Graphic Environment

For graphical pre- and post-processing purposes there is 1 visualisation nodes installed in the Nehalem cluster. The node is equipped with a nVIDIA Quadro 5800 FX and has 8 GB memory. Access to the nodes is possible via ssh.

user@cl3fr1>ssh n150701

To use the graphic hardware for remote rendering there are currently two ways tested. The first is via TurboVNC the second one is directly via VirtualGL.

VNC Setup

If you want to use the Nehalem Graphic Hardware e.g. for graphical pre- and post-processing, on way to do it is via a vnc-connection.

Linux

For that purpose you have to install TurboVNC on your local machine. TurboVNC comes as a pre-compiled package which can be downloaded from http://www.virtualgl.org/Downloads/TurboVNC.

Preparation of Nehalem Cluster

Before using vnc for the first time you have to log on to the Nehalem frontend and run

vncpasswd

which creates you a .vnc directory in your home containing a passwd file.

Starting the TurboVNC server

To start a TurboVNC server you simply have to login to the visualisation node n150701 via ssh.

user@client>ssh cl3fr1.hww.de
user@cl3fr1>ssh n150701

Then load the VirtualGL module to setup the TurboVNC environment and start the TurboVNC server.

user@n150701>module load tools/VirtualGL
user@n150701>turbovncserver

The TurboVNC server returns a display number which you have to use when connecting to the server from your client.

user@client>/opt/TurboVNC/bin/vncviewer -via cl3fr1.hww.de n150701:<Display#>

Enter the vnc password you set on the frontend and you should get a Gnome session running in your TurboVNC viewer. To execute 64Bit GL Applications within this session you have to open a shell and again load the VirtualGL module to set the VirtualGL environment and then start the application with the VirtualGL wrapper command

vglrun <Application command>

Ending the vnc session

If the vnc session isn't needed any more the TurboVNC server should be shut down with

user@n150701>module load tools/VirtualGL
user@n150701>vncserver -kill :<Display#>

VirtualGL Setup

To use VirtualGL you have to install it on your local client. It is available in the form of pre-compiled packages at http://www.virtualgl.org/Downloads/VirtualGL.

Linux

After the installation of VirtualGL you can connect to cl3fr1.hww.de via the vglconnect command

user@client>vglconnect -s cl3fr1.hww.de

Then connect to the visualisation node n150701 via the vglconnect command

user@cl3fr1>module load tools/VirtualGL
user@cl3fr1>vglconnect -s n150701

On the visualisation node you can then execute 64Bit GL applications with the VirtualGL wrapper command

user@n150701>module load tools/VirtualGL
user@cl3fr1>vglrun <Application command>