15th Feb 2024: Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta29 released - macOS native File Chooser, macOS CMD-Q fixed, read-only Fits on network fixed and other bug fixes
7th December 2023: added payment option Alipay to purchase Astro Pixel Processor from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and other countries where Alipay is used.
The tutorial shows how to run APP on a powerful server/desktop, but use the UI on an other machine (e.g. laptop) securely via SSH. It is recommended to run only on your home network with good Ethernet/WLAN bandwidths. I written these instructions for Ubuntu Linux. You need to adapt these steps for your own distribution if needs be.
Setup the server/desktop:
1. Install APP and openssh server. It is assumed that you have a running Xorg server on the machine.
2. Enable X11 forwarding in /etc/ssh/sshd_config:
X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
X11UseLocalhost no
3. Restart ssh on the server: sudo service ssh restart
4. Modify the APP config because it uses OpenGL and it crashes the X11 forwarding with SSH. Edit /opt/AstroPixelProcessor/app/AstroPixelProcessor.cfg and add the following line to the [JVMOptions] section:
-Djogl.disable.openglarbcontext=true
Setup the laptop where you will see and control the UI:
1. Install ssh client.
2. Enable the X11 forwarding in the client config. For security reasons, enable only from the server. Edit or create the ssh config file under your home directory (/home/your_username/.ssh/config):
Host YOUR_SERVER_IP
ForwardX11 yes
ForwardX11Trusted yes
3. Run APP on the server from your laptop:
ssh -X YOUR_SERVER_IP DISPLAY=:10 /opt/AstroPixelProcessor/AstroPixelProcessor
4. Enter your license information and process your images as usual.
Hi Csaba @kecsap,
Wow, thank you very much for this instruction. This is simply awesome 😉 !
I know about X11 forwarding through SSH, used it myself during my astrophysics studies 🙂 to use the calculation power of the astrophysics department from home.
Excellent that you knew how to disable opengl in the configuration of the application as well. I should probably make this easier in APP's configuration through it's gui, so I will add this to my todo list.
Are you running APP on a powerful network of you own, company or university perhaps?
Thanks !
Mabula
Hi Mabula,
I did not know how to disable OpenGL, but the initial UI refresh was broken thus I had to google a solution for a few hours, I am not familiar with Java. 🙂
I just use my home server which is packed with bunch of RAM, CPU cores and that is the place where I upload my subs. It was straightforward to make this X11 forwarding work for your app.
Csaba
Hi Csaba,
Thank you once again for this tutorial 😉
I have upgraded this to a sticky.
Mabula
ssh -X YOUR_SERVER_IP DISPLAY=:10 /opt/AstroPixelProcessor/AstroPixelProcessor
Nowadays, it is also enough on Ubuntu 18.04:
