Connecting to VDI with a remote terminal

Description

Sometimes, when using the VDI, we just need a terminal window and we don’t need to use any of the desktop environment or graphical interface functionality. If this is the case, it’s better to connect remotely to the VDI using our terminal and ssh – this is specially convenient if our internet connection is not very good. To be able to connect remotely, you’ll first need to start a VDI session using Strudel, and then you’ll have to look at the top of the Desktop window to find the ID of your VDI machine. For example, this is a screenshot of a VDI session:

At the top of the window, you can see there is a code vdi-n28 which identifies this machine. Each time we start a new VDI instance we’ll be given a different machine with code vdi-n[XX], so you’ll need to look this up every time you create a VDI instance. For connecting to this VDI instance you’ll need to type this on your local terminal:

$ ssh pl5189@vdi-n28.nci.org.au

And then you’ll be able to connect after introducing your password. Something I often do is to start a VDI instance, close the window selecting the option Leave this instance running and then, work with it remotely for the lifetime of this instance, typically for 3 or 4 days.