Plotting - QuantGen/HPCC GitHub Wiki

To see plots on the HPCC, you need to enable X11 forwarding. On a Mac, you need to install XQuartz and restart your computer to use this feature. X11 forwarding can be enabled by setting the -X in the ssh command: ssh -X [email protected]. After you have connected that way, you should be able to see the plots. You will also be able to see PDF files with a program called evince: evince file.pdf.

Unfortunately, X11 forwarding is subject to a default timeout of 20 minutes after which it stops working. This is way to short for the tasks that we are typically doing. To increase the timeout, you need to create a config file in the .ssh folder in your home directory on your computer called ~/.ssh/config that should contain the following information (replace yourusername with your username):

Host msu
    HostName hpcc.msu.edu
    User yourusername
    ForwardX11 yes
    ForwardX11Timeout 596h

A nice side effect of this configuration file is that from now on you can simply connect to the HPCC via ssh msu and get a connection with X11 forwarding with a timeout of 596 hours (i.e. almost 25 days).