Connect from the website

The Plexora website connects to a server the same way the desktop app does: you save the server once, press Connect, and its files appear under Remote in every file picker. Nothing is installed on your computer. Plexora must be installed on the server, as it is for the desktop app (Install with pip), unless the server only stores files (below).

How to connectCopy Anchor Link

1. Open Settings › Remote servers on the website, or choose Remote in a file picker.
2. Add the server from the card for your kind of machine, as in Add a server. Put your user name in the address, as [email protected].
3. Press Connect. The first time, check the server's key fingerprint against the one your site publishes and answer yes.
4. Type your password, then answer Duo or the code prompt the server asks for. Each connection asks once.
5. Wait for Connected. On a cluster that runs Plexora in a job, this includes the time the job waits in the queue.

The server's files then open like your own. Projects, regions, gates and figures stay in your browser or your Plexora folder; only the image, mask and table files stay on the server.

What happens when you connectCopy Anchor Link

• The website signs in to the server over SSH from this page, through BioCognia's relay. SSH is encrypted from your browser to the server; the relay passes the encrypted bytes on and cannot read them.
• On the server, Plexora starts a data node: in a job when the saved server asks for one (the same srun line the desktop app uses), otherwise directly. Then the SSH connection closes.
• The data node and this page exchange data through the relay, encrypted end to end with a key made in your browser.
• If the relay restarts or your network drops for a moment, both sides reconnect by themselves. Nothing is lost and you are not asked to sign in again. Reloading the page reconnects in the same way.

A server that only stores filesCopy Anchor Link

Some servers are for storing and moving files, and nothing else may run on them, such as the HMS O2 transfer node. Add one with the Files on an SSH server card, or your site's transfer card. Connecting starts nothing on the server: the website reads the files over SFTP, from this page, through the same relay, and SSH is encrypted from your browser to the server as above.

• The page holds the connection for as long as it is connected. If it drops (the relay restarts, your network changes) or you reload the page, the website signs in again by itself, and the connection dialog asks for your password and Duo again. Files being read wait until it is back.
• Closing the tab ends the connection.

On a cluster whose transfer node shares its files with the login nodes, as HMS O2's does, connecting with the cluster's own card instead reads the same files through a data node, which a dropped connection or a reload does not interrupt.

Ending a connectionCopy Anchor Link

• Disconnect in Settings, or in the connection dialog, stops the data node and its job.
• A data node with no browser connected for 30 minutes stops by itself, and so does one whose job reaches its time limit.

What the website cannot do yetCopy Anchor Link

RelatedCopy Anchor Link