[Paraview] Distributing PVSC files (ParaView 4.0)

[Burlen Loring]

Hi Utkarsh,

It sounds like you need a very flexible solution, or even multiple 
solutions, given the variety of use cases you have to support.

You hit on a great point re python approach
> allows us to write code to discover informationabout the client/server 
> and take appropriate action(s). 
Which brings up another pvsc related issue could PV reliably find an 
open port when constructing the ssh tunnel from PV over to the HPC site. 
I don't think it's currently possible to script this.

Burlen

On 08/23/2011 08:22 AM, Utkarsh Ayachit wrote:
> Tim,
>
> That's was exactly what I was concerned about when it comes to using
> libssh. Good to know that there are indeed such use-cases and not
> merely hypothetical ones.
>
> Utkarsh
>
> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 11:18 AM, Tim Gallagher
> <tim.gallagher at gatech.edu>  wrote:
>> I know for our HPC access, they require a custom version of SSH that has been security enhanced. So if PV used a built-in libssh, we would be unable to use PV to connect through to them.
>>
>> I don't have a better solution, just wanted to point out that packaging libssh without an option to use a system one would not work in some cases.
>>
>> Tim
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Utkarsh Ayachit"<utkarsh.ayachit at kitware.com>
>> To: "Burlen Loring"<bloring at lbl.gov>
>> Cc: "ParaView"<paraview at paraview.org>
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 9:38:38 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Paraview] Distributing PVSC files (ParaView 4.0)
>>
>> Burlen,
>>
>> Good points. At the risk of stating the obvious let's note that we'll
>> be able to distribute different pvsc versions for the server for
>> different OSs and ParaView versions without any issue. Now locating
>> ssh/xterm/plink etc are indeed real issues.
>>
>> I don't like the cmake approach, it requires that we need a separate
>> step and would require users to install cmake (unless we include cmake
>> in the binaries). libssh approach sounds interesting. The only concern
>> is will users to reluctant to use a ssh client we provide rather than
>> their chosen (and trusted one).
>>
>> Like John said, the file inputs are already supported in pvsc.
>>
>> Pat Marion has been pushing for the ability to have Python scripts
>> instead-of/in-addition-to pvsc-xmls. I think that's another viable
>> approach since it allows us to write code to discover information
>> about the client/server and take appropriate action(s).
>>
>> Utkarsh
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 12:34 PM, Burlen Loring<bloring at lbl.gov>  wrote:
>>> Hi Utkarsh,
>>>
>>> this looks great.
>>>
>>> One thing I have encountered and that you may want to think about is that a
>>> single static pvsc is not going to work for all users as pvsc's depend on
>>> external components such as xterm, ssh, and plink. These are in different
>>> places on different user's systems, maybe not present on the user's system
>>> leading to the pvsc not working.
>>>
>>> I could see a couple of different avenues to solve this: Probably the best
>>> would be to integrate ssh tunneling into PV via libssh so that these
>>> dependencies are not needed. An aleternative would be to include a configure
>>> step in your new pvsc import process (like cmake) where dependencies are
>>> located and a system specific pvcs is generated. Something far easier and
>>> less intrusive might be to add a file dialog element to the pvsc syntax so
>>> that the user could easily  browse for these files. That's not as nice as
>>> the other approaches because it clutters the UI and the user still has to
>>> hunt down the files, but it at least gives them a method to do so.
>>>
>>> Burlen
>>>
>>> On 08/19/2011 02:15 PM, Utkarsh Ayachit wrote:
>>>> Folks,
>>>>
>>>> A feature we are thinking of implementing for ParaView 4.0 is to make
>>>> it easier to distribute pvsc files to connect to various HPC
>>>> resources. I've sketched out a rough proposal for the same at
>>>>
>>>> http://paraview.org/ParaView3/index.php/Distributing_Server_Configuration_Scripts
>>>>
>>>> Any comments/suggestions are always welcome.
>>>>
>>>> Utkarsh
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