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The SLAC FastX production service, which is now available, is implemented on a cluster of VMs for redundancy, performance, and horizontal scale-out capability.  

Connecting to FastX

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using your Web Browser 

The easiest way to use FastX is through the browser (.  All modern browsers are supported, including Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and IE 10+ are all supported).

1. Go to this URL:
         https://fastx.slac.stanford.edu:3443
   
   
2.  Log in with your SLAC Unix username and password. 
   
   
3. Ignore Do not check the Public Key Authentication option – that will not work well since it will not give you an AFS token.
   
   

4. To start a new session, click on the plus box: 

   
   
   

5. Inside the command box, type a ssh command like the following.

      xterm -e ssh rhel6-64.slac.stanford.edu

   You can replace rhel6-64 with the hostname of your own group's interactive login machine if you have one.

6. When your xterm session starts, you may wish to start a lightweight window manager so you can resize and move windows around inside your browser window:.
   To do that, type these two commands inside your xterm window:

      twm &
      xsetroot -solid grey

   The xsetroot command just makes your desktop background a more pleasing color.
   Starting a lightweight browser is not required, but it's necessary if you want to move and resize your X Clients inside your browser window.

7. Now you can start your linux X applications by typing the commands inside your xterm window.
   For example:

      gimp &
      firefox &
   
   

8. As always, your SLAC Unix AFS token needs to be renewed every 25 hours.   If your AFS token expires, then you will not be able to write files into your AFS home directory.
   When you reconnect to your session later, this command will tell you if you have an AFS token:

      /usr/local/bin/qtoken

   If your AFS token expired, you can get a new one with this command:

      /usr/local/bin/kinit

    

   
   

    

Using the Client application

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