Feature discussion - meshing and running OpenFOAM on a remote maching (from within CfdOF)

[techGuy]

I love using CfdOF in FreeCAD.

Some of my OpenFOAM meshes and simulations take a long time to run. I'm running FreeCAD on my modestly powered (AMD Ryzen 7) workstation. However, I have a more powerful computer (AMD EPYC) sitting beside my desk that I would like to run my meshes and simulations on. For a variety of reasons, I like to have separate computers for these tasks. - CAD and everyday work on my workstation and run simulations and meshes on my EPYC machine.

Ideally I'd do all the CAD and generate the mesh and simulation cases on my workstation, as I currently am. Then I'd press a button whereby the cases would be copied over to the remote machine and run there. Ideally the output and report functions from the remote process would still appear on my workstation FreeCAD session while they are running.

When the mesh and/or simulation is done on the remote machine, ideally everything would be copied back to my workstation as if it ran locally there.

I presently manually run OpenFOAM simulations on the remote machine. I do this by manually copying over the case files and running them on the remote machine. It's a pain doing this. It would be nice if this process were automated.

Is it presently possible to run meshing and/or simulations on a remote machine in a (semi) automated fashion using CfdOF ? By leveraging docker ?

If I was going to implement such functionality either in or out of CfdOF, how would you suggest I go about doing it ?

Without looking at CfdOF code, my best guess would be to open an ssh session for FreeCAD to use, copy the case material over and then run the same command in the ssh session that used to be run locally. That way one could pipe the results of the run to FreeCAD to display as it is doing now.

Any and all ideas and advice on this topic will be gratefully received.

Thanks

[adrianinsaval]

probably doable using ssh, nowadays I think even windows ships with ssh so it might even be possible to do this multi-platform

[techGuy]

Thanks for the reply.

As I said, I'm doing this manually with rsync (to move/mirror the files) and ssh (to run and watch the process) right now. But it is a pain.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that wants to mesh and run OF remotely. It would be really, really nice to integrate this into CfdOF.

[techGuy]

What if... CfdOF configuration had a "Remote Host" field that would take the hostname of the remote machine to run things on. When it runs things, it would have to ask for permission for a user to do anything on it.

What if... CfdOF had a "Copy Case Files to Remote Host" button that would transfer the mesh or simulation files over to the remote host.

The CfdOF mesh and simulate process screens could then have 2 run buttons. The first to run things locally, ie the current Run button. The second button would be a "Run Remotely" button to run things on the remote machine. At the end of a remote run, the process would copy the results back to the workstation machine. And optionally leave the results on the remote machine.

Thoughts ?

[Kunda1]

Perhaps x-posting to the Python and macro scripting subforum to create a macro for this?

[thschrader]

I have installed the complete openFOAM/FreeCAD pacckage on my (fast) remote laptop too.
After constructing the case on my (slow) laptop, I copy the FC-file to the remote station
and run meshing/simulation. I can see the simulation by simply activating the remote window.
Works ok for me.

[techGuy]

I have installed the complete openFOAM/FreeCAD pacckage on my (fast) remote laptop too.

What OS are you using on each ?

After constructing the case on my (slow) laptop, I copy the FC-file to the remote station
and run meshing/simulation. I can see the simulation by simply activating the remote window.

You have FreeCAD installed on both machines. How are you copying the FC files to the remote machine ? What remote window are you speaking of ?

[thschrader]

I run Windows 10 pro on both machines (laptops are from my company).

For connection I use
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... e636865e8c

When the connection is enabled, the remote machine works like an additional harddrive.
You simply copy your FreeCAD CAD-file to the remote machine, then do the work there.

[oliveroxtoby]

Continued in https://github.com/jaheyns/CfdOF/issues/70