At least one S10 system fails to launch X2Go

[GrueMaster]

I have been testing our solution on the S10 platforms, part of which requires a web browser to view our demo UI.  X2Go is the simplest solution for this currently (we'll look at tunneling later).

s005-n008 was the system assigned by devcloud_login.  I was able to get around this by logging out of that system, running 'pbsnodes -s v-qsvr-fpga' to find a free S10 and ' qsub -q batch@v-qsvr-fpga -I -l nodes=s005-n009:ppn=2' to get a different available system.

I've also noticed differences in the system configurations (mostly minor, dealing with /opt installations).  These systems should be cloned and up-to-date (wish they were Ubuntu as well - sigh).

[GrueMaster]

Steps to reproduce:

1. ssh devcloud
2. pbsnodes -s v-qsvr-fpga|fgrep -A1 s005-n008   # verify system is free before next steps
3. qsub -q batch@v-qsvr-fpga -I -l nodes=s005-n008:ppn=2  # to get an interactive shell
4. (In a new terminal on your desktop)
5. ssh -L 4002:s005-n008:22 devcloud  # this establishes the X2Go tunnel
6. Launch X2Go client per instructions.
7. Observe that xfce4-session fails to launch.

The above steps work on other systems I have tested so far.

[BoonBengT_Intel]

Hi @GrueMaster,

Thank you for posting in Intel community forum and hope this message find you well.
We are still trying to investigate further on this, but as a high level analysis I am suspecting that it might be a missed in some configuration.
Please do refer to the following suggest in the link here to see if that works.

Warm regards.
BB

[GrueMaster]

So, given the fact that it works on multiple other systems EXCEPT s005-n008, you thing it is something wrong with my local x2go setup?  Really?

[BoonBengT_Intel]

Hi @GrueMaster,

Apologies on the late response and also I missed out the noted mentioning it is working on other nodes.
After some investigation it seem that the particular mention nodes 's005-n008' are not supported with X2GO as of now. (i.e. a note can be found in the setup guide in end of section 6.1)
Just a quick clarification, any reason you are trying to access x2go in the mention nodes?

Warm regards.
BB

[BoonBengT_Intel]

Hi @GrueMaster,

Perhaps you can also try check X2GO status with systemctl status x2goserver.

Warm regards.
BB

[GrueMaster]

I didn't catch that minor detail near the bottom of the x2go documentation.  Not exactly a very good location for it to be honest.

Suggestion:  Have a MOTD on that system that will let users know that it isn't supported when they log in.

As to our need, we are developing an end-to-end streaming video analytics solution, and devcloud was suggested by Intel Marketing as a way for customers (Intel and ours) to try our product.  For visualization, we create a webUI.  Being able to launch a browser in the system under X2Go would be easier, especially since Intel wants to block web servers on these systems (which I fully understand).  Once the customer 'sees' that the demo is working, they can discontinue use of the webui and focus on attaching to our back end apis and running their own experiments.

[BoonBengT_Intel]

Hi @GrueMaster,

Apologies for the inconvenient cause and appreciate the feedback as well as details explanation on the details business needs, allow us to take this back to our team for improvement. As clarification are provided, we would be closing the thread. If you have further queries, Please do post a response in the next 15 days.
After 15 days, this thread will be transitioned to community support. The community users will be able to help you with your follow-up questions.

Warm Regards
BB