GUI / X applications

While an HPC system is primarily a platform optimised for submitting jobs/scripts via command line interface, graphical applications that provide development tools or visualisation of data are supported.

X forwarding

If you want to forward the GUI of applications you start through your SSH session, you have to enable X-forwarding. If you are using an SSH client, that is usually done in the advanced options of your session. If you connect through a console, use the -X parameter:

ssh -X <nodename>

Any GUI application you load/run will be displayed in you desktop session.

Forward to third party system

To redirect the display to a system beyond the HPC, on another server/desktop machine:

export DISPLAY=<hostname>:<x>

Where is the full hostname/ip address of the machine you want to display on and is the number of the session on that machine. For example :

export DISPLAY=random-pc.campus.gla.ac.uk:3

Note

The target machine needs to have an “X” compatible windowing system running – could be a standard linux system like Gnome or KDE or other local X-windows system