Remote use of office computers

Connecting to office computers

Connect to the NTNU network (also works over VPN) and ssh into them using vortex as username, eg

ssh vortex@<ip address>

You can find the current IP addresses in the IP addresses tab in the software channels. Note that these might change in the future and the list will have to be updated manually. It is important that everyone updates the list if they notice that an address no longer works. Ideas for better ways to manage this are very welcome. Also, note that you can only ssh into a computer if it is turned on, so please do not turn off the office computers.

Tips and tricks

• A very convenient way to develop code over VPN is to connect to the computer over VS codes ssh extension. This allows for development almost like on a local machine.
• Webviz can be used to visualize the simulator when working over VS codes ssh extension.
• ssh -X vortex@<ip address> allows you to open images and pdfs from the remote computer with a GUI from your local computer.

Setting up computers for remote use

Install an ssh server

sudo apt update
sudo apt install openssh-server

Make sure the firewall does not block it

sudo ufw allow ssh

This will be enough to let external computers connect over ssh, and run the ros system. Gazebo will however not be able to launch its camera sensors, there is no DISPLAY available to the ssh process. This can be solved by doing the following

1. (if you are using a VM and not an office computer: install ubuntu-desktop)
2. sudo nano /etc/gdm3/custom.conf uncomment autologin and specify the username (usually vortex)
3. sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf check if file is empty, if yes: everything is good. If it is not empty: run sudo nvidia-xconfig
4. sudo nano /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config replace console with anybody in the bottom line
5. reboot