Paraview on Farber

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Below is the list of ParaView version available on Farber as of August 2020. The current default version is 4.1.0

[traine@farber ~]$ vpkg_versions paraview
Available versions in package (* = default version):

[/opt/shared/valet/2.0.1/etc/paraview.vpkg_json]
paraview ParaView - Open Source Scientific Visualization
  4.1    alias to paraview/4.1.0
* 4.1.0  Version 4.1.0 packaged binary distribution
  5.4.0  Version 5.4.0 packaged binary distribution
  5.8.0  Local build with Qt5, Open MPI, various extensions

To use ParaView with a GUI on Farber a couple of steps have to be taken to load the software into your environment, set up the SSH tunnel for VNC to use, and connect to ParaView with VNC.

Working with ParaView in this method is useful because it creates a more resilient work environment. With this setup if you loose connect to the network you will not loss you work. You simple just need to setup the tunnel again and connect with VNC. After completing those steps, you will find your work just as you left it, before your loss of connection. It is also important that you proper close out on ParaView when you are done using it so that it releases the shared resources it consumes.

The following example will use the user of traine. The traine user account will have to substituted for your username when you preform these steps.

Loading ParaView

The below steps will load the ParaView software into your environment.

[traine@farber ~]$ vpkg_require paraview/5.8.0
Adding dependency `openmpi/3.1.6:fca,hcoll,mxm` to your environment
Adding dependency `intel-python/2019.5.098:python3` to your environment
Adding dependency `gcc/9.1.0` to your environment
Adding dependency `tcltk/8.6.10` to your environment
Adding package `paraview/5.8.0` to your environment
(/opt/shared/paraview/5.8.0) [traine@farber ~]

Then set run the VNC script, this will setup ParaView's GUI to run with VNC.

(/opt/shared/paraview/5.8.0) [traine@farber ~]paraview-vnc

New 'login000:1 (traine)' desktop is login000:1

Starting applications specified in /opt/shared/paraview/5.8.0/bin/paraview-xstartup
Log file is /home/1201/.vnc/login000:1.log

You will require a password to access your desktops.

Password:
Verify:

New 'login000:1 (traine)' desktop is login000:1

Starting applications specified in /opt/shared/paraview/5.8.0/bin/paraview-xstartup
Log file is /home/1201/.vnc/login000:1.log

You will only be asked to set up your password the first time you run paraview-vnc. Remember that password as you will need to use it to login into your VNC sessions for ParaView in the feature.

The base port for VNC is 5900, add your display number :1 (that can be found in the above code segment) and we get 5901.

Setting up SSH Tunuel for VNC Connection

After running the paraview-vnc the GUI you will need to set up tunnel. The steps on how to do this will are shown below for the PuTTY SSH client and Linux/Mac Terminals.

PuTTY

Open PuTTY In addition to your standard connection PuTTY settings you will need to set up the tunnel settings. The image below shows you how this in done in PuTTY. The tunnel setting are found under the Category Connection → SSH → Tunnels

After you add this setting to your session you can save them or just open the session. You will have to leave this session open and open a VNC Client software to start the ParaView GUI on your system.

Linux/Mac

Open a new terminal session on your local machine. Set up a SSH Tunnel using the below ssh command. The base port for VNC is 5900, add your display number :1 and we get 5901.

$ ssh -L 5901:localhost:5901 traine@farber.hpc.udel.edu

............................................................

    Farber cluster (farber.hpc.udel.edu)

    This computer system is maintained by University of
    Delaware IT.  Links to documentation and other online
    resources can be found at:

      http://farber.hpc.udel.edu/

    For support, please contact consult@udel.edu

............................................................

[traine@farber ~]$

Make sure that you leave this tunnel SSH session open and running in the background. If you close out of it you will not be able to connect ParaView on Farber with VNC.

Setting Up VNC

Now ParaView is running on port 5901 on Farber. A SSH tunnel is connected on your local machines port 5901 and it is mirroring port 5901 on Farber. The last step is to set up your VNC client to connect to ParaView on port 5901. These are general steps that should apply to any operating system.

Open a VNC viewer software.
Add a new connection to localhost:5901

If you don't have a VNC software you can visit REAL VNC. There you can find software downloads for many popular operating systems, and directions on how to install it.

Connecting to Paraview GUI with VNC

Once the VNC connection is create you can use it to open the ParaView GUI. When connecting you will be asked for a password. This password is the one you set the first time you ran paraview-vnc. Once that password is entered ParaView should open and you can beign working.

This step will run ParaView on a login node. Login nodes have limits resources, and are shared with all users. It's important that once you are done using ParaView that you should close out of the program to free up its resources. If you leave it running to long it could be killed by the IT-RCI sysadmin.

It is very important to correctly close out of ParaView when you are done working with it. If ParaView is not closed correctly it then it could continue to use computational resources. To quit ParaView you need to use the GUI. From in the GUI click File→Exit. This will close ParaView in your VNC connection and on Farber. After that you can close you SSH tunnel connection and your Farber SSH session.

Paraview on Farber

Available ParaView Versions

Setting up ParaView with GUI on Farder