Procedures for Setting Up WebMO Pro Features

	Recent news WebMO 10.1 is now available for free download! WebMO 10.1 Pro and Enterprise have a variety of additional features and is available for purchase. WebMO can now be installed on Windows, Mac, and Unix servers!
September 3, 2010

Procedures for Setting Up WebMO Pro Features

WebMO Pro is designed to facilitate the use of computational chemistry programs for users running a moderate number of computational servers. In particular, WebMO Pro adds the ability to execute jobs not only on a local machine, but also on a network of connected Unix/Linux/OS X computational servers, using its built-in Remote Server functionality. (Users who have a large computer cluster and wish to integrate with a batch queueing system such as PBS, etc., may wish to consider WebMO Enterprise.)

The following procedure assumes that WebMO Pro will be accessing an account 'smith' on a remote computational server named compute.domain.edu. Before proceeding, make sure that you have installed WebMO Pro properly and that you can submit and run jobs on the local machine.

Remote Servers (on Unix/Linux/OS X)

In order for WebMO for Unix/Linux/OS X to run jobs on remote servers, the following criteria must be met:

the WebMO application must be installed in a user's home directory, e.g., /home/webmo/public_html

suexec must be enabled

Login to the server running WebMO as the 'webmo' user
Generate a public/private key pair
From a command prompt, type 'ssh-keygen -t rsa'. Accept the default values, and DO NOT enter a passprahse (use blank), since the key will be used for passwordless unattended logins.
Add the authorized key to the remote server
% scp /home/webmo/.ssh/id_rsa.pub compute.domain.edu:/home/smith/webmo_key.pub
% ssh -l smith compute.domain.edu
On compute.domain.edu,
% cat /home/smith/webmo_key.pub >> /home/smith/.ssh/authorized_keys
% chmod 600 /home/smith/.ssh/authorized_keys
% rm /home/smith/webmo_key.pub
Test passwordless logins
Login to the server running WebMO as the 'webmo' user. From a command prompt, type 'ssh -l smith computer.domain.edu'.
If everything has gone correctly, you should be able to login WITHOUT being prompted for a password. The first time you login you may be prompted to accept the host key for the remote system; do so.
Add the remote server to WebMO
Login to WebMO as user 'admin', and go to the 'Remote Sever Manager'.
Under the 'Add server' tab, enter a name for this server (arbitrary), the hostname (computer.domain.edu), the username of the remote account ('smith'), the scratch directory to utilize on that server (/tmp, or /scratch), and select SSH as the protocol.
Click 'Add', and note any error message.

Remote Servers (on Windows)

In order for WebMO for Windows to run jobs on remote servers, the following criteria must be met:

The PuTTY ssh/scp client must be installed

Download and install PuTTY
Make sure to select the 'Windows installer' to obtain the entire PuTTY distribution.
Double click to run the installer, and accept the program defaults.
Generate a public/private keypair
Open up the PuTTYgen program from Start:Programs:PuTTY.
Make sure SSH-2 RSA key type is selected.
Click 'Generate' and move the mouse randomly around blank areas of the screen to generate the cryptographic key.
DO NOT enter a passphrase associated with the key (since the key will be used for passwordless unattended logins).
Save both the public and private keys to a secure location for further usage (confirm that you do not wish to enter a passphrase).
Add the authorized key to the remote server
Copy the text from the top text box to the clipboard (select the text and hit Ctrl+C).
Login to the 'smith' account of compute.domain.edu using SSH.
Append the contents of the clipboard to the /home/smith/.ssh/authorized_keys file. Make sure the authorized_keys file has the proper permissions (use 'chmod 600 authorized_keys').
Setup PuTTY to use the public/private keypair
Open up the PuTTY program from Start:Programs:PuTTY.
Select the session 'Default Settings' and click 'Load'.
Go to the Connection:SSH:Auth tab and under 'Private key file for authentication' select the private key file which was generated and saved in the above step.
Go to the Session tab. Select the session 'Default Settings' and click 'Save'.
Test passwordless logins
Open a command prompt by typing 'cmd' under Start:Run and clicking 'Open'.
Change to the PuTTY directory by typing 'cd \Program Files\PuTTY'.
Attempt to login to the remote server by typing 'plink -l smith computer.domain.edu'.
If everything has gone correctly, you should be able to login WITHOUT being prompted for a password. The first time you login you may be prompted to accept the host key for the remote system; do so.
Make the SSH setup information available to the 'LocalSystem' account.
From the WebMO installation folder (WebMO.install), go to the 'Scripts' sub-folder.
Double click ssh_setup.pl to finish the setup procedure.
Add the remote server to WebMO
Login to WebMO as user 'admin', and go to the 'Remote Sever Manager'.
Under the 'Add server' tab, enter a name for this server (arbitrary), the hostname (computer.domain.edu), the username of the remote account ('smith'), the scratch directory to utilize on that server (/tmp, or /scratch), and select SSH as the protocol.
Click 'Add', and note any error message.