The WEkEO DIAS offers the possibility for end-users to launch Instances (Virtual Machines) within a complete and independent cloud infrastructure. To learn how to launch an instance on WEkEO, please check How to launch an instance (Virtual Machine) on WEkEO?

You can access your virtual machines via a Command Line Interface (CLI) which is the default method, but you can also connect to a VM via a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

First of all, you need to install a graphical environment in your virtual machine. We recommend to use XFCE (we will take it for the purpose of this article).

Then, to access the Graphical User Interface (GUI) of your virtual machine, you can use programs that will allow you to connect to your machine with graphic access.

We will show here two possibilities:

To install the selected graphical desktop environment on your VM, you must first connect to the machine via SSH. You can do it by following the command below:

ssh -i <ssh_private_key> <username>@<ip_host_machine>

Take a look at this demonstrative command:

ssh -i user user@185.213.75.143

To install XFCE for Ubuntu, run the following commands:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install xfce4

To install XFCE for CentOS, run the following commands:

sudo yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm

sudo yum groupinstall "Xfce" -y

First we need to install a SSH-tunneling Remote Desktop solution on the VM.

On Ubuntu, run the following commands:

sudo apt install software-properties-common

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:x2go/stable

sudo apt update

sudo apt install x2goserver x2goserver-xsession

On CentOS, run the following command:

sudo yum install x2goserver-xsession -y

Once the server is installed on the VM, we can access it by running a client we need to install on the local computer.

For Windows:

For Ubuntu:

sudo apt install x2goclient

For CentOS:

sudo yum install x2goclient -y

To run X2Go, double click on the executable file on Windows or execute this command in a terminal: x2goclient

The following window will appear:

To create a new session, click on Session in the top menu.

Fill in the form with the following:

Configuration example:

You can change display mode in Input/Output tab:

Click OK.

Be sure to select XFCE as the GUI:

Click on the tile to connect to the machine with GUI:

First we need to install the xrdp server on the VM.

On Ubuntu, run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get -y install xrdp

sudo systemctl enable xrdp

sudo adduser xrdp ssl-cert

echo xfce4-session >~/.xsession

sudo service xrdp restart

We also need to install an ssh server:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Provide your password and say "yes" when asked.

On Windows, we will configure the SSH connection with PuTTY.

When you open PuTTY, the session canvas opens where you can fill in the form:

Then we need to configure the SSH tunnel.

On the left menu, expand SSH and click on Tunnels and provide:

Click on Add. It should look like this:

Now go back to the Session canvas and click on Save:

With this configuration saved, you won't need to repeat all these steps in the future.
From now on, you can Load this configuration.

Once it is selected, click on Open to open the SSH connection:

Then you just have to provide your username and password to connect to the VM:

Let this window opened until your deconnect from the VM.

Now that you are connected via SSH on your VM, you can use xrdp to access your VM via a graphical interface.

Open the Remote Desktop (pre-installed on Windows machines), type "localhost:5555" in the Computer field and click on Connect:

A new window will open. Enter your VM credentials:

If credentials are correct, you will reach your VM via the XFCE GUI:

After installing a Graphical User Interface on your WEkEO virtual machines, you are more than ready to download WEkEO data! Here are some articles that could be helpful on the subject:

We are user-driven and we implement users' suggestions, so feel free to contact us: