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Jupyter Lab Standalone on Alces Cloud

Launch Login Node

To set up a cluster, you will need to import a Flight Solo image.

Before setting up a cluster on Alces Cloud, there are several required prerequisites:

Protocol Direction CIDR Port Range
Any egress 0.0.0.0/0 any
Any ingress Virtual Network CIDR any
ICMP ingress 0.0.0.0/0 any
SSH ingress 0.0.0.0/0 22
TCP ingress 0.0.0.0/0 80
TCP ingress 0.0.0.0/0 443
TCP ingress 0.0.0.0/0 5900-5903

Note

The "Virtual Network CIDR" is the subnet and netmask for the network that the nodes are using. For example, a node on the 11.11.11.0 network with a netmask of 255.255.255.0 would have a network CIDR of 11.11.11.0/24.

  1. Launch a login node with a command similar to the following:

    $ openstack server create --flavor p1.small \
                              --image "Flight Solo VERSION" \
                              --boot-from-volume 16 \
                              --network "mycluster1-network" \
                              --key-name "MyKey" \
                              --security-group "mycluster1-sg" \
                              --user-data myuserdata.yml \
                              login1
    
    • Where:

      • flavor - Is the desired size of the instance
      • image - Is the Flight Solo image imported to Alces Cloud
      • boot-from-volume - Is the size of the system disk in GB
      • network - Is the name or ID of the network created for the cluster
      • key-name - Is the name of the SSH key to use
      • security-group - Is the name or ID of the security group created previously
      • user-data - Is the file containing cloud-init user-data (this is optional in standalone scenarios)
      • login1 - Is the name of the system
  2. Associate a floating IP, either by using an existing one or creating a new one

    1. To use an existing floating IP

      1. Identify the IP address of an available floating IP (Port will be None)

        $ openstack floating ip list
        +---------------------+---------------------+------------------+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------------+
        | ID                  | Floating IP Address | Fixed IP Address | Port                | Floating Network    | Project               |
        +---------------------+---------------------+------------------+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------------+
        | 726318f4-4dbb-4d51- | 10.199.31.6         | None             | None                | c681d94b-e2ec-4b73- | dcd92da7538a4f64a42b0 |
        | b119-d9e53c47a9f5   |                     |                  |                     | 89bf-9943bcce3255   | d4d9ce8845f           |
        
      2. Associate the floating IP with the instance

        $ openstack server add floating ip login1 10.199.31.6
        
    2. To create a new floating IP

      1. Create new floating IP and note the floating_ip_address

        $ openstack floating ip create external1
        
      2. Associate the floating IP with the instance (using the floating_ip_address from the previous output)

        $ openstack server add floating ip login1 10.199.31.212
        

Further detail on collecting the information from the above can be found in the Alces Cloud documentation.

To set up a cluster, you will need to import a Flight Solo image.

Before setting up a cluster on Alces Cloud, there are several required prerequisites:

Protocol Direction CIDR Port Range
Any egress 0.0.0.0/0 any
Any ingress Virtual Network CIDR any
ICMP ingress 0.0.0.0/0 any
SSH ingress 0.0.0.0/0 22
TCP ingress 0.0.0.0/0 80
TCP ingress 0.0.0.0/0 443
TCP ingress 0.0.0.0/0 5900-5903

Note

The "Virtual Network CIDR" is the subnet and netmask for the network that the nodes are using. For example, a node on the 11.11.11.0 network with a netmask of 255.255.255.0 would have a network CIDR of 11.11.11.0/24.

To set up a cluster:

  1. Go to the Alces Cloud instances page.

  2. Click "Launch Instance", and the instance creation window will pop up.

  3. Fill in the instance name, and leave the number of instances as 1, then click next.

  4. Choose the desired image to use by clicking the up arrow at the end of its row. It will be displayed in the "Allocated" section when selected.

  5. Choose the desired instance size by clicking the up arrow at the end of its row. It will be displayed in the "Allocated" section when selected.

  6. Choose a network in the same way as an image or instance size. Note that all nodes in a cluster must be on the same network.

  7. Choose a security group in the same way as an image or instance size. Note that all nodes in a cluster must be in the same security group.

  8. Choose the keypair in the same way as an image or instance size.

  9. In the "Configuration" section, there is a "Customisation Script" section with a text box. This will be used to set your user data

  10. When all options have been selected, press the "Launch Instance" button to launch. If the button is greyed out, then a mandatory setting has not been configured.

  11. Go to the "Instances" page in the "Compute" section. The created node should be there and be finishing or have finished creation.

  12. Click on the down arrow at the end of the instance row. This will bring up a drop-down menu.

  13. Select "Associate Floating IP", this will make the ip management window pop up.

  14. Associate a floating IP, either by using an existing one or allocating a new one.

    1. To use an existing floating IP:

      1. Open the IP Address drop-down menu.

      2. Select one of the IP Addresses.

      3. Click "Associate" to finish associating an IP.

    2. To allocate a new floating IP:

      1. Click the "+" next to the drop-down arrow to open the allocation menu.

      2. Click "Allocate IP".

  15. Click "Associate" to finish associating an IP.

Further detail on collecting the information from the above can be found in the Alces Cloud documentation.

General Configuration

Create Node Inventory

  1. Parse your node(s) with the command flight hunter parse.

    1. This will display a list of hunted nodes, for example

      [flight@login-node.novalocal ~]$ flight hunter parse
      Select nodes: (Scroll for more nodes)  login-node.novalocal - 10.10.0.1
         compute-node-1.novalocal - 10.10.101.1
      

    2. Select the desired node to be parsed with Space, and you will be taken to the label editor

      Choose label: login-node.novalocal
      

    3. Here, you can edit the label like plain text

      Choose label: login1
      

      Tip

      You can clear the current node name by pressing Down in the label editor.

    4. When done editing, press Enter to save. The modified node label will appear next to the ip address and original node label.

      Select nodes: login-node.novalocal - 10.10.0.1 (login1) (Scroll for more nodes)  login-node.novalocal - 10.10.0.1 (login1)
         compute-node-1.novalocal - 10.10.101.1
      

    5. From this point, you can either hit Enter to finish parsing and process the selected nodes, or continue changing nodes. Either way, you can return to this list by running flight hunter parse.

    6. Save the node inventory before moving on to the next step.

      Tip

      See flight hunter parse -h for more ways to parse nodes.

Add genders

  1. Optionally, you may add genders to the newly parsed node. For example, in the case that the node should have the gender cluster and all then run the command:
    flight hunter modify-groups --add cluster,all login1
    

Jupyter Lab Standalone Configuration

  1. Configure profile

    flight profile configure
    
    1. This brings up a UI, where several options need to be set. Use up and down arrow keys to scroll through options and enter to move to the next option. Options in brackets coloured yellow are the default options that will be applied if nothing is entered.
      • Cluster type: The type of cluster setup needed, in this case select Jupyter Standalone.
      • Cluster name: The name of the cluster.
      • Default user: The user that you log in with.
      • Set user password: Set a password to be used for the chosen default user.
      • IP or FQDN for Web Access: As described here, this could be the public IP or public hostname.
  2. Apply an identity by running the command flight profile apply, E.g.

    flight profile apply standalone1 all-in-one
    
    !!! tip You can check all available identities for the current profile with flight profile identities

  3. Wait for the identity to finish applying. You can check the status of all nodes with flight profile list.

    Tip

    You can watch the progress of the application with flight profile view login1 --watch

Success

Congratulations, you've now created a Jupyter Lab Standalone environment! Learn more about Jupyter Lab in their documentation.

Verifying Functionality

  1. Put the IP/FQDN used in configuration into your browser to access the Flight Web Suite. It should look something like this:

  2. Under "Quick Access" click on "Jupyter" and enter the password set during configuration when requested; it will only need to be entered the first time you connect.

  3. On the Jupyter home page, under the "Notebook" section, click on "Python3" to open a new notebook.

  4. Enter this code, which will print out a message, wait for a bit, then print again.

    import time
    print("Starting running on Jupyter")
    time.sleep(3)
    print("Finished running - goodbye from Jupyter")
    

  5. Click the play button to run the cell, and wait for the result.