Desktop Sessions

A Desktop session runs a graphical (VNC) desktop on a compute resource and streams it to your browser — useful for GUI applications, visualization tools, and file management. The desktop runs on the resource itself, so your data and processes stay on the cluster.

Need a code editor instead? See VS Code Sessions.

Launch a desktop

From a cluster (Quick Launch)

1. Open your cluster and find the Quick Launch panel (Open this cluster in your browser).
2. On the Remote Desktop card, click Launch.
3. Click Launch to confirm.

From the Sessions page

1. Go to Sessions and click New Session.
2. Choose Desktop as the session type.
3. Pick the Target resource (a compute cluster or your user workspace).
4. Click Launch.

Once the session is running, the desktop appears in an embedded viewer on the session page. Use Open in new tab for a full-screen desktop.

Desktop sessions vs. interactive sessions

There are two ways to get a graphical desktop on a resource, and which one to use depends on where the desktop should run:

• On a controller (head node) or user workspace → use a Desktop session. Desktop sessions launch directly through the ACTIVATE agent, which is more reliable and more general than the workflow-based approach. This is the preferred way to get a desktop on a controller.
• On a compute node → use an interactive session. Interactive sessions submit a job through the scheduler to allocate a compute node, and remain the right tool for running a desktop — or an application like MATLAB or RStudio — on compute nodes.

In short: prefer Desktop sessions on the controller or workspace, and use interactive sessions when you need the desktop on a compute node.