2. Add a Cluster

We now need to add this cluster as a Desktop option in the Interactive Apps list. All customization is done underneath the root directory /etc/ood/config/apps/bc_desktop which requires escalated privileges to modify.

  1. Start by creating the working directory:

    mkdir -p /etc/ood/config/apps/bc_desktop

  2. For each cluster that we want to launch a Desktop session on we will need a corresponding User Form (form.yml.erb) configuration file in YAML format located in this directory.

    Assuming we want to launch a desktop on OSC’s Oakley cluster we would have:

    # /etc/ood/config/apps/bc_desktop/oakley.yml
---
title: "Oakley Desktop"
cluster: "oakley"

    Warning

    The cluster attribute above MUST match a valid cluster configuration file located underneath /etc/ood/config/clusters.d/.

  3. Navigate to your OnDemand site, in particular the Dashboard App, and you should see in the top dropdown menu “Interactive Apps” ⇒ “Oakley Desktop” (or whatever you set as the title).

    After choosing “Oakley Desktop” from the menu, you should be presented with a form to “Launch” a Desktop session to the given cluster.

    Most likely if you click “Launch” it will fail miserably. That is because we will need to configure the submission parameters for cluster’s resource manager.

    Note

    If by some chance when you click “Launch” and it actually successfully submits a job to your cluster, it is highly recommended that you click the link under “Session ID:”. This will open the file browser underneath the working directory of the batch job. This will allow you to read all the logs generated to help debug any issues that may crop up.