A full graphical desktop running on the cluster, streamed to a VNC viewer on your own machine — useful for GUI-based analysis tools that don't work well over a plain terminal.
No setup and no request needed. There's a small pool of ports, each fixed to a screen resolution — connect to whichever matches the size you want:
| Port | Resolution |
|---|---|
| 7810 | 720p |
| 7820 | 1080p |
| 7830 | 1440p |
| 7840 | 4K |
ssh -f -N -L <port>:localhost:<port> <username>@uhpc.unam.na
The local and remote port don't need to match — e.g.
ssh -f -N -L 9500:localhost:7820 <username>@uhpc.unam.na works too;
just point your VNC viewer at whichever local port you chose. If your account uses a
non-default SSH port, add -p <port> — see
Connect over SSH for details.
Download a VNC client such as
TigerVNC
if you don't have one, then connect to localhost:<port> (or your
chosen local port).
You'll land on a normal login screen — log in with your regular cluster username and password.
Each resolution supports a handful of concurrent sessions, not just one — but it's still a shared pool, not a personally reserved desktop. If everyone's slot for that resolution is busy, your connection is refused outright rather than queued; wait a moment and try again, or try a different resolution.
Your session ends automatically shortly after you close the VNC viewer, even if you didn't log out first — though logging out from the desktop is the cleaner, immediate way to end it.