HPC/Applications/lumerical

Introduction

Lumerical has two main components:

• CAD: The GUI. We have licensed 2 concurrent seats.
• FDTD: The compute engine, called either by the GUI or in a PBS job file. We have 2 + 10 concurrent seats.

There are two different license servers on Carbon, one for CAD, and another solely for compute engines. Running the CAD command will temporarily switch to the the correct server. To run a (presumably) parallel job, switch back to the engine server, as shown in the file

$LUMERICAL_HOME/sample.job

Note: FDTD does not support checkpointing (thanks to Julian S. for checking). Select your #PBS -l walltime parameter generously.

GUI Access

There are three means to access Carbon's Lumerical licenses:

1. Run on Carbon and display on your machine over X11 forwarding
2. Run on Carbon in a VNC virtual desktop and display that desktop on your machine.
3. Run on your desktop directly and use license port forwarding.

X11

Use the CAD X11 app on a Carbon login node.

CAD &

• Requires X11 forwarding under SSH.
• Disadvantage: May run slow or unstable.

VNC

Use CAD on Carbon in a VNC virtual desktop.

• Requires a VNC client on your side.
• Advantage: uses compression and hence can be faster than X11.
• Disadvantage: Limited desktop environment.

Native

Run CAD natively on your desktop, but connect to the Lumerical license server on Carbon.

• Advantage: Native graphics speed.
• Caveat: needs an active network connection to a Carbon login node.

• We do not use the new-style LM: http://docs.lumerical.com/en/mode/install_fdtd_remote_access.html
• We use the Legacy LM: http://docs.lumerical.com/en/mode/install_lumerical_license_manager.html#installation
  • Add to ~/.ssh/config:

…
Host clogin      # or similar
    LocalForward    26044 cmgmt3:26044
    …

• • In CAD, specify localhost as license server.

• • The setting is stored in ~/.config/Lumerical/FDTD\ Solutions.ini .

…
[license]
type=floating
server\host=localhost