[3dem] remote microscopy question

Erdmann, Philipp erdmann at biochem.mpg.de
Wed Sep 30 09:04:15 PDT 2020 

Dear David,

here’s some advice and programs that we have found to be useful:


1) You don’t need to run (or use) Rapid to enable the connection. There is a little program called ‘PortForwarder’ among the Rapid executables. You can launch it separately and make additions to the forwarding entries as you see fit.

Just make sure you don’t lock out TFS by changing their default settings … 😳

We generally use EXTERNALLY_ACCESSIBLE_IP_OF_SUPPORT_PC : PORT_IN -> LOCAL_MICROSCOPE_IP : 5900. [With the microscope VNC server listening in on port 5900]

Note: we can’t connect to any of our scopes directly. None of them are exposed to the outside network! Feels much safer this way ...


Btw: You can use this program to forward any service! (See point 2 for example). Just make sure you’re using the right IPs. Those PCs have a whole bunch assigned to them … generally use the ones on the same subnet mask!


2) Since you’re running Windows 10, you can just use the built-in Remote Desktop application to directly connect to your Windows on the microscope PC. [my preferred solution by now!]

Just make the necessary additions to the PortForwarder program and make sure the microscope PC accepts Remote Desktop connections.

    Example: EXTERNALLY_ACCESSIBLE_IP_OF_SUPPORT_PC : 12345 -> LOCAL_MICROSCOPE_IP:3389 [3389 is the Remote Desktop port]; Then use EXTERNALLY_ACCESSIBLE_IP_OF_SUPPORT_PC : 12345 to connect.

The Remote Desktop experience is very smooth and sometimes even better than VNC.

This might also help diagnose, if your network/IP setup or the VNC server is to blame ...


3) TeamViewer might be an option, but I’m not quite sure if this use case is covered by their ‘private’ license 😉 … [hence it is banned from our PCs]



Best,

Philipp.

——————————————————————
Dr. Philipp Erdmann

Project Group Leader

Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry
Structural Biology

Am Klopferspitz 18
D-82152 Martinsried

Email: erdmann at biochem.mpg.de<mailto:erdmann at biochem.mpg.de>

Tel.: +49 89 8578-2653
——————————————————————

On Sep 30, 2020, at 16:45, Morgan, David Gene <dagmorga at indiana.edu<mailto:dagmorga at indiana.edu>> wrote:

Hi,

    I have another question related to our TFS Talos Artica.  I think the question will be generic to all Krios/Artica/Glacios machines, and at least relevant to the concerns of other people.

    After we upgraded the TFS support PC for our Artica to Windows 10, we lost the ability to run RAPID, the interface that TFS uses for remote access to the Artica.  After several months and much gnashing of teeth, we got RAPID running again.  At least in part, the RAPID system works by opening a tunnel through a particular port into the PC that actually runs the Artica.  When this port is open, it is possible for a remote user to connect directly to the Artica PC and control the microscope.  RAPID does not appear to need to be running for this to work, but it is the RAPID system that establishes and tests the port tunnel.

    We have been using this ability to establish a remote connection and any sort of VNC viewing program (such as VNCviewer or the viewer that comes with ultraVNC) to do things like check on data collection runs in the middle of the night and to check overall system health.  THe mechanics of doing this is simply to point the VNC viewer to the IP address of the support machine, but additionally to append "::portNumber" to the address.

    Except that after our upgrade to Windows 10, the connection is totally unstable.  I can make sure that it is working (by physically sitting at the Artica PC's keyboard and monitor, resetting some things and doing a test of the remote connection), only to discover later that the connection can no longer be made.  In my case, "later" can be anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours to the next day.  In no case has the connection survived 24 hours since we did the upgrade.

    We have asked several people at TFS to look into this without any success.  We have made certain that our local IT people are not doing anything that is causing the connection to break.  We have asked them to look at the various components and troubleshoot.  Again, no-one seems to have any idea what is causing this problem.

    Has anyone else run into a similar issue, and if so, what have you been able to do about it?

    As a bit of additional information, we have exactly this same problem with a TFS Teneo SEM that operates through the same sort of support PC/microscope PC system.  We do not seem to have this problem with using VNC viewers for remote connections to other systems in our facility.

    Any advice would be appreciated.  Thanks.

--
    politics is more difficult than physics.
                                             A. Einstein

            David Gene Morgan
        Electron Microscopy Center
             047E Simon Hall
             IU Bloomington
          812 856 1457 (office)
          812 856 3221 (3200)
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