Hi there! I’m currently working with an NZESM workflow and may be spending some time away on fieldwork with minimal internet access of approx. 1GB/day. I was wondering what the internet requirements are for cylc and the web ui and whether I’d still be able to connect and run cylc workflows in this scenario. Thanks
Sorry, this is a bit non-specific: If you have a data monitor it might be worth trying before you go.
That depends on exactly what you want to do:
Develop workflows locally
If you want to play with/develop workflows and your laptop is linux based you can use it locally with no internet connection at all, though you would have to install it all (including the UI yourself). You can use --mode simulation
in this case, and you won’t be running real tasks.
SSH into a remote machine
If you want to ssh into a remote machine and run it there, then it will be the cost of the SSH connection. Using a well known search engine produced the following “linux - How much data does SSH typically use? - Super User” YMMV but it looks do-able.
You might find sshing into a remote machine and running Cylc TUI rather than the web gui works for you if this is the case.
Remote Hub Login
If you want to start the Hub on the remote machine and login locally - the comms are done using Graph QL, which is designed to be efficient. I don’t have any figures so I’d watch your data use carefully.
Running the GUI on a remote machine
X forwarding is still (as I understand it) vector based. Nonetheless I’d be very careful with it. VDI and RDP are likely to use more data than you are comfortable with.
You can use ssh port forwarding to redirect the port 8888 of your cylc host to your local machine, and then you can open the link which is printed by cylc gui on your local laptop.
The structure of your network connection (direct connection, 1 or 2 hops via login servers etc) make a difference in how this is set up.
Are you asking about accessing cylc via a satellite internet connection during a research cruise? My field work days are past me, but I remember the internet from my time down south so shakey, that it will be difficult to get a full picture of what’s going on.
I access the cylc web gui via ssh port forwarding and I access the cylc command line on the cylc host via interactive ssh shell, but my connection is via a 10Mbit/s internet line.
It’s definitely worth trying this. Some basic port forwarding instructions can be found on the NeSI (NZ) Cylc page: Connecting via ssh
If running the web UI locally (e.g. on your laptop) your data transfer volumes should be pretty small, so it may work fine.
If not, you’ll have to ssh to the HPC and run cylc tui
there in your terminal. Or just use the command line to interact with your workflow.