The cluster is only available from Duke networks. For remote access, VPN is required ( Account Requests ) .

To set up the terminal in X-Win32, follow these steps:

• Windows Start → X-Win32 2019
• If the X-Win32 Configuration window doesn't open, click Open X-Config
• On the Connections tab, click Wizard…
• On the first page, enter:
  • Name: cluster ( or anything that you want )
  • Type: select ssh
  • Click Next
• On the host page, enter:
  • host: cluster.biac.duke.edu
  • Click Next
• On the credentials page, enter:
  • Login: your NetID
  • Password: (you can leave this blank, to be prompted later)
  • Click Next
• On the command page, enter:
  • Command: select Linux XTERM
• Click Finish

To start your newly created connection:

• Select cluster under My Connections
• Click Launch
• If you didn't save your password in your connection, you will be prompted for it now. Click Continue.
• If you get a Security Alert from Windows Defender Firewall, just click Cancel. No rules need to change.
• If this is your first connection to cluster.biac.duke.edu, you'll be prompted to accept the host key (ED25519 key MD5 fingerprint is e2:e7:a4:01:74:3d:a1:2c:3b:7f:8f:cf:d1:06:14:15).
• An XTERM terminal window should appear (it may not be the foremost window).

Once the terminal is usable, all graphical forwarding should work. Type, “nedit” on the command line to test.

The next time you want to connect, you can open X-Win32 and simply “Launch” your saved connection. If you drag the connection to the “Autostart” folder, it will open automatically when you open X-Win32.

To access the cluster from a Mac or Linux machine, open your terminal window (for Mac usually the program “terminal”, Centos is konsole or xterm) and run the following command

 ssh -Y username@cluster.biac.duke.edu

The -X parameter enables the forwarding of graphics.

• after major OSX updates sometimes it is required to re-install XQuartz and reboot
• if you're experiencing x-forwarding timeout failures its usually because SSH on OSX only forwards graphics for 10 minutes by default. You can change this behavior by setting a timeout in your local ssh config file ( ie: ~/.ssh/config )

Host *
    ForwardX11 yes
    ForwardX11Timeout 596h