TLC’s Jupyter Lab workstation is a state-of-the-art platform for working with Large Language Models and Artificial Intelligence components in the Jupyter Notebook. It has 10 complimentary python packages for various programming capabilities. Th workstation has a very good look and feel of the Microsoft Windows 10 Desktop, built on Linux Mint 21.3 (JImmy), which is a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system featuring the amazing Cinnamon Desktop. Also included is TLC’s customized Active Directory Join app, and optimized Windows icons, background and controls, along with XRDP integrated RDP session handler, offering a remote workstation solution for (optionally) joining centralized Active Domain controllers and giving users and admins a familiar Windows desktop look and feel. You can access from just about any PC, Phone or Tablet! MS Windows clients can use the Remote Desktop application. Android, iPhone and Apple Mac users can download a choice of free or paid-for RDP clients! On Android, we recommend Microsoft’s free RDP client, but just about any RDP client should work.
Designed to work well with lower cost non-GPU EC2 instance types, it is optimized to work with NVIDIA and Tesla GPU chipsets. Based on Debian and Ubuntu, it provides about 30,000 packages and has one of the best software managers. This is version Linux Mint 21.3 (code named Jimmy) includes not just Jupyter software, but Libra Office, FireFox, and much, much more.
HOW TO ACCESS JUPYTER-LAB NOTEBOOK VIA REMOTE HTTP ACCESS ONLY:
1. Launch your AMI ensuring you enable Public IP address and your security group allows SSH on port 22 and HTTP on port 80.
2. Allow about 5 min to fully boot after instance passes status checks (3/3 checks passed), note the assigned Public IP address (IP_ADDRESS for below).
3. Note the Public IP address assigned to your instance AND your instance ID
4. Use SSH to start the Jupyter Notebook with a command similar to this:
ssh -i ~/.ssh/name_of_your_ssh_private_key ec2-user@IP_ADDRESS -n “jupyter-lab –ip=*”
5. After a minute or so, Jupyter-lab starts and output goes to your SSH terminal. Do not close the window! Once output has stopped going to the ssh terminal window, look for the line that says ‘Or copy and paste one of these URLs:‘ and COPY the first line below that, similar to:
http://localhost:8888/lab?token=b08921855af155431f09b455284f65d4ea8c8905c419b78d
NOTE: YOUR TOKEN WILL BE DIFFERENT – COPY THE TOKEN DISPLAYED IN YOUR SSH TERMINAL, NOT THIS EXAMPLE.
6. Using the same browser you are using to access AWS, open a new tab and paste the URL copied from step 5 above, REPLCAING ONLY the word localhost with the IP_ADDRESS from step 1 above, keeping the rest of the text as-is. Press enter to navigate to the notebook. That’s it!
HOW TO ACCESS FULL MINT DESKTOP AND JUPYTER NOTEBOOK (Does not enable REMOTE HTTP access by default)
1. Launch your AMI ensuring you enable Public IP address and your security group allows RDP on port 3389. Note the Public IP address assigned to your instance AND your instance ID
2. Launch your RDP client. Instructions may differ depending on client OS. On Windows:
a. Search for Program or File
b. Enter the words ‘Remote Desktop’ and press enter
c. Select the ‘Remote Desktop Connection’ application in the search results to open it
d. In the newly opened RDP client window, enter the IP address noted in Step 1 above, press th
‘Connect’ Button. You may get warning: ‘The identity of the remote computer connection cannot b
verified’, click the ‘Yes’ button to continue. When RDP opens, you will be faced with another login
screen presented by the xrdp login session.
3. Leave the first box as-is, it should say ‘Xorg’; in the box below called username, type in ec2-user; in the box below that called password, enter the instance ID as noted in Step 3 above; press OK button – it may remain blue momentarily then will turn black.
4. THE SCREEN WILL REMAIN BLACK OR BLUE FOR SEVERAL MINUTES!!! This is the time it takes for the ec2-user desktop to be created, icons and fonts to be copied, and various settings made before your session can begin. PLEASE BE PATIENT!
5. Once logged in and the desktop appears, double-click on the Desktop icon labeled JupyterLab. Please be PATIENT while it starts! After the Jupyter-Lab application launches in a terminal window (do not close it!), the FireFox web browser will open automatically, then the Jupyter-Lab Notebook will load into the browser. That’s it!
6. When finished DO NOT LOGOUT OF THE MINT DESK TOP SESSION. Instead, simply disconnect your RDP client. As long as you do not shut-down your instance or restart the Mint desktop, the next time you return to your RDP session and log into the Xrdp log in screen, it will take you to your previous Desktop session instantly, no more black screens or waiting! You may want to change the ec2-user password and also create a password for the root user so you can update system software via GUI, etc. Just make sure passwords are complicated!
IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE LOGGING IN WITH PASSWORD ON THE XRDP LOG SCREEN, LOG IN VIA SSH and change the ec2-user password
- ssh -i ~/.ssh/name_of_your_ssh_private_key ec2-user@IP_ADDRESS
- sudo passwd ec2-user
–> enter new password twice and NOTE IT for RDP Login, above.
OR – IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE LOGGING IN WITH PASSWORD ON THE XRDP SCREEN, ENTER THE USERID AND PASSWORD INFORMATION INTO THE RDP CLIENT.
- Launch Windows Remote Desktop Connection
- Select the ‘Show Options’ drop down
- Enter IP Address and ec2-user in the appropriate entry boxes
- Check the “Always prompt for credentials’ option
- When you connect, you will be able to cut-and-paste the instance-id into the Password field of the RDP client and you will thereby bypass the xrdp login screen.
To ensure Mint’s Cinnamon desktop starts for xrdp sessions, see instructions below.
If the pretty WinTwin desktop fails to appear, is easily remedied. Once logged in, you might be in a generic XFCE4 session, not the regular Cinnamon session. If you are not in Cinnamon, right-click on your desktop to start a Terminal. In the terminal window, use sudo and edit /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh eg:
sudo vi /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh
At the bottom of the file, replace this:
text -x /etc/X11/Xsession && exec /etc/X11/Xsession
exec /bin/sh /etc/X11/Xsession
With this:
# text -x /etc/X11/Xsession && exec /etc/X11/Xsession
exec /bin/sh /usr/bin/cinnamon-session-cinnamon
Save the file, no need to restart the xrdp service. Just log out of your current desktop session and exit the RDP client session (disconnecting the RDP client alone may not be enough). Re-connect via RDP and sign in again, you should now launch Cinnamon desktop.