OOD Service Deprecation
The OOD environment is being replaced by ARE (Australian Research Environment). Please migrate your workload to ARE. For more information, see the ARE User Guide.
Closing your VDI session
- Browse to the My Interactive Sessions page
- Click the Delete button on the relevant session
Disconnecting from a session
If you just want to disconnect from the virtual desktop and leave it running so that you can return to it a short time later, then simply close the browser tab.
If you temporarily lose connectivity to the desktop (eg. network dropout) then the effect is the same.
Reconnecting to a session
- Browse to the My Interactive Sessions page
- Click the Launch VDI Desktop button on the relevant session
Time Limits
VDI sessions will run up to a maximum duration (that you specified when launching).
If you are no longer needing your session you should close your VDI session to free up the resources for other users.
VDI Compute Resources
The OOD VDI App has dedicated compute resources for each user and allows users to select from several sizes when starting a new session.
If you attempt to use more CPU resources than selected, your processing will be constrained to this limit.
If you attempt to use more memory than selected your VDI session will be terminated.
Storage
Unless specifically noted in the table below, files stored on the virtual desktop node are not backed up.
You should treat any local storage locations as temporary for the duration of the desktop session only.
Location | Notes |
|---|---|
/home | User home directories. Mounted across all desktop nodes. Backed up to an archival system. Disk usage quotas apply. Good place for source code. Note that “/home” on Gadi is completely separate and cannot be accessed from the desktops. Don’t use this location for high demand I/O workloads as performance will be poor and will impact all other users. The following folders in the “Places” desktop menu are included:
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/g/data | The global Lustre filesystem which is also available on Gadi. Only a subset of volumes are accessible so please ask if you would like your project area to be made available. Primarily intended for persistent data outputs and shared software installations. |
/local | Storage on the local node primarily intended for intermediate working files. Neither persistent nor backed up. Each user’s temporary directory (“$TMPDIR”) is set to this location. Please take care not to fill up this volume as it will impact other users on the same node; currently we aren’t applying quotas but may do so in future. |
/short | Not backed up and not guaranteed to be persistent. Unlike “/local”, this area is shared amongst all desktop nodes so you can exchange temporary working data with other colleagues if needed. However, each project area is limited to 100GB and files will be purged automatically after 30 days. Don’t use this location for high demand I/O workloads as performance will be poor and will impact all other users. Note that “/scratch” on Gadi is completely separate and cannot be accessed from the desktops. |
Transferring Files
Gadi Data Movers
To transfer files to/from /g/data please use the Gadi data movers at “gadi-dm.nci.org.au” (see 0. Welcome to Gadi#0.WelcometoGadi-FileTransferto/fromGadi for details).
SFTP Transfer Node
Your OOD home directory can be accessed using the SFTP transfer node. Accessing this service does not require that you have a running session and therefore allows you to correct problems that are preventing you from starting a new session such as:
Exceeding your home directory quota.
Modifying your login scripts (eg. “.bashrc”) in such a way that prevents the session from starting correctly.
To connect to this service you need to use an SFTP compatible client, for example:
Cyberduck (Windows and macOS only)
The command line “sftp” client shipped with Linux and macOS.
Set the protocol to SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) where applicable, and then connect to the server “vdi-sftp.nci.org.au”. Login with your usual NCI username and password.
Once connected, you can perform typical file operations such as uploading, downloading, renaming, and removing files, etc. Note, however, that you cannot open a shell prompt or run arbitrary commands.
Direct Node Access
It is possible that you may want to transfer files from /local on a node. Generally, it would be better to copy the data either to your home directory or to /g/data and use one of the methods above, especially as it is only possible to access a node directly if you currently have a session running on it.
In order to do this you need to tunnel an ssh connection through the server "ood-vnc.nci.org.au". Further information can be found here: 4. Direct SSH access and here: OOD FAQ#Q:HowdoIrsyncdatatoOOD?
Some graphical clients (eg winscp) do include the ability to connect via a tunnel server, generally under an "Advanced" setting or similar.
Note that when specifying the node name to connect to behind the tunnel (eg ood-vn2) do not append "nci.org.au" to the node name.
Disk Quotas
Disk block usage and inode (number of files and directories) quota limits apply to your home directory. Only hard limits are used and therefore there is no grace period. Attempts to create new files or write additional data to existing files will fail with an error if you exceed your quota.
If your desktop session ends while you have very little or no quota left, when you try to start a new desktop session it will fail with the following error: When this occurs, you can use the SFTP transfer node to reduce your quota usage by removing some files. Note that files in the desktop “Trash” folder will consume quota until the folder is emptied by right clicking the icon and choosing “Empty Trash”. When using the SFTP transfer node, the folder path is “.local/share/Trash” in your home directory (you may need to configure your SFTP client to show hidden files). |
To see your current usage and limits, use the following command:
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A completely separate quota system is in operation on “/g/data”. You will not see any quota notifications for that filesystem. To see quotas and usage use the following command:
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PBS
The “pbs” module is loaded by default and provides a number of PBS and other Gadi commands. These aren’t native commands, instead they are a wrapper script which runs the command on Gadi using SSH. Before you can use any of these commands for the first time, you’ll need to run the following command once which will generate a key pair and register it on Gadi:
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You may encounter the following error running PBS command (such as qstat) on the VDI: "Host key verification failed". If this happens, please re-run the "remote-hpc-cmd init" command.
Remember that the only file system visible to both environments is “/g/data”, so when a command is executed on Gadi it won’t be able to access any other locations in the virtual desktop environment; e.g., your home directory.