Virtual Desktop via Jupyter on NeSI

A virtual desktop provides a graphical interface to using the cluster. Desktops are hosted within Singularity containers, so not all of the NeSI software stack is supported. If you would like to build your own desktop containers with the code here.

Rendering is done cluster-side, and compressed before being sent to your local machine. This means any rendering should be significantly more responsive than when using X11 on its own (approximately 40 times faster).

The quickest and easiest way to get started with a desktop is through Jupyter on NeSI, connect here.

Connecting¶

Click the icon labelled 'VirtualDesktop', The desktop instance will last as long as your Jupyter session.

Customisation¶

Most of the customisation of the desktop can be done from within,
panels, desktop, software preferences.

`pre.bash`¶

Enviroment set in singularity_wrapper.bash can be changed by creating a file $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/vdt/pre.bash Anything you want to run before launching the container put in here.

export VDT_BASE_IMAGE="~/my_custom_container.sif" # Use a different image file.
export VDT_RUNSCRIPT="~/my_custom_runscript" # Use a different runscript.

export OVERLAY="TRUE"
export BROWSER="chrome" # Desktop session will inherit this

module load ANSYS/2021R2 # Any modules you want to be loaded in main instance go here.

`post.bash`¶

Environment set in runscript_wrapper.bash can be changed by creating a file $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/vdt/post.bash

Things you may wish to set here are:
VDT_WEBSOCKOPTS, VDT_VNCOPTS, any changes to the wm environment, any changes to path, this include module files.

export VDT_VNCOPTS="-depth 16" # This will start a 16bit desktop
export BROWSER="chrome" # Desktop session will inherit this.

module load ANSYS/2021R2 # Any modules you want to be loaded in main instance go here.

Custom container¶

You can build your own container bootstrapping off vdt_base.sif/rocky8vis.sif and then overwrite the default by setting VDT_BASE_IMAGE in pre.bash.

You can help contribute to this project here.