Troubles with bc_desktop on Rocky8

[dacianstremtan]

I cannot start xfce or mate, or gnome for that matter, sessions. All the time I get the error:
Script starting…
Generating connection YAML file…
The system default contains no modules
(env var: LMOD_SYSTEM_DEFAULT_MODULES is empty)
No changes in loaded modules

Launching desktop ‘mate’…
cat: /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-keyring-gpg.desktop: No such file or directory
cat: /etc/xdg/autostart/mate-volume-control-applet.desktop: No such file or directory
cat: /etc/xdg/autostart/pulseaudio.desktop: No such file or directory
cat: /etc/xdg/autostart/rhsm-icon.desktop: No such file or directory
cat: /etc/xdg/autostart/spice-vdagent.desktop: No such file or directory
Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused

** (mate-session:24902): WARNING **: 15:20:45.168: Cannot open display:
Desktop ‘mate’ ended…
Cleaning up…

OR:

Script starting…
Generating connection YAML file…
The system default contains no modules
(env var: LMOD_SYSTEM_DEFAULT_MODULES is empty)
No changes in loaded modules

Launching desktop ‘xfce’…
Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused
xfce4-session: Cannot open display: .
Type ‘xfce4-session --help’ for usage.
Desktop ‘xfce’ ended…
Cleaning up…

Any help is really appreciated. We are on Rocky 8.7 on the compute node. I had no issues on CentOS 7.x

[travert (Travis Ravert)]

Hello and welcome!

Sorry for the issues and that I’m not going to have a great answer on this one. Thank you first for posting the output.log, would it be possible to see the vnc.log from the session as well?

I’ve seen some variations around this now with Rocky 8 and the compute nodes having issues with the desktops. Unfortunately all we have are some other similar posts for users facing this:

OOD desktop doesn't work on Rocky 8.7

So, it looks like you need to remove some packages for this to work, and I apologize because this isn’t documented anywhere and I can’t find it in our own configs so you could never have known this (and neither did I tbh). You need to remove: system-config-printer mate-power-manager Those will cause issues when launching is what I am being told. What happens if you remove those and try to connect again?

Issues running vmd on ood on cluster

Just to document, we had a discussion about this as part of the SC’21 OOD User Group BoF. We think the issue is with the xfce config and not VMD specific based upon comparing screenshots of what we see at OSC with our VMD install and the screenshot already attached. Path forward is to try to first get just a basic remote desktop working by following these instructions: Enable Interactive Desktop — Open OnDemand 2.0.13 documentation

App doesn't have desktop background

We’re finding that the XFCE scripts we use do not work well on RHEL/8. We can easily replicate the same core dumps on our RHEL/8 systems. (xfsettingsd:279777): xfsettingsd-ERROR **: 15:27:23.629: Failed to connect to the dbus session bus. /users/rbryant/ondemand/data/sys/dashboard/batch_connect/sys/RStudio/output/423acdec-8ec5-4a29-9973-cfae1ef07d61/script.sh: line 28: 279777 Trace/breakpoint trap (core dumped) xfsettingsd --sm-client-disable + xfce4-panel --sm-client-disable We haven’t mig…

So far it looks like for various users the key has been either to roll back to CentOS7 or to debug further and figure out the correct packages needed.

This is something we have on our radar to look into more when time allows as you can see from the last post. Sorry I don’t have a better answer at the moment for you though, but the vnc.log would be nice to see to try and replicate on my end.

[dacianstremtan]

There is no vnc.log file created

[travert (Travis Ravert)]

Sounds like vnc never even runs. Which vnc server are you using on the compute node?

[dacianstremtan]

We have installed TurboVNC at location /opt/turbovnc. I created symlinks to the vncserver and vncpasswd executables in the /usr/bin

[travert (Travis Ravert)]

Thanks for that.

What version of OOD are you using on the web-node and what is the OS? Also, what are you using for vnc on the web-node side?

[dacianstremtan]

We run ood node on Centos 7.x and the version is 2.0.29
ondemand.x86_64 2.0.29-1.el7 @ondemand-web

I don’t understand this question: Also, what are you using for vnc on the web-node side?

[dacianstremtan]

It’s working/ I made a mistake in trying to create a development entry in sessions for bc_desktop in my home directory to test xfce4 session on Rocky 8. I think the vnc hint help me try the new Rocky8 image with the current production bc_desktop application.
Thank you for your help
Dacian