NX start guide#

Installing NX NoMachine client#

Download the enterprise version of the client from the NX Client download page.

NoMachine NX Client Configuration#

NoMachine works smoothly with SSH agents, such as Pageant for Windows users, and the default agent included with OpenSSH for Linux/Mac users. As a result of that, users first need to authenticate themselves, using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) before being able to start a new NX session. You may also refer to MFA Quick Start Guide for additional information.

  1. Start the NoMachine client and press Continue until you see the screen listing your connections, titled Machines.

  2. Press Add to create a new connection

  3. In the Addres pane,

    1. choose a name for the connection, e.g., “genius”

    2. change the Protocol to SSH

    3. choose the hostname nx.hpc.kuleuven.be for Genius and port 22

      Note

      This login node cannot be used to access the cluster from the terminal.

  4. In the Configuration pane

    1. choose Use key-based authentication with a SSH agent

    2. press Modify and select Forward authentication

  5. Press Connect

  6. If this is your first login via NX, you will need to enter your VSC username

  7. Your private key or certificate will be automatically fetched from your SSH agent

  8. If you are creating for the first time choose Create a new virtual desktop. Otherwise please refer to the section on how to reconnect to an NX session for instructions.

  9. Read the useful information regarding your session displayed on several screens. This step is very important in case of mobile devices – once you miss the instructions it is not so easy to figure out how to operate NoMachine on your device. You can optionally choose not to show these messages again.

Once connected you will see the virtual Linux desktop.

Reconnecting to an NX session#

When you leave a session without logging out, you can reconnect to that session. This is of course a great feature if your network connection is not very stable. It also helps you to work more efficiently since you can simply resume your work where you left off.

When reconnecting choose your desktop from all the listed ones. If there are too many you can use the option find a user or a desktop and type your username (vsc-account). Once you found your desktop press connect.

Note that when you don’t want your session to persist, you should select Log out from the System menu.

How to start using NX on Genius?#

  1. Once your desktop is open, you can use all available GUI designed software that is listed within the Applications menu. Software is divided into several groups:

    • Accessories (e.g. Calculator, Character Map, Emacs, Gedit, GVim),

    • Graphics (e.g. gThumb Image Viewer, Xpdf PDF Viewer),

    • Internet (e.g. Firefox with pdf support, Filezilla),

    • HPC (modules related to HPC use: Computation sub-menu with MATLAB, RStudio and SAS, Visualisation sub-menu with Paraview and VisIt),

    • Programming (e.g. Meld Diff Viewer, Microsoft Visual Studio Code),

    • System tools (e.g. File Browser, Terminal).

  2. Running the applications in the text mode requires having a terminal open. To launch the terminal please go to Applications -> System tools -> Terminal. From Terminal all the commands available on regular login node can be used.

  3. Some more information can be found on slides from our lunchbox session. In the slides you can find the information how to connect the local HDD to the NX session for easier transfer of data between the cluster and your local computer.

Attached documents#