contact support staff
  • Opening a second NX client kills the first session:
    • You may be accessing the same server using the same session name. Try connecting to a different server, or reconfiguring your NX client and provide a different session name (e.g., if you named your session try using SMB instead).
    • The client may be trying to connect to a damaged session. See above.
  • You client session suddenly closes:
    • Check the status of you internet connection
    • Someone else in your group may be accessing the same server using the same session name as you. See above
  • The fonts do not look correct:
    • Check No Machine's website to see if there are additonal font files to download.

Access to beamline computing facilities

After logging in to the NX server, the user may establish a remote internal connection to any SSRL SMB computer:

  • Click on the Blu-Ice icon in the menu bar to open Blu-Ice.
  • Click on the SSRL icon to open a BLCPU computer.
  • Open a terminal window by clicking on the terminal icon or right-click anywhere on the desktop window and select a terminal from the menu.
  • Log in to any desired machine as described in the computing environment document.