1. Download the tar file in this repo to your local machine and extract the contents. The executable "paraview" will be located inside the /bin directory of the extracted folder.
2. Download the job script <pv-job.sh>. This job script executes the headless side of Paraview v5.11.2 on Contra on a single node, single core, with 20 GB of RAM. This headless executable "pvserver" is installed in </home/vishnu.thulasiraman/comp_libs/paraview-5.11.2/bin/>. These settings can be modified by changing the SBATCH flags in the job script.
3. Change the port number, the five digit number at the end of the PROG variable, to a unique five digit number. Remember this, as it will be useful later on.
4. Submit the job script as usual using <sbatchpv-job.sh>.
5. The output file of this job script will tell you the node on which this job is running. Ensure this says something like "Accepting connection(s): cn1:11211". In this case, the job is running on node "cn1" and the port used is 11211.
6. Now, on the local machine, open a new terminal window and ssh using the following command: "ssh -L 11211:cn1:11211 vinay.kumar@contra.icts.res.in". Remember to replace 11211 with your port number, cn1 with the corresponding node, and, vinay.kumar with your login credentials. This will ask for your contra password, on correctly entering which, you'll see the usual login window.
7. Open paraview on your local machine from directory extracted from the tar file mentioned above.
8.From the menu bar, go to File -> Connect. I dialog box should appear.
9. Click on <AddServer> and only enter the port number chosen before. Click <Configre>, <Save>. At this point you should see a server configuration of the type cs://localhost:11211.
10. Click <Connect> on the bottom right of this window, and you should be good to go. Note that contra being contra this might take a while (not more than 60 seconds). Your machine might complain that Paraview is not responding, this is normal behavior. Wait patiently and pray to the gods of contra.
11. Once connected, you will see the server address (cs://localhost:11211) on your pipeline browser. You can now use Paraview as you would on a local machine.
Please feel free to contact Vishnu and/or Vinay in case of issues, or improvements to this documentation.