FastX (desktop client) use with engaging about engaging_cluster_howto HOT 2 OPEN

HI, thanks for pointing out the typo.

Is there something wrong with using the fastx web portal? That gives you a full desktop in the browser and should give you the best performance. Just go to either eofe7.mit.edu or eofe8.mit.edu in a browser.

A few points:

1. The fastx server is installed. We are running fastx 2.4.16. You appear to be using fastx3 client?
2. The path to sci for fastx2 is /usr/bin
3. The port for the web portal is 3443. Not sure if you need to use 22 or 3443 for the desktop client. fastx documentation suggests you use 3443.
4. The easiest way to get the desktop client to work is to connect to the webportal. Add a session (+) in upper right corner. Choose web. Name the session. Use eofe8.mit.edu:3443 for the url, add your user name. A popup similar to the web page port will ask you to upload your ssh private key (not ppk) and then you should be able to establish a connection. This option will not require using pagent.

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Thanks for the point about FastX 2 -- I'd just been using the most recent version available from IS&T. I've now installed FastX 2. Unfortunately it is still not working, see below.

Regarding port/path to sci, what I used there were default settings for FastX 3 on Win10. FastX 2 appears to explicitly ask for Sci, but I have no file/folder bin/sci on windows.

Now using FastX 2 (build 2.4.16) and attempting access through the web portal. I added my (non .ppk) private key, the same one I use with my general ssh-agent. When I attempt to access eofe7.mit.edu I am prompted to login. Entering my password, I get the following message (on the login page):

Agent pid 47560 {"result":{"url":"http://localhost:3000/","token":"a9ad04a8-04d1-45ed-9b73-73b6983bd243"}} 

If I open another tab and try to access eofe7.mit.edu I see the web portal. On attempting to run an XFCE session, I get two errors:

Unable to contact settings server
Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-FhKSNTsLyh: Connection refused

and

Unable to load a failsafe session
Unable to determine failsafe session name. Possible causes:
xfconfd isn't running ( D-Bus setup problem);
environment variable $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS is set incorrectly (must include "/ etc"), or xfce4-session is installed incorrectly.

Google has a couple of hits on these errors, but all with unix solutions --- nothing for Win10. Any other ideas what I could try?

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