# Procedure to enable interactive desktop (XFCE) on rocky8

**URL:** <https://discourse.openondemand.org/t/procedure-to-enable-interactive-desktop-xfce-on-rocky8/2978>\
**Category:** General Discussion\
**Created:** [September 21, 2023, 5:08pm UTC](https://discourse.openondemand.org/t/procedure-to-enable-interactive-desktop-xfce-on-rocky8/2978 "2023-09-21T17:08:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![garadar](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/discourse.openondemand.org/garadar/32/1877_2.png) [@garadar](https://discourse.openondemand.org/u/garadar)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2023, 5:08pm UTC](https://discourse.openondemand.org/t/procedure-to-enable-interactive-desktop-xfce-on-rocky8/2978/1 "2023-09-21T17:08:14Z")

</div>

Dear All,

I’ve taken the liberty of providing you with the whole procedure, I need to apply to get XFCE desktop work with rocky and ood. I hope it will help:

## Deploy xfce4 on rocky8 cluster

1. Defined your cluster in /etc/ood/confid/cluster.d:

```bash
(baobab)-[root@oodx~]$ cat /etc/ood/config/clusters.d/baobab.yaml 
# /etc/ood/config/clusters.d/my_cluster.yml
---
v2:
  metadata:
    title: "Baobab"
  login:
    host: "oodx"
  job:
    adapter: "slurm"
    bin: "/usr/bin"

```

- Configure the OOD dnf/yum repository and Install The meta openondemand compute rpm  
[https://yum.osc.edu/ondemand/3.0/compute/el8/x86\_64/ondemand-compute-3.0.0-1.el8.noarch.rpm](https://yum.osc.edu/ondemand/3.0/compute/el8/x86_64/ondemand-compute-3.0.0-1.el8.noarch.rpm)

1. Install XFCE on the compute node you will run the (desktop) job:  
I use this procedure:  
[https://docs.rockylinux.org/guides/desktop/xfce\_installation/](https://docs.rockylinux.org/guides/desktop/xfce_installation/)

2. Edit again the `cluster.d/cluster.yaml` This is the most important step, otherwise it won’t work and you’ll get a `vncserver: command not found` in your job output:

```bash
(baobab)-[root@oodx ~]$ cat /etc/ood/config/clusters.d/baobab.yaml 
# /etc/ood/config/clusters.d/my_cluster.yml
---
v2:
  metadata:
    title: "Baobab"
  login:
    host: "oodx"
  job:
    adapter: "slurm"
    bin: "/usr/bin"
  batch_connect:
    vnc:
      script_wrapper: "export PATH=$PATH:/opt/TurboVNC/bin\n%s"
      websockify_cmd: '/usr/bin/websockify'

```

## Test the desktop

For easy test, overwrite the bc\_desktop configuration:

```bash
(baobab)-[root@oodx ~]$ cat /etc/ood/config/apps/bc_desktop/baobab.yml 
---
title: "Baobab Desktop"
cluster: "baobab"
attributes:
  desktop: "xfce"
  bc_queue: "ood-test"
  bc_num_slots: 1

```

Where bc\_queue is the slurm partition. ( in my case I have only one node in this partition)

Maybe you will need to allow users to start vnc-session. With all test I did I do not remember where it is 😅

@jeff.ohrstrom, If I am wrong, please correct/complete me. For me it was not clear in the documentation , maybe some more tips can be added in the documentation. For example, I didn’t know that the rpm openondemand-compute existed.

Thank you for all advises