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Keck instruments are controlled through VNC sessions. These sessions are desktops which exist on the VNC server which is not necessarily the instrument server. The VNC servers provides the windowing environment, but may or may not run any actual GUIs or keyword services for the instruments. Some GUIs may be brought up and displayed through ssh (i.e. using ssh -X).
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The advantage of shutting down and starting up the VNC sessions periodically is that destroying the desktop automatically closes any GUIs which might have been left running. This is especially useful for some of our older IDL based GUIs as they occupy a license even when not in use.
Status via web
https://10.96.0.239:5284 (internal only) linked as “Instrument VMs/VNCs” on page 1 of “Shui’s Links”: https://www.keck.hawaii.edu/observing/software/index.php (internal only)