GUI Programs

Xpra Client installation and connection instructions.

Xpra Documentation

• Xpra Homepage: https://xpra.org/
• Xpra Basic Usage: https://xpra.org/trac/wiki/Usage
• Xpra Advanced Usage: http://xpra.org/manual.html

Step 1: Client Installation

Xpra client installation depends on what operating system is running on your local machine.

Linux

The recommended option is to use the distribution specific packages if possible:

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt-get install xpra

CentOS/RHEL

sudo su -
rpm --import https://winswitch.org/gpg.asc
cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
curl -O https://winswitch.org/downloads/CentOS/winswitch.repo
yum install xpra

Windows

XP and Newer

Download and install MS Windows files: from https://xpra.org/, Installer file can be found at https://xpra.org/dists/windows/Xpra_Setup.exe.

Step 2: Start software under Xpra on UFRC side

Start application under xpra on one of the HPC interactive job nodes (gui1 for example) where $USER represents your username, $PORT is the desired X11 port, and $EXE is the executable you want to start, with full path if needed.

xpra start :{$PORT} --start-child={$EXE} --exit-with-children

Example

xpra start :123 --start-child=gedit --exit-with-children

Step 3: Connect to Xpra Session from the client side

Linux

Xpra is typically automatically added to your path during installation, so you can connect to your running xpra instance using the following syntax where $USERNAME is your UF Research Computing username, $SERVERNAME is the server where your application is running inside xpra, and $PORT is the X11 port you assigned when you started your application.

xpra attach ssh:$USERNAME@$SERVERNAME:$PORT

Example

xpra attach ssh:testuser@gui1.rc.ufl.edu:123

Windows

First, navigate to the install location of xpra (normally C:\Program Files (x86)\Xpra\).

In MobaXterm

cd /drives/c/Progam\ Files\ \(x86\)/Xpra/

Second, connect to your running xpra instance using the following syntax where $USERNAME is your UF Research Computing username, $SERVERNAME is the server where your application is running inside xpra, and $PORT is the X11 port you assigned when you started your application.

./xpra attach ssh:$USERNAME@$SERVERNAME:$PORT

Example

./xpra attach ssh:testuser@gui1.rc.ufl.edu:123

NOTE

If you close the window using the close button, this will exit your application just like a native application. If you want to simply detach the session and come back later, please follow the detaching xpra session instructions below

Step 4: Detaching Xpra Session

These instructions allow you to detach a running xpra client without closing the application.

Linux

In the original terminal where you activated the client, simply press Control-C to detach the session.

2016-04-06 15:18:17,173 Attached to ssh:testuser@gui1.rc.ufl.edu:123 (press Control-C to detach)
^C
got signal SIGINT, exiting
2016-04-06 15:18:42,513 Connection lost

You can re-attach to the running application using the xpra attach' command as described in the instructions above.

Windows

• Start a new console and navigate to the xpra directory as shown above.
• Run the following command where $USERNAME is your UF Research Computing username, $SERVERNAME is the server where your application is running inside xpra, and $PORT is the X11 port you assigned when you started your application.

./xpra detach ssh:$USERNAME@$SERVERNAME:$PORT

Example

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Xpra"
./xpra detach ssh:testuser@gui1.rc.ufl.edu:123

Note

If you are using mobaXterm, you can press Control-C in the mobaXterm window to detach, just like using the Linux client.