GUI Programs

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Here you will find the information necessary to configure and run graphical user interface (GUI) applications on HiPerGator. The process is not complicated, but running a GUI on a remote server and displaying the windows on your local client computer with a sufficiently responsive interface is not as easy as simply running the application locally. To accomplish this task we use Xpra software - an open-source multi-platform persistent remote display server and client for forwarding application and desktop screens. Full information on Xpra can be found in its basic usage documentation and the Xpra manual. Below we show the parts of Xpra documentation relevant to running GUI Programs on HiPerGator.

Open OnDemand

We are testing an Open OnDemand setup to provide a web-only interface to starting and attaching to GUI programs and Virtual Machines with seamless connections through web browsers. This service is now in Beta and is available at the following URL:

https://ondemand.rc.ufl.edu

To provide feedback, please open a support request with [OnDemand Feedback] in the subject. Please note:

Ondemand is currently a Beta service. Users are welcome to test the service and submit support requests with feedback. However, no SLA is guaranteed and all features should be considered experimental.

GUI2

This is the second iteration of the UFRC approach to starting GUI programs in SLURM jobs on HiPerGator and attaching to them over any modern web browser.

Start GUI Session

  • Log into HiPerGator
  • Load the environment module
$ module load gui/2
  • Start a GUI session
  • Example: RStudio with 2 cpus, 8gb of memory, 24 hours of run time
$ gui start -e rstudio -c 2 -m 8 -t 24
  • Example: Matlab with default resources (1 cpu, 4gb memory, 2 hours of run time)
$ gui start -e matlab

See gui start -h to see all available options.

  • Example: Hardware-accelerated MatLab instance
$ gui start --gpu -e matlab

Show Running GUI Sessions

Note: Give the session from few seconds to a couple of minutes to start if the output is empty. 

$ gui show

The output will look similar to the following e.g. with four active sessions and real passwords listed instead of 'REDACTED' in the example: 

Current GUI sessions:
______________________________________________________________________________
#:  JobID    Application   Type  State       Reason
1: 38005270  rstudio       gui   RUNNING     
2: 38005271  rstudio       gui   RUNNING     
3: 38005272  rstudio       gui   RUNNING  
4: 38005355  matlab        gui   RUNNING     

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connection URLs:
1: https://gui3.rc.ufl.edu/4207/?password=REDACTED
2: https://gui3.rc.ufl.edu/5713/?password=REDACTED
3: https://gui5.rc.ufl.edu/12474/?password=REDACTED
4: https://gui5.rc.ufl.edu/4078/?password=REDACTED
______________________________________________________________________________

Please copy a connection URL and paste it into a modern web browser's
location bar on your LOCAL computer located on campus or connected via VPN

Connect To a GUI Session

  • Attach to a session

Copy and paste a session URI into a modern browser (tested on Firefox and Chrome/Chromium) e.g. 

https://gui3.rc.ufl.edu/4207/?password=REDACTED

As a result the browser tab becomes a 'desktop canvas' and the GUI program window should be visible and can be resized or maximized to the limits of the browser tab window as normal.

Stop a GUI Session

To stop a session either close the application, which will cause the SLURM job to automatically terminate, or cancel the session on the command-line with 

gui stop SESSION_ID

E.g. 

$ gui stop 3
Current GUI sessions:
______________________________________________________________________________
#:  JobID    Application   Type  State       Reason
1: 38005270  rstudio       gui   RUNNING     
2: 38005271  rstudio       gui   RUNNING     
3: 38005272  rstudio       gui   COMPLETING  Stopping session and cleaning up
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connection URLs:
1: https://gui3.rc.ufl.edu/4207/?password=REDACTED
2: https://gui3.rc.ufl.edu/5713/?password=REDACTED
______________________________________________________________________________

Please copy a connection URL and paste it into a modern web browser's
location bar on your LOCAL computer located on campus or connected via VPN

This is all it should take to use the 2nd generation setup.

Hardware Accelerated GUI

This is a service to provide hardware acceleration for OpenGL applications needing 3D acceleration on HPG.

To use hardware acceleration for applications launched with gui/2 use the '--gpu' argument with 'gui start'

For older gui/1 approach, which uses Xpra client software please see the following page for more information:

Hardware Accelerated GUI Sessions

GUI1

This is a classic client/server approach where a gui program is started in a SLURM job on HiPerGator and is wrapped in Xpra server. Once started the session can be attached from a remote (local) computer using the xpra client software. See GUI_Version_1 page for documentation on using the server/client xpra approach for running Gui Applications on HiPerGator.

Connect From a Client Computer

Servers in the SLURM gui partition are accessible only within the UF campus network.

If you are working off campus, you will need to use the VPN to connect to the UF campus network using AnyConnect VPN or similar software. Please see: https://vpn.ufl.edu for additional information.

Connecting from Linux

Expand this section to view connection instructions for Linux/Unix.

Use the client command provided by 'xpra_list_sessions' to connect while adding any local options you need to improve the viewing experience like desktop scaling with --desktop-scaling=on or resolution, dpi (dots per inch) with --dpi=96

Command
$USERNAME is your UF GatorLink username, $SERVERNAME is the GUI server address, and $PORT is the X11 port.
xpra attach ssh:$USERNAME@$SERVERNAME:$PORT

Example: jdoe@local_computer:~$ xpra attach ssh:testuser@i21a-s33.rc.ufl.edu:12345 --desktop-scaling=on --dpi=96

Note
if you close the application window using the close button in the top right (or left) corner, this will exit your application and terminate your SLURM gui session. Use 'Ctrl+c' key combination in the terminal windows where you ran the xpra attach command to disconnect the session if you plan to reconnect later.

Connecting from MacOS X

Expand this section to view connection instructions for MacOS X.

Note: This is done ON YOUR PERSONAL COMPUTER since you will be connecting from it to HiPerGator. Do not run this command on HiPerGator.

Use the client command provided by 'xpra_list_sessions' to connect while adding any local options you need to improve the viewing experience like desktop scaling with --desktop-scaling=on or resolution, dpi (dots per inch) with --dpi=96

Example: 

xpra attach ssh:test-user@i21a-s3.rc.ufl.edu:143 --desktop-scaling=on --dpi=96

Once the GUI application windows is displayed on your local computer, if you close the window using the close button, both the application and the SLURM gui session will close. If you want to detach from the session (leaving it running) and return later, click on the terminal window where you ran the client command and use the 'Ctrl+c' key combination to detach from the session.

Note: If the xpra script was not installed by the .pkg installer or manually as noted on the client software installation page, you will need to change into the Xpra installation directory before running Xpra executable. 

cd /Applications/Xpra.app/Contents/MacOS
xpra attach ssh:test-user@i21a-s3.rc.ufl.edu:143 --desktop-scaling=on --dpi=96

Connecting from Microsoft Windows

Expand this section to view instructions for logging in with Microsoft Windows.

Note: This is done ON YOUR PERSONAL COMPUTER since you will be connecting from it to HiPerGator. Do not run this command on HiPerGator.


Assuming the xpra shell script was downloaded and installed as on the client software installation page. You can open a new terminal window and paste the xpra connect command:

Example
xpra attach ssh:test-user@i21a-s3.rc.ufl.edu:143 --desktop-scaling=on --dpi=96

Once the GUI application windows is displayed on your local computer if you close the window using the close button both the application and the SLURM gui session will close. If you want to simply detach the session and come back later click on the terminal window where you ran the client command and use the 'Ctrl+c' key combination to detach the session.

Note: If the xpra script was not installed, you will need to navigate to the install location of xpra (normally C:\Program Files\Xpra\) .

In MobaXterm
cd "/drives/c/Program\ Files/Xpra/"
xpra attach ssh:test-user@i21a-s3.rc.ufl.edu:143 --desktop-scaling=on --dpi=96

Special cases (GUI scaling, font issues, etc)

See the Special Cases page for GUI Programs if you run a program or a local system that requires special care compared to the normal usage. Some examples of special cases include desktop scaling and DPI issues.

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