Remote IP = 44.192.115.114

 

Steps for Remote Access

Before your beamtime starts 1. Review documentation Remote Operations Manual for Users Remote Access Video Remote Connecting with Webplayer Video Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) NxPlayer Short Guide 2. Check your hardware and network compatibility Check if your screen resolution is sufficient Check if your network connection is fast enough 3. Submit us request for remote access with your IP address When scheduling your beamtime, submit to your host a request to run remote. Note that remote access can be allowed from a requested pool of IP addresses only and only for the time of experiment. Also, if you are behind a proxy or firewall, your IP address presented to us may differ from what you see locally. Run Check IP Address tool to check your IP and email the requested pool of IP addresses to your host. Provide host with a phone number where you can be reached during remote experiment. 4. Fill and submit automounter templates Review automounter requirements. Download automounter templates. Populate these templates with you pucks data. Ship dewars to GMCA@APS in advance to avoid delays. Ship a 1TB or larger portable drive unless you are planning to transfer data over network with Globus. Email your host the order in which he should load the pucks.

On the day of your remote experiment 5. Connect with web browser or have NxPlayer installed We offer several options for connecting remotely to the GMCA computers: using NOMACHINE™ Webplayer running in web browser or using a standalone NOMACHINE™ NxPlayer with GMCA templates. With both methods the supported operating systems are Linux, MacOS, and Windows. Please read this FAQ to find out pros and cons of these options or click here to open the flowchart. If you are going to use NX WebPlayer which runs as a web page in web browsers (Method-1), verify that your Browser compatible, then check the WebPlayer video guide, and proceed to Step-6. If WebPlayer does not work for you, use Method-2: install a standalone version of Enterprise NxPlayer from NOMACHINE web site (admin rights are required except for MS Windows) . Once you have NxPlayer installed, clear NX cache and proceed to Step-6. 6. Check your credentials on the day of experiment You will receive remote login credentials (username and password) from your host over the phone at ~10am CST on the day of experiment. Beware that the Lab firewall treats multiple login failures as a hacking attack and blocks respective remote IP after 3 failures. Therefore it is very important that you run Check Credentials tool before trying to login remotely. Contact your host to find out what might be wrong if the tool reports incorrect login credentials. See more details in FAQ. 7. Run your remote experiment Proceed to Webplayer, enter your login credentials and then choose proper beamline workstation to connect. For standalone NxPlayer download NX session file from Table-2 and open it in NxPlayer. Connect with NX to blXws2 for data collection Connect with NX to blXws6 for data analysis) Connect with NX to blXws5 for data backups    (here X=1 for beamline 23ID-D, X=2 for 23ID-B, X=3 for 23BM) Remotely start Rayonix-300 software (BM beamline only). Phone the beamlines if needed: +1(630)252-1823 for 23-IDD and +1(630)252-1723 for 23-IDB. The office phones of GMCA hosts are listed on the staff page. You can also use Skype, BlueJeans or Zoom to communicate with the beamline or an on-site part of your team. Pidgin instant messaging client supporting most chat networks is available on all computers. 8. Transfer data back to your institution Transfer data with Globus Online, bbcp, or FDT. Check your options for convenient SFTP/SCP clients. Ship us in advance 500GB or larger portable drive if you are not planning for network transfers. 9. Logout once finished Check FAQ on how long you can use the remote workstations. Workstations blXws2 (data acquisition) and blXws6 (data processing) are available for the time of experiment only. Workstation blXws5 (data backup) is available for an extra day. It can be also used for data processing in case you have such need. Please be a good neighbor and logout from all workstations once your work is over.

 

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TABLE 1

REMOTE ACCESS TO GM/CA @ APS WITH NX WEBPLAYER Before you proceed: watch Webplayer video guide. Avoid using Wi-Fi with NX if possible: speed and display quality may drop. Do not see any links below? Then, check your credentials.

Webplayer is accessible to registered GMCA remote users for the time of their experiment only.

 

TABLE 2

PRECONFIGURED NX™ SESSIONS FOR REMOTE ACCESS TO GM/CA @ APS (right-click to download and use with already installed NxPlayer) Avoid using Wi-Fi with NX if possible: speed and display quality may drop. ATTENTION: Requires latest NxPlayer. Older versions not supported. NOTE: Checking NxPlayer box for saving passwords may lead to firewall blocking ! Do not see any links below? Then, check your credentials.

NX Templates are accessible to registered GMCA remote users for the time of their experiment only. Please contact your GMCA host if you need the templates outside of allocated beamtime slot.

¹⁾ Note-1: Our beamline computers operate under CentOS-7, a free clone of Redhat Enterprise Linux-7. We use Mate graphical destop as a faster alternative to Gnome3, the default desktop of this operating system. For the sake of simplicity, other Linux desktops, such as Gnome3, KDE, Unity, Xfce, Cinnamon, and etc., are not supported.

²⁾ Note-2: Shadow sessions establish additional connections to already running remote sessions. They provide collective viewing/controlling of the same desktop. These sessions are mostly meant for the GM/CA @ APS staff when there is a need to help users remotely. Shadow sessions are not recommended for users with slow network connections since streaming multiple remote desktops may result in a degraded performance. Be aware that with NxPlayer, after opening the shadow session and connecting to remote computer, you need to do Ctrl+Alt+DoubleClick (Cmd+Alt+DoubleClick on MacOSX) on the running session icon in order to shadow it. See this FAQ for additional details.

TABLE 4

Flowchart of remote connection options (click to enlarge)