Before getting started you must have Smithsonian Institute VPN access. Find instructions here.

Ask Holly (holly.thomas@cfa.harvard.edu) to set you up a VNC session. You will be provided with a machine name and port number. You do not need to activate a vncsession on the RTDC before connecting remotely.

You will need your VNC password to login remotely in the next step. This can be reset on the RTDC machine in question by typing vncpasswd.

On your remote machine

• Download and install the VNC viewer app on your remote machine. E.g. VNC viewer

• Connect your remote machine to the CfA VPN with the Cisco AnyConnect app.

• Open the VNC viewer. Go to File->New connection, then type the name of the machine followed by the number of your session, e.g. rtdc11.cfa.harvard.edu:3

• Double click on your newly created session, it will ask you for your VNC password (not your CF or RTDC or VPN password). Your VNC session will pop up in a new window.

  
  

  TROUBLESHOOTING

  • If you have either a black screen with three grey checkboxes, or a session bus/connection failed error you should check which python you are using.

      $ which python

    If it is anaconda you should kill your VNC session and change the path to default system python. Then restart vncserver.

      $ vncserver -kill :X
  $ setenv PATH /usr/bin:$PATH
  $ vncserver

    Once vncserver is running and you are on the system, you can go back to using anaconda at will. you can either call it directly from /opt/anaconda3/bin/python, or change your path order again.

      $ setenv PATH /opt/anaconda3/bin/:$PATH

    To make this permanent you can remove the anaconda path from your startup files (e.g. .cshrc or .bashrc), then exit the terminal and log in again. Confirm that the default python is /usr/bin/python.

  • If the vncserver automatically gets killed after the start check your ~/.vnc/xstartup file and comment out the following lines.
      if [ -e /usr/bin/gnome-session ]; then
  vncserver -kill $DISPLAY
  fi

  • If you get a black screen (or anything similar), follow the steps in for #1 above, except make sure python is aliased to /usr/bin/python3.6.

  If you still have problems please email Holly.