FastX 4 Server Installation

The purpose of this document is to give an in-depth understanding of how to install and configure FastX for use on your Linux system.  This guide will cover basic installation as well as more advanced topics such as installation in non standard locations.

System Requirements

  • Intel or AMD x86-64 or ARM64 processor
  • RHEL 8.6 or later (or equivalent Debian/Ubuntu etc); RHEL 10

Additional Requirements

  • FastX Activation Code (License Key)

These requirements can be modified by changing the default startup options.

  • /tmp directory with Read/Write access for all users
  • Clustering: Mounted $FX_CONFIG_DIR, $FX_VAR_DIR, $HOME directories

FastX Client

FastX can be access using the FastX client or using a common web browser. The installation of the FastX Server on your Liunx system is required in order to use the FastX client or web browser.

Installation Instructions

For Private Network Installation (Disconnected from the internet)

Basic Package

Download the repo setup script

Set up the repository:

sudo bash setup-starnet-repo.sh

Install FastX

RHEL/Fedora: 
sudo dnf install fastx4-server
Debian/Ubuntu: 
sudo apt install fastx4-server

Optional: Add a License

Run the following command

sudo -u fastx /usr/lib/fastx/4/install/activate
License Server Info

Run the following script

/usr/lib/fastx/4/install/license-server

See Licensing for more information

Default Ports

  • TCP Port 3300 for http and https (https://hostname:3300)
  • TCP Port 22 for SSH
  • TCP 3322 (localhost only) for launching sessions

Memory Requirements for Sessions

A FastX session’s memory requirements are highly dependent on the applications running in the session.  As such provisioning requires some calculations based on your actual use case.  We provide the following examples to give you a better understanding of the system requirements when provisioning your systems.

  • FastX Xterm single window mode session 4K:  360 MB RAM
  • FastX Gnome single window mode session 4K:  1.1 Gig RAM

The load of the actual FastX session (running 0 apps) is about 15MB.

We also recommend a system with at least 8 logical CPU cores in order to maximize the CPU compression speed,

Advanced Installation Topics

Installing in an Alternate Location

On RPM based systems (RHEL/Fedora/CentOS/SuSE/etc), the FastX server can be installed in a location different from the default.
In the following example, the FastX server will be installed in /opt/fastx

rpm -i --prefix=/opt/fastx fastx4-server-*.rpm

NOTE: Debian packages (.deb) do not install to an alternate location. To install the FastX server in an alternate location, use the non-root instructions

Disabling Services

The following services are installed by default

  • fastx4 — web server
  • fastx4-sshd — sshd service for launching sessions without user logins
  • fastx4-rlm — rlm license service

To prevent the installation of services add the environment variable FASTX_INSTALL_DISABLE when installing. Use one or more of “fastx4”, “sshd”, and “rlm”, separated with a comma to disable one or more of these services.

FASTX_INSTALL_DISABLE=fastx4,sshd,rlm dnf install -y fastx4-server

Disabling Advanced License Checkout on Specific Nodes

By default, each node of a FastX cluster attempts to check out an advanced license (fastx-web). As long as there exists one node in the cluster with the advanced license, the entire cluster has access to the advanced services.

Admins may wish to only enable the license checkout on certain head nodes to control where the license checkout takes place.

Set the following variable in fastx.env on nodes where you do not want the advanced license checkout to take place (typically compute nodes). 

DISABLE_ADVANCED_SERVICES=true

Alternate Configuration Locations

Default file locations can be specified as environment variables.

To specify custom locations, do the following:

  1. Run the command systemctl edit fastx4.service
  2. In the [Service] section, add environment variable(s) such as:
    • Environment=FX_VAR_DIR=/my/custome/location
  3. Save
  4. Restart FastX: systemctl restart fastx4
  5. To change the FX_LOCAL_DIR location and preserve communication between a FastX client SSH connection and the FastX server, change that variable in the /usr/lib/fastx/4/.env file.

See FastX 4 Configuration for descriptions of Environment Variables

Non Root Installations

Click on link for more information

Resetting the Admin Account

Admins are defined by Linux User Groups.  If somehow you need to reset the admin account run the following command  

/usr/lib/fastx/4/tools/reset-admin

Note: The user who is running the FastX web service always has superadmin access.

Installing Third-Party Certificates

FastX ships with self-signed certificates to get the web server up and running with as little trouble as possible.  Once the system has been configured and is ready to go into production, it is time to add your own certificates from a trusted third party (VeriSign, Thawte, Comodo etc).  Acquiring the certificate is beyond the scope of this guide and typically the trusted third parties have instructions on how to do those.

Edit $FX_CONFIG_DIR/fastx.env (note: $FX_CONFIG_DIR is /etc/fastx by default):

CERT_FILE=/path/to/your/valid.crt
KEY_FILE=/path/to/your/valid.key
CA_FILE=/path/to/your/valid/ca_bundle.crt

Restart the service: 

sudo systemctl restart fastx4

Migration From 3.3

For more detailed information FastX 4 Configuration

FastX 3 stored configuration in both files and database (filestore and MongoDB).

Download the configuration.
If you have a standalone server you can skip this step.

sudo npm start --prefix /usr/lib/fastx/4/www/scripts/migrate/download-db

Convert the configuration to the new format.

sudo npm start --prefix /usr/lib/fastx/4/www/scripts/migrate/3.3