Using EC2 Instances with a GUI

Using EC2 Instances with a GUI#

Table of Contents#

What is Amazon DCV?#

Amazon DCV is a high-performance remote display protocol that provides customers with a secure way to deliver remote desktops and application streaming from any cloud or data center to any device, over varying network conditions. With Amazon DCV and Amazon EC2, customers can run graphics-intensive applications remotely on EC2 instances and stream the results to simpler client machines, eliminating the need for expensive dedicated workstations.

This guide helps customers developing for AWS F2 instances create a virtual desktop running on EC2 instances based on the FPGA Developer AMI. The FPGA Developer AMI has pre-installed tools which are license free. Combined with DCV, this enables development using Vivado or Vitis’ graphical Integrated Design Environment (IDE), which provides an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) to visualize FPGA development in the cloud.

Installing the Amazon DCV Server on an Amazon EC2 Instance#

Prerequisites#

  1. Depenency Installation

    • ⚠️ DO NOT PERFORM STEP 3! Upgrading may impact the stability of development kit software!

  2. Protocol Setup

  3. Driver Installation

Amazon DCV Server Installation#

In the install procedure described here, follow steps 1 through 5, 7, and 8. When you get to step 9, do the following:

sudo apt --fix-broken install
sudo apt install -y mesa-utils
sudo dpkg -i nice-dcv-gl_2024.0.1096-1_amd64.ubuntu<2404 or 2004>.deb

Post-Installation Checks#

This section of the post-installation check should be run to ensure that all aspects of the setup are working as expected.

Setting a Password for Your Sessions#

In order to connect to an Amazon DCV session, you must have a password set for your user on the EC2 instance. This can be done with this command:

sudo passwd $USER

Setting Security Rules to Allow Traffic on Port 8443#

In order for Amazon DCV to communicate with your EC2 instance, TCP and UDP traffic must be allowed on port 8443. This can be accomplished by updating the security group you used to launch your instance.

Amazon DCV Client Installation#

The Amazon DCV client should be installed on your local machine and is used to view your virtual desktop on your EC2 instance.

Basic Session Management#

To begin, run the following two commands:

sudo systemctl isolate multi-user.target (Ubuntu 20.04 only)
sudo systemctl restart dcvserver.service
sudo systemctl restart dcvsessionlauncher.service

Next, refer to the session management user guide here. This guide will provide you with all of the information you need to customize and manage your Amazon DCV sessions.

Quick Session Startup#

To start a session, use the following command:

dcv create-session $your_session_number
dcv list-sessions
Session: '1' (owner:ubuntu type:virtual)

You may give your session any number you like, but no two sessions may have the same number.

From this point, you can access your session using the Amazon DCV client on your local machine or via the DCV console in your web browser.

Enter https://user@ec2_instance_ip_address:8443 into the Hostname or IP Address box and click Connect. Next, click “Trust and Connect”.

Enter the password you set in Post-Installation Checks in the Password box and click Login.

At this point, you should see your session begin and a virtual desktop displayed after a brief delay.

Any popups about not having a license may be safely ignored. This is a known issue with DCV.

Now, open a terminal and run the following command: source /etc/profile.d/default_module.sh. You’re now ready to use your GUI-enabled EC2 Instance.

ubuntu@ip-1-2-3-4:~$ source /etc/profile.d/default_module.sh
ubuntu@ip-1-2-3-4:~$ vivado -version
vivado v2024.1 (64-bit)
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