Using the Grid/Needed tools

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Preliminaries

To use the Grid you will need to connect to it. One way is to log in on a machine which makes the Grid infrastructure available. Such a machine is called a User Interface. All UI's run linux. Alternatively, you can use g-eclipse which is a java-based grid environment which allows you almost all of the operations you can do on the linux command line.

NOTE: The address of the UI server and the account details you will receive from your Grid-support. If this is in any way unclear to you, please contact Grid support


SSH

To connect to the User interface (UI) you will need a secure terminal program.

SSH Windows

  • A ssh client for Windows: Putty (no need for installation, just copy the file putty.exe in your homedir).
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
  • Winscp, a nice Graphical tool to transport files.
  • Vbrowser many features including a rudimentary ssh client

Or any other ssh and scp client. Ask your local system administrator what is available on your system.

SSH Linux/Unix

On most unix systems, SSH and SCP is already installed.

Graphical environment

Windows xserver

Another useful tool on Windows to connect to the user interface could be a xserver. This allows you start programs on the UI and interact with it graphically on your local machine. Contact Grid support if you need help with this.

Linux xserver

On most Linux systems this installed by default. Use ssh -X to connect to the UI.

Configuring your own UI

Another way to interact with the Grid is to install all the User Interface executables locally and effectively use your local machine as a Grid User Interface. This is not recommended and beyond the scope of this documentation, contact Grid support if you need help with this.