Running a Remote VisIt Compute Engine on DaVinci

QUICK LINKS   Creating a "Host profile" for davinci   Running a remote compute engine on davinci   Important Note

To run a remote VisIt compute engine on davini, you must first create a VisIt "host profile" for davinci. We recommend that you create two host profiles: a serial profile and a parallel profile.
Start VisIt on your local machine. Select "Host profiles" from the "Options" menu.
Add a serial profile for davinci Click the "davinci" tab. Click the "New profile" button. Enter "serial" (or another name) in the "Profile name" field. Select "Default profile for host". Enter "davinci.nersc.gov" as the "Remote host name". Enter "davinci" as the "Host name aliases". Enter your NERSC login name as the "Username". Enter "-dir /usr/common/graphics/visit" in the "Additional options" field. Click the "Apply" button.
Add a parallel profile for davinci Click the "davinci" tab if not already selected. Click the "New profile" button. Enter "parallel" (or another name) in the "Profile name" field. Deselect "Default profile for host" if it is selected. Enter "davinci.nersc.gov" as the "Remote host name". Enter "davinci" as the "Host name aliases". Enter your NERSC login name as the "Username". Enter "-dir /usr/common/graphics/visit" in "Additional options" field. Check "Parallel conmputation engine". Click the "Apply" button.
Enable SSH tunneling Click the "Advanced Options" tab. Check "Tunnel data connections through SSH." Click the "Apply" button.
Save the settings so that the profiles are available when VisIt is started the next time. On the "Options" menu, select "Save Settings". Note that clicking the "Apply" button on the "Host profiles" GUI will not save the profiles you create.
To use a remote compute engine on davinci, start VisIt on your local machine, and select "Open file" from the "File" menu. In the "File open" GUI, choose "davinci.nersc.gov" as the "Host". You'll be prompted for your password on davinci. After you enter your password, you will be able to browse browse directories on davinci.
When you open a file on davinci, select either the serial or parallel option. If you select the parallel option, then specify the number of processors, e.g., 8.
Important Note As of October 2007, with the host profiles configured as described above, you do not need to include any version number in the "Additional options" field of the "Host profile" as long as there is a version of VisIt running on davinci that is the same as the version of VisIt you are running on your local machine. Use the module command, module avail visit to check which versions of VisIt are available on davinci.
Gunther Weber, January 13, 2009
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