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ThinLinc

ThinLinc is a program that handles remote X Window System connections and offers several performance improvements over traditional X11 forwarding. ThinLinc can greatly improve the response time of X Windows and is the recommended method of interacting with GUIs and visualization tools running on NERSC resources. ThinLinc also allows a user to disconnect from a session and reconnect to it at a later time while keeping the state of all running applications inside the session.

Getting Started with ThinLinc

ThinLinc Desktop Example Image

Install the ThinLinc Client

To use ThinLinc at NERSC, you will first need to download and install the appropriate version of the ThinLinc Client for the operating system on your laptop or workstation.

macOS Installation Tip

Some users may not see the ThinLinc client mounted drive on their Desktop because of their macOS settings. If you don't see the mounted client drive, open a finder window, and click on the left side tab that says "ThinLinc Client" which will show the UI to move the ThinLinc client to the Applications directory.

ThinLinc Client install from the macOS finder window

Configure a NERSC connection

ThinLinc at NERSC is hosted via the SSH protocol, so you must configure your connection to NERSC to authenticate via SSH. This can be done with an ssh key generated from sshproxy. You will need to regenerate your ssh keys with sshproxy once a day, but once your key is generated you will be able to continually reconnect with ThinLinc for the day.

  1. Click on "Advanced" button to get all the options
  2. Click on "Options" button to open options window
  3. Click on the "Security" tab at the top of the window
  4. Under "Authentication Method" select "Public Key"
  5. Click "ok" to save your selection
  6. Enter the connection details for ThinLinc
    • Server: thinlinc.nersc.gov
    • User: Your NERSC username
    • Key: Path to your ssh key
Authenticate on MacOS and Linux

ThinLinc example logging in with ssh keys

Authenticate on Windows

ThinLinc example logging in with ssh keys

Warning

Keys generated through WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and mounted through to Windows as well as keys in the PuTTY PPK format will not work with ThinLinc. To use ThinLinc please use the sshproxy application as follows. More on the sshproxy application can be found on the mfa page on NERSC docs. 

sshproxy -u <username>

Verify host on first connection

Upon making your first connection to NERSC via the ThinLinc client, you should see a message asking to verify the authenticity of the NERSC ThinLinc portal:

Window displaying ssk key fingerprint for ThinLinc server

The displayed key should match one of NERSC's published key fingerprints for ThinLinc.

Danger

If you notice that the key that ThinLinc displays does not match the keys published on the NERSC website, please stop and contact us immediately at the NERSC Help Desk.