[Back] [Up] [Next]

## Distributed mode

When you run VisIt locally, you usually select files, open a database, and create plots using the open database. Fortunately, the procedure for running VisIt in distributed mode is no different than it is for running in single-computer mode. You begin by opening the File Selection Window and typing the name of the computer where the files are stored into the Host text field.

Once you have told VisIt which host to use when accessing files, VisIt launches the VisIt Component Launcher (VCL) on the remote computer. The VCL is a VisIt component that runs on remote computers and is responsible for launching other VisIt components such as the database server and compute engine (figure). Once you are connected to the remote computer and VCL is running, you won't have to enter a password again for the remote computer because VCL stays active for the life of your VisIt session and it takes care of launching VisIt components on the remote computer.

Figure 1

Figure 2

If VCL was able to launch on the remote computer and if it was able to successfully launch the database server, the files for the remote computer will be listed in the File Selection Window. Add the files to be visualized to the Selected files list as you would with local files and dismiss the File Selection Window. Now that you have files from the remote computer at your disposal, you can create plots as usual.