Re: [Condor-users] USE_VISIBLE_DESKTOP - shows up in Users list ofactive sessions on Win2k3Svr box?

[Ian Chesal <ICHESAL@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> Should USE_VISIBLE_DESKTOP cause a session to appear?

Yup. You should see a cmd window run that's the condor_starter spawned
by the startd on the logged in desktop. Are you keeping the machine
logged in?

> The job, unfortunately, is hanging.  Most of the way through the
script,
> it launches Excel, which should start up, run a macro, and close
itself.
> (When I RDP into the executing machine and invoke (by hand) the same
> command the job launches, Excel does indeed run the macro and shut
> itself down.

Instead of using RDP have the machine auto-login on boot up and setup a
VNC server on the box and use that to check on it. For auto-login see:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315231

For VNC see:

http://www.realvnc.com/

> So I read up on USE_VISIBLE_DESKTOP - looks like the right debug tool
> for my problem.  I add it to the executing machine's startd config, I
> condor_reconfig it, I condor_config_val and confirm that
> USE_VISIBLE_DESKTOP is True, and I resubmit my job.

I'm hazy on the details now but I think you need to do a full restart of
the startd to enable USE_VISIBLE_DESKTOP. You also need a visible
desktop available to use. We use it with auto-login + VNC and it works
fairly well.

> Problem is, the execute machine runs headless (it's off in a rack a
few
> floors away), and I don't have ready access to hook up a monitor and
see
> what's going on.  What's stranger, I can remote-desktop into the
execute
> machine, but a Ctrl-Alt-End | Users tab only shows my own
remote-desktop
> session on the machine (there's no Condor user running a session with
ID
> 0, nor with any other ID.)

VNC + auto-login. :)

> What should I expect from USE_VISIBLE_DESKTOP?

You should see a cmd window appear in your visible desktop when a job
starts. No output in the cmd window, it's just the subshell for the
condor_starter process.

> I was hoping I could use RDP with the /console switch to get a glimpse
> of what was going on, but even if that doesn't work and I need a
> physical console, I'm surprised to see no Condor user with a session,
> which leads me to suspect I don't have USE_VISIBLE_DESKTOP working at
> all.

First I'd restart the condor_startd process on the box. Just to be sure.
Maybe it'll work with RDP, but my experience says VNC + auto-login will
be better. RDP just gets in the way with all it's weird Microsofty-ness.

- Ian

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