[Paraview] Paraviewweb and Amazon EC2 instance: X display, GPU option, parallel visualization, launcher...

[Scott Wittenburg]

Hi Jing,

   I'm responding to your questions inline.  Thanks!


On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 8:04 AM, jlih <jlih at masonlive.gmu.edu> wrote:

>  Dear all,
>
> I have installed Paraviewweb on an Amazon EC2 GPU instance based on the
> installation guide at:
>
>
> http://www.paraview.org/ParaView3/Doc/Nightly/www/js-doc/index.html#!/guide/paraviewweb_on_aws_ec2.
> The webpages under "apps" can show up correctly. Now I am trying to install
> the parallel visualization. Here are a few questions I want to verify:
>
>
> Since the instructions you referenced describe installing a binary
version, I assume that's what you did.  However, those instructions assumed
an instance with a graphics card, hence all the instructions specific to
NVidia.  If you have chosen an instance without a graphics card, you can't
use the binary installation of ParaView, instead you'll need to compile
ParaView yourself with support for OSMesa.

>  1. When I run pvpython on the GPU instance, I got the error message
> saying "bad X display..". I guess this occurs when the instance does not
> have a "real graphics" card and "off screen rendering" option should be
> used. My question is will this error affect the Paraviewweb application?
>
>
> ParaViewWeb is just ParaView with Python turned on.  If you get a binary
version, this is already done for you.  If you compile it yourself, make
sure to enable Python during the configure stage.  At any rate, yes,
ParaViewWeb is affected the same as ParaView by not having a graphics card.

>  2.  I have installed Paraview (not Paraviewweb) on two other instances
> (without GPU) which run MPI without any issues. I would like to use those
> two instances as a part of the parallel visualization framework. Should I
> install the Paraviewweb on those two instances as well? Or I just need to
> change the machine configuration file to include the two instances?
>
>
> If you installed ParaView on those two instances, and if those
installations of ParaView include Python, then you're good to go.  Unless
they don't have graphics cards and you installed the binary version, as
mentioned above.

>  3.  It seems GPU is needed for the instance when I configured the
> Paraviewweb on Amazon  EC2. There is a option for NVIDIA.. But  I read this
> document:
>
>
> http://www.paraview.org/ParaView3/Doc/Nightly/www/js-doc/index.html#!/guide/os_mesa
> which says GPU may not be necessary. Is this applicable to Amazon EC2
> instances?
>
>
> Yep, it is.  But again, you have to compile ParaView yourself.  See the
guide you referenced above for information on how to do that.  Also there's
a ParaView wiki page <http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_And_Mesa_3D>
with information on that.

>  4.  Launcher (
>
>
> http://www.paraview.org/ParaView3/Doc/Nightly/www/js-doc/index.html#!/guide/parallel_app).
> I'm not sure if I should modify the * pw.session.public.fields* if I am
> going to use the default Parallel example provided by Paraviewweb to start
> with.
>
>
> The ParaViewWeb on EC2 documentation describes setting up the Jetty
launcher, which is totally fine.  In that case, you would set up a few
key/vals to allow that launcher to start the server side application you're
interested, the parallel visualization launcher in your case.  That's all
covered in the guide you linked.  Then you would indeed need to make sure
you add "file" to those session fields as the documentation states.

On the other hand, you might want to consider using the Python launcher
instead of the Jetty launcher.  It comes within ParaView so you don't have
another software stack to worry about, and it has all the same capabilities
and more.  For those reasons, we currently recommend the Python launcher
over the Jetty one.  You can find information about the Python launcher here
<http://www.paraview.org/ParaView3/Doc/Nightly/www/js-doc/index.html#!/guide/py_launcher>
.

>  Sorry about throwing out so many  questions but Paraviewweb is a very
> interesting application to explore.
>
>
> No worries, thanks for your interest!  Hopefully you now have what you
need to get started.

Cheers,
Scott

>  Thanks,
>
> Jing
>
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