2011/Infrastructure
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Infrastructure instructions
For Assignments 2 through 6, we will use the SEAS cloud infrastructure, developed by the SEAS Academic Computing group. This infrastructure allows users to create, connect to, and shutdown virtual machines (VMs) from a set of pre-specified VM image templates.
If you are looking for information about version control, or using GIT, or the SEAS Code Repository, go to the Version Control Software page.
The rest of this document provides instructions on how to use the SEAS cloud infrastructure for CS 61.
Quick start/summary
This is a brief summary of the instructions. If you are confused, please scroll down for full instructions.
- SSH to cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu, using your FAS username and password (see below for instructions if you're not familiar with SSH).
- Load the SEAS cloud infrastructure package by running module load packages/seas-cloud.
- Register on the SEAS cloud infrastructure by running seas-cloud register. (This only needs to be done once ever.)
- See the templates you can use to create VMs by running seas-cloud templates.
- Create a VM by running seas-cloud create ImageId, where ImageId is the appropriate identifier for the CS 61 VM template for the assignment. (You will generally only need to create one VM per assignment, and leave it running for the duration of the assignment. It will take about 5 minutes to launch your VM. You can check the status of your VM by running seas-cloud status.)
- Connect to the VM by running seas-cloud connect VMId where VMId is the identifier of the VM you created.
Logging on
To interact with the CS 61 cloud infrastructure, you must first login to cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu, using your FAS username and password. If you do not have a FAS account, go to http://www.fas-it.fas.harvard.edu/accounttools and create a FAS account.
You can login to the machine using your favorite ssh client. On Linux and on Mac OS X, ssh is usually available by default. Just use the ssh yourUserName@cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu. On Windows, we recommend using PuTTY.
Even though you use your FAS credentials to log on to the cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu machine, your FAS home directory will not be available to you. Instead, you will have your own CS 61 home directory. This home directory will also be your home directory when you connect to a CS 61 virtual machine that you create.
Using the SEAS Cloud Infrastructure
After connecting to cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu, execute the command module load packages/seas-cloud. This sets up your environment to use the SEAS cloud infrastructure, for example, setting enivironment variables correctly. This command needs to be run every time you log on to cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu. You may want to put this command in your .bash_profile file.
-bash-4.1$ module load packages/seas-cloud
The command-line tool seas-cloud provides the ability to create virtual machines (VMs), connect to VMs you have created, and shutdown VMs you have created. Execute seas-cloud help to view the documentation for this tool.
-bash-4.1$ seas-cloud help
You must register your account with the SEAS cloud infrastructure. Execute seas-cloud register. This command only needs to be performed once.
-bash-4.1$ seas-cloud register
Starting a VM
You can list the available VM image templates by executing seas-cloud templates.
-bash-4.1$ seas-cloud templates ID USER GROUP NAME REGTIME PUB 34 oneadmin users SEAS CentOS 6 Base 08/15 18:11:13 Yes 36 parrott users SEAS Virtual Remote Desktop (B 08/24 15:14:59 Yes 37 oneadmin users SEAS Linux 6 Base 08/26 07:24:33 Yes 38 oneadmin users CS61 Course VM 08/26 08:35:42 Yes
You can start a new VM by executing seas-cloud create ImageID, where ImageID is the identifier of the template you would like to use to create a VM. The CS 61 VM image is has id 38.
-bash-4.1$ seas-cloud create 38 ID: 781
It may take 5-15 minutes to start a VM, as this involves making a copy of a disk image. You can check on the status of your VM by executing seas-cloud status. To begin, the VM will be in the "pending", or pend state. It will then transition to the "prolog", or prol state (when it is copying the template disk image to create your VM). It will then transition to the "running", or runn state. If there's an error, it may end up in a "failed" or fail state.
-bash-4.1$ seas-cloud status
ID USER GROUP NAME STAT CPU MEM HOSTNAME TIME
781 stephenc users CS61 Course VM prol 0 0K arc-vm-4 00 04:53:35
We recommend that you start a VM at the beginning of each assignment, use that VM for the duration of the assignment, and shut down the VM at the end of the assignment. Any files you create in your home directory on cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu will be on any VM you create, and vice-versa.
Connecting to a VM
Once the VM is in a running state, you can connect to it by executing seas-cloud connect VMId command, where VMId is the identifier of the VM you started.
-bash-4.1$ seas-cloud connect 781
Once you have executed this statement, you will be logged onto the VM you have just created.
Shutting down a VM
To shutdown and destroy a machine, execute seas-cloud destroy VMId, where VMId is the identifier of the VM you want to shut down. This command will shutdown and delete the VM disk image, and all local data on that VM image. However, files in your home directory will remain untouched, and will be available to you on cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu and any other VMs you create.
-bash-4.1$ seas-cloud destroy 781
Your home directory
The machine cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu, as well as all CS 61 VMs you launch, mount a shared home filesystem, and have a consistent set of shared home directories. This means that you have the same home directory on all of the machines you log on to for CS 61. Thus, work saved in your home directory on a VM can be accessed from cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu or any other CS 61 VM you create.
Extra for experts
File transfer
To get files to and from your CS 61 home directory, you can use scp (Secure Copy). On Linux and Mac OS X, scp is usually available by default. For example, to copy the file test.txt from your local directory (say, on your laptop) to your CS 61 home directory, you could run the following command.
$ scp test.txt YourUserName@cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu:
On Windows, we recommend using WinSCP to move your files to and from your CS 61 home directory.
Connecting to a VM from outside cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu
The easiest way to connect to a VM you have started is to log on to cs61-login.seas.harvard.edu and then to use the command seas-cloud connect. You can, however, ssh directly to your VM from another computer.
First, you will need to be behind the Harvard firewall to connect directly to your VM. You may need to run the FAS VPN tool to establish a VPN connection to Harvard.
Second, you need to find the IP address of your VM, using the seas-cloud showip command.
-bash-4.1$ seas-cloud showip 781 10.243.28.40
Third, you need to print out your private key using the seas-cloud mykey command:
-bash-4.1$ seas-cloud mykey -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- MII...... -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
Copy and paste that key from the terminal into file on your client machine, setup the correct permissions (chmod 400 the.key on Mac or Linux) and then connect using that key. For Mac or Linux, this would be, from the command line,
$ ssh -i the.key username@10.243.28.40
To forward X connections, use the -Y option to ssh:
$ ssh -Y -i the.key username@10.243.28.40
