Computational Materials Science Summer School

Instructional Lab Session Information and Instructions for the Open on Demand Portal (https://portal-lms.hprc.tamu.edu/) hosted by the Laboratory for Molecular Simulation at Texas A&M University

Instructions to login to the portal:

1) Open a web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, etc). Safari will not work. Chrome is suggested for better support of copy and paste between the host and the portal.

2) Type in the web address: https://portal-lms.hprc.tamu.edu/

3) Type in the username (cmsxx) and password that was supplied to you.

4) Once logged in Click on the Interactive Apps menu and select mm Desktop

5) Specify the number of hours and number of core (cpus) (Please see the limits in red as they may change from the graphic shown below). Leave the Node Name blank unless otherwise directed. Click on the Launch button.

After clicking the launch button, you will see that your mm Desktop is Queued. After a short period of time, it will change to running and a Launch mm Desktop button will become available. Click the Launch mm Desktop button and a new tab will open and display a desktop on the mm cluster.

Click on the Terminal Emulator icon to start a terminal. You are now ready for the instructional lab.

compression/image quality options and view-only link:

1) If you are running into slow response for the Open OnDemand portal (vidiportal), try modifying the compression and image quality settings for your desktop (Shown in the image below). Also close extra tabs and programs to free up memory and cpu, especially if you are using high compression.

2) You can share a view-only link to your portal desktop with CMS3 instructors and/or support. To copy the view-only link, Navigate to My Interactive Session and Right click on the View Only button shown in the image below.

Instructional video on how to transfer files between your local computer and the CMS3 Open onDemand portal (https://portal-lms.hprc.tamu.edu). The video shows vidiportal but the procedure is the same on portal-lms. Note: On Mac and Linux you will most likely need to use the Download button instead of drag and drop to download the file, otherwise, it may simply make a link to the file.

Copy and Paste Instructions (Chrome users that allow direct copy and paste will not need to use the intermediate clipboard):

To copy and paste between the host computer (your computer) and the remote session (mm Desktop):

  1. Open the control bar on the left of the screen and select "Clipboard".

  2. If you want to paste text from your host computer to the remote session, paste the text in the clipboard box. You can then use the middle-mouse button (MMB) to paste it in your terminal or try typing Ctrl-Shift-v.

  3. If you want to copy text from the remote session (mm Desktop) to your host computer's clipboard, simply highlight the text in the terminal. It will appear in the Clipboard toolbar pop-out where you can copy it to your host clipboard.

To copy and paste within the the remote session (mm Desktop):

  1. If you have a 3-Button mouse, you should be able to highlight text with the left mouse button and then paste with the middle mouse button.

  2. If you do not have a 3-Button mouse:

    1. You can highlight the text to copy with the left mouse button, right click for a menu and select copy and right click again for a menu and select paste.

    2. You can highlight the text to copy with the left mouse button and then find the edit/copy and edit/paste in the menu of whichever program you are using (ie the terminal )

    3. You can highlight with the left mouse button and type Ctrl-shift-c to copy and then Ctrl-shift-v to paste.


Instructional video on how to reconnect to a pre-existing desktop via the CMS3 Open onDemand portal (https://portal-lms.hprc.tamu.edu). Do not launch another desktop if you close your window, simply reconnect to the previous desktop. The video shows vidiportal but the procedure is the same for portal-lms

Support is generously provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. OAC-1829799: CyberTraining: CIC: The Texas A&M University Computational Materials Science Summer School (CMS3), as well as CIMMS, D3EM, TAMU-MSEN, Texas A&M's High Performance Research Computing, and Texas A&M's Laboratory for Molecular Simulation.