Connect to the head and login nodes through Amazon DCV - AWS ParallelCluster
Amazon DCV HTTPS certificateLicensing Amazon DCV

Connect to the head and login nodes through Amazon DCV

Amazon DCV is a remote visualization technology that enables users to securely connect to graphic-intensive 3D applications that are hosted on a remote high-performance server. For more information, see Amazon DCV.

The Amazon DCV software is automatically installed on the head node and can be enabled by using the Dcv section from the HeadNode.

Starting from AWS ParallelCluster version 3.11, Amazon DCV can be enabled for a login node pool by using the Dcv section from the LoginNodes section / Pools configuration.

LoginNodes:
  Pools:
    Dcv: 
      Enabled: true

AWS ParallelCluster sets /home/<DEFAULT_AMI_USER> as the DCV server storage folder. For more information about Amazon DCV configuration parameters, see HeadNode / Dcv.

To connect to the Amazon DCV session on the head node, use the dcv-connect command. To connect on a login node, use dcv-connect with the --login-node-ip parameter and pass in the public or private IP address of the login node you wish to connect to.

Amazon DCV HTTPS certificate

Amazon DCV automatically generates a self-signed certificate to secure traffic between the Amazon DCV client and Amazon DCV server.

To replace the default self-signed Amazon DCV certificate with another certificate, first connect to the head node. Then, copy both the certificate and key to the /etc/dcv folder before running the pcluster dcv-connect command.

For more information, see Changing the TLS certificate in the Amazon DCV Administrator Guide.

Licensing Amazon DCV

The Amazon DCV server doesn't require a license server when running on Amazon EC2 instances. However, the Amazon DCV server must periodically connect to an Amazon S3 bucket to determine if a valid license is available.

AWS ParallelCluster automatically adds the required permissions to the head node IAM policy. When using a custom IAM Instance Policy, use the permissions described in Amazon DCV on Amazon EC2 in the Amazon DCV Administrator Guide.

For troubleshooting tips, see Troubleshooting issues in Amazon DCV.