To access the virtual desktop on ARC via the web, you must go to https://portal.arc.utsa.edu/ and log in with your UTSA id, passphrase, and DUO app.

Once logged in you'll be able to schedule a job on ARC that reserves a node and allows you to run a virtual desktop from your web browser.

Launching a virtual desktop

Once logged in, to launch a virtual desktop go to Interactive Apps to bring down the option for Arc Virtual Desktop.

Once you click that you'll be presented with a page that asks for the number of hours you intend to use the virtual desktop and the parition you want to use.

Note that for restricted partitions like bigmem, if you haven't explicitly been given access you will get an error. Once the job request is sent you will get a confirmation that the job has been scheduled. While in this state you can cancel the job if you wish.

Once you acquire a node you'll get this menu on your interacive sessions page that allows you to launch the virtual desktop and shell.

Clicking on Launch Arc Virtual Desktop will open a page with the XFCE gui. If you click the refresh button or hit the F5 key after launching from that button you'll get a Connection Failed message and will need to return the interactive sessions screen to click the button to restart it. Note that starting a virtual shell on the host will not allow any sort of X-forwarding.

You can launch multiple instances of the virtual desktop. Each one is launched as a separate Slurm job. You can view the list of virtual desktops on the Interactive Sessions page which is viewable by clicking this icon.

Arc Virtual Shell

You can start a virtual shell on the portal node by clicking on the Arc Cluster Access option on the top menu.

This will give you a virtual shell on the portal node that has the same functionality as a login node. You can launch jobs via srun and sbatch from there, however any srun job that needs X11 forwarding will not work. For GUI apps use the virtual desktop.

Basic File Access

If you click on the Files menu drop down and click on Home Directory you can get basic file access to ARC.

You can do basic deleting, file manipulating as well as upload and downloads. This is not recommended for uploading and downloading large files.

Job Creation/Status

Under the Jobs menu drop down you get two options.

The Active Jobs menu will show you all active jobs you have running on Arc, not just virtual desktop jobs. From there you can check on their status and cancel them if you choose.

The Job Composer allows you to create an sbatch job script that you can submit to Arc via some buttons on the menu object.