Since this is a recurring issue for some BRCF participants, we should beef up our documentation on how to run X11 apps installed on our compute servers.
Specifically, we need to detail what exact steps are needed to get X11 forwarding working:
- on a Mac from Terminal
- on a Mac with XQuartz
- on Windows with Putty
- on Windows with WSL
There are different use cases:
- Where X11 forwarding just has to be configured because a command line application requires it (e.g. megacc)
- Where X11 forwarding is needed to visualize the GUI of a basic X-Windows app installed on the pod (e.g. test with firefox)
- Where X11 forwarding is needed to visualize the GUI of a complex X-Windows app, e.g. 3D Slicer, which requires a GLX extension
Maorong has provided this guidance for running the CLC genomics X11 application GUI:
On Macs:
- Make sure you have Xquartz installed.
- Run Xquartz, start an xterm.
- In the xterm, run:
ssh -Y your_user_name@wcarcomp01.ccbb.utexas.edu- It will ask you to login.
- Once login, you run
/stor/opt/bin/clcgenomicswb24- It will popup a GUI on your desktop, and you should be able to interact with it.
On Windows: