The production SLAC FastX service is available at: https://fastx.slac.stanford.edu:3443
FastX is a modern solution for displaying remote Linux applications (X Clients) on your desktop or laptop. FastX gives you the option of using any standard web browser to connect to your remote Linux sessions. Additional information can be found on the StarNet web page: https://www.starnet.com/fastx/ .
FastX works well with Wide Area Network connections from offsite (non-SLAC networks), and it can also be used on SLAC Local Area Networks.
The SLAC FastX production service is implemented on a cluster of VMs for redundancy, performance, and horizontal scale-out capability.
The easiest way to use FastX is through your Web browser. All modern browsers are supported, including Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and IE 10+.
To start a new session, click on the plus box:
Inside the command box, you can start an xterm window and connect to a SLAC interactive login pool machine like this
(You can replace rhel6-64 with the hostname of your own group's interactive login machine if you have one):
$ xterm -e ssh rhel6-64.slac.stanford.edu
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.
Starting a lightweight window manager is not required, but it's necessary if you want to move and resize your X Clients inside your browser window.
To do that, type these two commands inside your xterm window (the xsetroot command just makes your desktop background a more pleasing color):
$ twm &
$ xsetroot -solid grey
Now you can start your Linux X applications by typing the commands inside your xterm window. For example:
$ gimp &
$ firefox &
$ /afs/slac/package/anaconda/anaconda3/bin/spyder &
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, the 'qtoken' command will quickly tell you if you have a current AFS token or not. If your AFS token as expired, then use the 'kinit' command to get a new Kerberos ticket and AFS token.
$ /usr/local/bin/qtoken
$ /usr/local/bin/kinit
Click on the link that says: "Looking for the desktop client?"
After you download and start the desktop client, click the + (plus) icon to configure a new session.
Select "Web" when given the choices of Web or SSH.
A "Web" session is required for the clustering configuration to work, and also to restore a browser session you already started. If you select SSH instead of Web, then you may not see all your available sessions – you may only see your sessions that are running on a single FastX server, and not all your sessions running on different servers in the FastX cluster. Also, you may not be able to reconnect to a session you previously started in a browser connection to FastX. And if you start a session using the desktop client in SSH mode, you may not be able to reconnect to it inside a browser connection later.
Next to name, type something like (this can be any name you choose):
slac fastx web
Next to URL, type:
https://fastx.slac.stanford.edu:3443
SLAC has a fastx-l mailing list for users of the FastX service to communicate. This is good venue to ask questions and discuss anything related to using the FastX service. When you have a FastX question or problem, there are several option you can use to get help:
Subscribe to fastx-l by using this command:
echo subscribe fastx-l | mail listserv@slac.stanford.edu
Your SLAC AFS ~/.fastx_server/ directory contains sensitive information which could expose your FastX X11 connections to others. This could lead to a compromise of your account, and/or unauthorized keystroke monitoring. Keystoke monitoring can capture other passwords you type, such as sudo, ssh password authentication to remote sites, or information entered in browser windows, even for https sites since the keystrokes are captured before SSL encryption is done.
Therefore, please take care in protecting access to this directory. Since this directory is in AFS space, you need to use AFS Access Control Lists (ACLs) to lock down the directory (regular Unix file modes using chmod do not work inside AFS space). The Scientific Computing Services (SCS) tool "system ranger" will automatically detect and fix any ~/.fastx_server/ directories in AFS space which are too permissive, and you will get an information email just letting you know it was fixed. If you get this email, it is only for your information, and no action is required. If necessary, the system ranger protects your ~/.fastx_server/ directory by removing the following entries from the AFS Access Control List:
system:anyuser rl
system:slac rl
system:authuser rl
Question | Answer |
---|---|
How do I copy/paste when using an xterm with the desktop client? | Copy and paste work just like any other program. On linux xterm, copy is highlight. Paste is middle mouse click (Command-click on a Mac laptop). Paste can also be shift+insert If you use a Mac, the usual ⌘-c for copy will not work in an xterm FastX window. |
What makes FastX fast? | https://www.starnet.com/xwin32kb/what-makes-fastx-fast/ |
What is the latest version of FastX? Where are the release notes? | https://www.starnet.com/xwin32kb/fastx-release-notes/ |
How do I connect to SLAC's FastX service? | http://fastx.slac.stanford.edu:3000 or https://fastx.slac.stanford.edu:3443 You can use FastX from any browser, or you can download the client application by going to either one of those URLs and click on 'Looking for the desktop client?' |