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AIPS has a strong assumption within it that you are using local machine resources, for computation and data display. It is possible to run on a remote server, but AIPS still assumes you will have local display devices:
To do this, your AIPS session on the remote computer needs to start programs running on the computer you are sitting in front of. And doing that involves logging in from the remote computer to the computer you are sitting in front of, without a password.
This can be done in two ways,
via SSH,
or via RSH.
SSH is the preferred method, as it is somewhat more
secure, but it requires somewhat more setup.
We are now actively discouraging RSH.
Below we outline the various options for starting AIPS.
This starts a TV server on the local machine, the one you are sitting in front of. Running the TV server locally makes refreshing the display much quicker, because far less data has to travel across the network. AIPS starts the display by logging back in from the remote machine to your local machine and running the START_TVSERVERS command.
Here's what to do:
Take 5 minutes to set yourself up to
log in with SSH keys.
You only need to do this once.
Start your ssh-agent and load your private key into it:
Essentially, ssh-agent does your password-typing for you.
Once you ssh-add your private keys to the agent, it is able
to respond to authentication requests on your behalf, using your keys.
Sure, when loading the key you need to type your passphrase, but
this is just proving to ssh-agent that the key is yours.
You won't have to type your passphrase again, until you stop
running the agent.
The rather odd 'eval' syntax sets up some SSH-related environment variables
in the current environment. If you didn't do it this way you would
have to make ssh-agent start a shell for you, e.g.:
Ensure sshd is running on your machine, for example :
Login to the remote machine and start AIPS
The -A option will forward authentication requests
from the remote machine to your local ssh-agent.
This will allow AIPS on the remote machine to ssh back
into your local workstation and run the TV Server program.
If the remote machine does not have sshd running
(ie you cannot ssh into it) or you cannot
run ssh-agent on your local workstation, you can run
ssh-agent on the remote server.
Once you have logged into the remote machine do this:
This sequence starts ssh-agent running,
loads the private key into the agent,
and starts AIPS.
The last command kills the ssh-agent.
In some circumstances you cannot run the TV server on your local machine; for example when working from a diskless X Terminal.
In these cases you need to tell AIPS to run the TV Server on the
remote computer (ie the one you logged into to type aips),
and send the display to your screen.
Because multiple people may be using the same remote server, it is possible to be allocated someone else's TV server. The safe way to do this is:
This method ensures AIPS gives you the next available TV server and does not clobber someone else's.
You can actually exit AIPS and then restart AIPS and reattach to the existing TV server. To do this:
Look at the title bar of the display window. It should show a number from 1 to 9, which is the instance number of your TV server.
When you restart aips tell it the instance number to use, e.g.
if the instance number was 3.
Sometimes you just want to start up AIPS and quickly check something, with no extra servers started.
This prevents AIPS from starting any TV or MSG or TEK servers. You
need both notv and tvok.
The tpok argument prevents any tape access services from
being started as well.
For machines which allow rsh login, this is probably a simpler
approach. For some of the Solaris workstations this is the only
option.
First test that you can rsh from the remote server back
into your local workstation, without supplying a password. If it
prompts you for a password, add line line like the following to your
~/.rhosts file
Second, tell AIPS to use rsh instead of ssh.
You do this by setting the AIPSREMOTE environment variable to "rsh", e.g.