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You should be able to ssh into other SLAC machines from a fastx3 terminal. If you have a Kerberos ticket, you should be able to ssh using GSSAPI authentication (ie, without having to type a password). To get a new Kerberos ticket, type: kinit . To renew an existing Kerberos ticket, type: kinit -R .

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why is my AFS home directory not used on FastX3?
   1. Your home directory on the fastx3 server is local and empty on purpose – so you have a new, clean environment which allows the desktop and gnome-terminal applications to work properly (using old dot files from your AFS home directory can use display issues with newer versions of gnome applications). Also, highly customized shell initialization files (like .cshrc or .bashrc) can cause problems for FastX (one example is if your .cshrc does an echo command, then programs like scp and FastX can mysteriously fail). It's best to leave the FastX3 home directory environment as vanilla as possible so the FastX desktop and gnome-terminal work well.
2. What password do I use to authenticate to FastX3?
   1. Use your SLAC Unix password.
3. I get a message "Do NOT use this machine" when trying to log in
   1. That probably means you have an "XU" account which is for facility users for LCLS systems.  XU accounts do not have access to central computing systems (they do not have a valid shell on central computing systems – the "DO NOT use..." message comes from a special "use-NOT" shell).  If your status has changed from a facility users to a staff/faculty user, then you can request to have your group changed from XU to something else, so you have access to central computing systems, such as FastX.  You can contact ithelp@slac.stanford.edu for help changing your account status and getting a valid shell for central computing systems.
4. I want to run some programs directly on another SLAC machine without running programs on FastX3 first
   1. This is not worth the trouble. There are too many ways this goes wrong. Just log into the FastX3 desktop or terminal, and ssh to another SLAC machine to run your programs.
5. Will FastX3 have enough memory and cpu for all SLAC users who want to use it?
   1. FastX3 has a clustered configuration, and additional vitrual machines can be added to the cluster to meet resource requirements
6. I'd like to talk with other FastX users at SLAC
   1. SLAC has a fastx-l mailing list for users of the FastX service to communicate with each other.

   2. Subscribe to fastx-l by using this command:

      Code Block
      language text
      echo subscribe fastx-l | mail listserv@slac.stanford.edu

7. I get the error "Timeout waiting for response" when trying to log into fastx3

   1. This can happen when you 'exec' another shell from your .cshrc (or bashrc). This is one reason we have local, clean home directories for FastX3. If you put 'exec bash' at the end of your .cshrc file, you will have various mysterious problems, including not being able to log into fastx. You should change your login shell with standard methods instead of exec'ing a shell from another shell's dot files.

       

Demo video showing how to use FastX 3

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