We've installed an Open OnDemand instance on Talapas, currently as an experiment. This provides a way to access Talapas resources via a web browser. You can edit files, launch a shell, launch a Jupyter instance, and even launch an X11 desktop (accessed via VNC), which in turn provides access to applications like XStata, MATLAB, and RStudio. There are lots of limitations, but it's already quite usable for many tasks.
Accessing via Web Browser and Security
Summary: Open a new "incognito" or "private browsing" window in Google Chrome or Firefox , and navigate to one of
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Use your DuckID or Talapas username and password to log in.
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For similar reasons, never access this site using a computer that you don't trust, such as a public machine in a library or hotel. Your OnDemand session has all of the capabilities of your Talapas account, and can be used to edit and delete files, run jobs, etc. So keep Keep it secure.
Web Browser Oddities
There are a few things to know about web browser access. First, the Safari web browser (and possibly others) does not lacks support all for some OnDemand features. The VNC desktop does not work at all, for example. We've also seen more subtle bugs. Chrome and Firefox appear to work on all operating systems, and we recommend that you use these instead.
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You can use any partition, but for quick access, the interactive and testgpu partitions are ideal, since these usually have immediately available slots. Please delete your job when you're done using it. Also, note that like all SLURM jobs, your job will be unceremoniously killed when time runs out. So plan ahead, saving save your work periodically, etc.
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The Desktop app runs a complete X11 desktop on a compute node. It will look quite familiar if you've used Gnome 2 or MATE before. Access is via a noVNC client that runs in a browser tab. It's more network-intensive than the other apps, so it may might seem a bit sluggish, especially if accessed from off-campus.
We haven't done any special configuration of the Gnome menus yet, but You can run several Talapas-specific applications by clicking on the "Application" menu in the upper left hand corner and choosing the "Education" sub-menu. Currently these include XStata, MATLAB, and RStudio.
In addition, you're welcome to look around and run the ones other applications that look useful. (Many things that you wouldn't expect to work, like "reboot", indeed do not work.)
No special Talapas modules are loaded in the desktop. But, in many cases you can start a terminal, load whatever modules you like, and run your GUI app. So, for example, to start MATLAB, load the matlab module, run the matlab command, and after a brief delay, you'll see it start.
As mentioned in the oddity list above, if the desktop does not properly resize, you might have to close and re-launch it.
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