[Paraview] Fwd: Not being able to connect to pvserver

Burlen Loring bloring at lbl.gov
Wed Jan 30 12:37:48 EST 2013


Hi Pradeep,

Glad you are up and running! Let me see if I can answer your remaining 
questions...
>
>  1. What did you mean by "Production setting"?
>
I just wanted you to be careful since I used "xhost +" to give pvserver 
access to the GPU. That command weakens/compromises x11 security by 
allowing *anyone* to use the local x server. It's the easiest way to get 
PV to use GPU on a system that already has x11 running. I just want to 
make it easy for you to get something going. Once you have it working 
you can refine the x11 options so that security is not compromised.

>  1. I am right now testing PV on small test cases over machines (my
>     Mac and the remote Linux) which have both graphics hardware. For
>     such a case why do I need "reverse connection"? Should I always
>     use "reverse connection"?
>
The PV connection type doesn't have anything to do with if you are using 
graphics hardware or not, it simply describes who connects to who when. 
ParaView's reverse connection is its most versatile connection option. 
It can handle every use case I've ever come across. Here's the 
difference between forward and reverse: In the forward connection the 
client attempts and fails immediately if the server isn't up and ready 
for it. however with the reverse connection the client waits for the 
server to start and connect back. The case where you really need the 
reverse connection is when a batch system is involved and the server 
doesn't start up immediately.

Using graphics hardware correctly on the server is another issue. For a 
normal linux box with x11 running you just need to tell the xserver that 
it's ok to let pv to use the graphics cards. for a cluster you may have 
to start the xserver yourself. and remember don't use ssh x forwarding 
with pv!

>  1. When I am at lab, I have a static IP for my Mac and I can log into
>     it from other computers. But I cannot access my Mac from outside
>     when I am not in the lab. Does this mean I cannot use pvserver
>     outside the lab? Or is this link
>     <https://hpcforge.org/plugins/mediawiki/wiki/pv-meshless/index.php/Launching_ParaView_on_HPC_Machines#Step_2>
>     is talking about this problem?
>
What you need is some path through the network to the machine where the 
pvserver will run. As long as you can ssh to a machine that can see the 
pvserver machine you will be able to make it work using ssh tunnels 
and/or port forwarding. ssh is extremely versatile. I don't have enough 
info about your network to give you a more specific answer.

> 1.
>     Once I manage to understand and get it working, I want to use PV
>     using a supercomputing facility. On the supercomputing facility I
>     can install PV on my login node (which has 64 processors) but not
>     on the supercomputing cluster. If I want to use the cluster (which
>     has around 50,000 processors) to visualize a big
>     data (around 800GB if possible), will installing Paraview with MPI
>     support on the login node, which is accesible by the cluster, be
>     sufficient?
>
It's not as bad as you think ;-) Use the center provided MPI libraries 
and build or install PV in a folder on a filesystem that is mounted on 
the compute nodes. Often your home folder is mounted on compute nodes. 
If not, there's usually a scratch file system for parallel I/O mounted. 
You'll need to launch the server through a batch script. For debugging 
purposes you could use an interactive batch job to get the hang of it.

Hope this clarifies
Burlen


On 01/30/2013 03:41 AM, Pradeep Jha wrote:
> Hello Burlen,
>
> I managed to get Paraview talk to the server using the instructions on 
> this website 
> <https://hpcforge.org/plugins/mediawiki/wiki/pv-meshless/index.php/Launching_ParaView_on_HPC_Machines#Step_2>. 
> That itself clarified Question number 1, 4 and 5 for me. I would 
> really appreciate if you can still answer my other queries.
>
> Thanks again,
> Pradeep
>
>
>
>
> 2013/1/30 Pradeep Jha <pradeep at ccs.engg.nagoya-u.ac.jp 
> <mailto:pradeep at ccs.engg.nagoya-u.ac.jp>>
>
>     Hello Burlen,
>
>     thanks for the detailed response. I am still not able to get it
>     work and somethings are still not clear to me. I want to ask some
>     very fundamental questions as this is my first time trying to set
>     up a something over the networks myself and the online
>     instructions are a bit too technical for me.
>
>     Presently, I have PV 3.98 installed from source with MPI support
>     on my local Mac and a remote Linux machine. I ran the pvsc file
>     that you sent from my local Mac but I was not sure what goes in
>     the input for "MPI Root" and "ParaView Root". I left those two
>     fields blank and tried to connect and gave me the following error:
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     pradeep at laptop subset]$MPI_NP=4
>     MPI_ROOT=
>     PV_ROOT=
>     PV_SERVER_PORT=11111
>     REMOTE_USER=pradeep
>     SERVER_HOST=83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp
>     <http://83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
>     SSH_PATH=/usr/bin/ssh
>     XTERM_PATH=/usr/bin/xterm
>     Accepting connection(s): laptop.local:11111
>     Server launch command is : /usr/bin/xterm -T "ParaView Server
>     pradeep at 83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp:11111
>     <http://pradeep@83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp:11111>" -e
>     /usr/bin/ssh -t -R 11111:localhost:11111
>     pradeep at 83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp
>     <mailto:pradeep at 83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp> DISPLAY=:0 xhost
>     + ; LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/lib:/lib/paraview-3.98/:LD_LIBRARY_PATH
>     DISPLAY=:0 /bin/mpirun -np 4 /bin/pvserver --reverse-connection
>     --server-port=11111 --client-host=localhost
>     The process failed to start. Either the invoked program is
>     missing, or you may have insufficient permissions to invoke the
>     program.
>     Server launch timed out.
>     ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>     Here are my questions:
>
>      1. How do I get the above thing working?
>      2. What did you mean by "Production setting"?
>      3. I am right now testing PV on small test cases over machines
>         (my Mac and the remote Linux) which have both graphics
>         hardware. For such a case why do I need "reverse connection"?
>         Should I always use "reverse connection"?
>      4. I don't understand when I initiate a pvserver on the remote
>         Linux machine and try to connect it from local Mac, why
>         doesn't it ask for a password?
>      5. My understanding is that when I get this connection going, all
>         my data should be on the server. I simply use the local Mac
>         GUI and I should be able to visualize and browse through data
>         at the remote end. Is that correct?
>      6. When I am at lab, I have a static IP for my Mac and I can log
>         into it from other computers. But I cannot access my Mac from
>         outside when I am not in the lab. Does this mean I cannot use
>         pvserver outside the lab? Or is this link
>         <https://hpcforge.org/plugins/mediawiki/wiki/pv-meshless/index.php/Launching_ParaView_on_HPC_Machines#Step_2>
>         is talking about this problem?
>     7.
>         Once I manage to understand and get it working, I want to use
>         PV using a supercomputing facility. On the supercomputing
>         facility I can install PV on my login node (which has 64
>         processors) but not on the supercomputing cluster. If I want
>         to use the cluster (which has around 50,000 processors) to
>         visualize a big
>         data (around 800GB if possible), will installing Paraview with
>         MPI support on the login node, which is accesible by the
>         cluster, be sufficient?
>
>     I guess these questions are extremely basic but I am responsible
>     for figuring this whole thing out myself and with not much direct
>     experience in networking. So it is troubling me a bit.
>
>     Hoping to hear from you,
>     Pradeep
>
>
>     2013/1/30 Burlen Loring <bloring at lbl.gov <mailto:bloring at lbl.gov>>
>
>         Hi Pradeep,
>
>
>             vtkClientSocket (0x7fc9ae108cb0): Socket error in call to
>             connect. Permission denied.
>
>
>         Your connection is being blocked somewhere in between your
>         compute node and workstation. there are various configuration
>         setting on either/both client and server that could cause it.
>         Fortunately we do not need to change any of these settings ,
>         many of which require root access and potentially open
>         security vulnerabilities. Instead, you will use an ssh tunnel
>         and a server config (pvsc) tailored to your situation to
>         automate the process.
>
>         I'm attaching a minimal pvsc that illustrates how one might
>         configure a reverse connection to a server with graphics
>         hardware.  This pvsc is for illustration only, don't use in a
>         production setting! There are number of liberties I've taken,
>         for example I assume that X11 is already running, and I use
>         "xhost +"(very very bad) to enable pvserver to access gpu's.
>         Normally I would put all of the server side stuff in a shell
>         script. I didn't do that here to keep things simple for you. I
>         hope you can use this to understand how PV works.
>
>
>             1) I connect to the CentOS machine using "ssh -X machinename".
>
>         Don't do that. With -X forwarding you won't be taking
>         advantage of your cluster's graphics hardware.
>
>         Hope this helps
>         Burlen
>
>
>         On 01/29/2013 06:41 AM, Utkarsh Ayachit wrote:
>
>             Doesn't look like your client machine can connect to the
>             server
>             machine. From the client machine try:
>
>                 ping 83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp
>                 <http://83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
>                 telnet 83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp
>                 <http://83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp> 11111
>
>
>
>             On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 4:58 AM, Pradeep Jha
>             <pradeep at ccs.engg.nagoya-u.ac.jp
>             <mailto:pradeep at ccs.engg.nagoya-u.ac.jp>> wrote:
>
>                 Hello,
>
>                 I have installed Paraview 3.98 on my Desktop (Mac OSX
>                 10.8) and a remote
>                 machine running CentOS 5.4. The CentOS machine has
>                 rendering hardware so I
>                 havent installed PV with OSMesa support.
>
>                 I can login to the CentOS from my Mac using SSH and
>                 vice versa.
>
>                 Here is how I am trying to connect:
>
>                 1) I connect to the CentOS machine using "ssh -X
>                 machinename". When I start
>                 the "pvserver" on the CentOS the output is:
>                 -------------------------------------------------------------------
>                 [pradeep at 83 ~]$pvserver
>                 Waiting for client...
>                 Connection URL:
>                 cs://83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp:11111
>                 <http://83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp:11111>
>                 Accepting connection(s):
>                 83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp:11111
>                 <http://83.shin.fluid.cse.nagoya-u.ac.jp:11111>
>                 -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                 2) Then I add this information in the paraview I am
>                 running on my Mac as
>                 shown in the attached image file.
>
>                 3) I click on connect.
>
>                 I get the following error:
>                 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                 ERROR: In
>                 /Users/pradeep/softwares/ParaView/VTK/Common/System/vtkSocket.cxx,
>                 line 481
>                 vtkClientSocket (0x7fc9ae108cb0): Socket error in call
>                 to connect.
>                 Permission denied.
>                 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                 I dont have any expertise in networking and so I dont
>                 know much about
>                 firewalls of my systems here nor do any my colleagues do.
>
>                 Thanks in advance,
>                 Pradeep
>
>
>
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