Accessing compute nodes with Remote Control
Be aware of security and performance considerations related to accessing compute nodes with the Remote Control application.
You can start multiple Remote Control sessions, and each session can be used to manage multiple compute nodes.
- Single-user mode. Use this connection type to establish an exclusive session with the compute node. All other Remote Control sessions to that compute node will be blocked until you disconnect from the compute node. This option is available only if there are no other Remote Control sessions established to the compute node.
- Multi-user mode. Use this connection type to enable multiple Remote Control sessions to be established with the compute node. Each compute node supports up to six concurrent Remote Control sessions.
The size of the Remote Control window and the number of active sessions might affect workstation resources, such as memory and network bandwidth, which can influence performance.
The Remote Control application is supported on systems running the following operating systems (either 32-bit or 64-bit):
- Microsoft Windows XP
- Microsoft Windows Vista
- Microsoft Windows 7
- SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLES)
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Security considerations
The user ID used to start the Remote Control application must be a valid user ID that has been defined in the management software user registry. The user ID must also have sufficient user authority to access and manage a compute node. You can assign the role of SMAdministrator to the user ID, or you can define a custom role for compute node access and management and assign that role to the user ID. If you define a custom role, it must include the following permissions, at a minimum:
- Authority to connect to a compute node remotely:
This action establishes full-screen access to a remote system.
- Authority to power on a compute node:
This action powers on a managed resource.
- Authority to power off a compute node:
This action powers off a managed resource immediately, typically enabled by out-of-band communication.
- Authority to restart a compute node:
This action resets a managed resource immediately, typically enabled by out-of-band communication.
- Authority to display resource groups:
This action displays resources and groups in your systems-management environment.
Additional permissions might be required, depending on the type of management activities that you are going to perform on the compute node.
By default, multiple Remote Control sessions can be established to a compute node. However, when you start a Remote Control session, you have the option to start the session in single-user mode, which establishes an exclusive session with the compute node. All other Remote Control sessions to that compute node will be blocked until you disconnect from the compute node.
Performance considerations
If remote sessions become slow or unresponsive, close all video and remote media sessions that you have established with the selected compute node to reduce the number of open compute node connections. In addition, by changing the following settings in Preferences, you might increase performance:
- On the KVM page:
- Decrease the percentage of video bandwidth that is used by the application. The image quality of the Remote Control session will be reduced.
- Decrease the percentage of frames that are refreshed by the application. The refresh rate of the remote session will be reduced.
- On the Thumbnails page:
- Increase the thumbnail refresh interval rate. The application will refresh thumbnails at a slower rate.
- Turn off the display of thumbnails completely.
The size of the Remote Control window and the number of active sessions might affect workstation resources, such as memory and network bandwidth, which can influence performance.
Keyboard considerations
The Remote Control application supports the following keyboard types:
- US 104-key
- Japanese 109-key
- UK 105-key
- Spanish 105-key
- Italian 105-key
- German 105-key
- French 105-key
- Swiss 105-key
- Belgian 105-key
- Chinese
- Brazilian
- Korean