Nirin - Quick Start Guide

Step-by-step guide

1. Log in to the cloud dashboard https://cloud.nci.org.au with your NCI credentials.
2. If you are part of multiple projects, select the project you wish to administrate from the dropdown menu at the top of the screen.
3. If you are using Nirin for the first time, and want to create a virtual machine to access via SSH, then ensure at least one key pair exists under your account:
   Set up a key pair

   Navigate to "Key Pairs" under the "Compute" menu on the left of the screen, then either:

   • "Import Public Key" if you have an existing key pair you wish you use, or
   • "Create Key Pair" to set up a new key pair.

   Setting up a single key pair is a one-time operation. This is the minimum requirement to get started; more complex workflows or security models may require multiple key pairs.

4. Create a virtual machine:

   Create a virtual machine

   Navigate to "Instances" under the "Compute" menu on the left of the screen, then press "Launch Instance" to configure the virtual machine. Several parts of the configuration are required, including:

   • Source defines the starting point for the virtual machine. Select "Image" in the boot source dropdown, and select a recently updated Ubuntu image from the list of available images (by clicking on the upward arrow in the relevant row of the table).
   • Flavor defines the number of VCPUs, amount of RAM, and so on. Select a flavor that suits your requirements.
   • Security Groups allows network access to the virtual machine. Nirin projects are created with one security group "ssh" which allows remote login; ensure this security group is selected, using the upward-facing arrow.
   • Key Pair allows you to select the key pair set up above, which will be installed on the virtual machine when it is created so that you can log in over SSH.

   When all the required information has been supplied, the "Launch Instance" button will become enabled allowing you to start creation of the virtual machine.

1. Click on the “Instances Tab” and press “Launch Instance” to start a virtual machine.

2.  Click “Details” and select appropriate Image Name and Flavour.
   
   
   

   Local Disk and Cinder Volume: Local disk is only for operating system and scratch. This disk is local to the compute blade and it is NOT backed up. The main software engineering of OpenStack Cloud requires you to have a virtual machine deployment process that is reproducible. We strongly recommend using puppet or other alternates to deploy the operating system. For persistent storage, NCI provides cinder volume and projects should use cinder volume to store critical data e.g. web catalogs and important data. It may also be noted while cinder volume (based on Ceph) is replicated, we strongly suggest projects to ask /pay for long term storage on NCI’s tape drives. The data on NCI’s tape drives is backed up across two remote sites. For more information please send an email to help@nci.org.au.

   Please note that local disk provided to your VM on Tenjin is an SSD.

   
   

   Overview of storage types

   Storage Type	Device	Intended use	Pros	Cons
   Root disk	/dev/sda, automatically mounted on /	Operating system and applications	High IOPS and throughput (Solid State Disks in RAID 0) Included in instance snapshots	Limited size No redundancy Deleted when virtual machine is deleted Not automatically backed up
   Ephemeral disk	/dev/sdb, automatically mounted on /mnt	Temporary storage (scratch space)	High IOPS and throughput (Solid State Disks in RAID 0)	Limited size No redundancy Deleted when virtual machine is deleted Not included in instance snapshots Not automatically backed up
   Attached volumes aka Block Storage aka Cinder (Backed by Ceph)	/dev/sdc and subsequent, not automatically mounted	Persistent storage of large volumes of data	Large size High throughput Built-in redundancy Exists until deleted by owner Can be detached from one VM, then re-attached to another. Can create point-in-time volume snapshots	Lower IOPS Not automatically backed up

   
   

3. Click “Access & Security” and select the Key pair you want to use for logging into the virtual machine once it is provisioned. 

4. Click “Networking” and select the IP address. Your project may have multiple IP address associated depending upon the requirements. 

5. Click "Launch".

6. Use “ssh –i /path/to/keypair root@IP.ADDRESS” to access the virtual machine.

7. We do not recommend putting in useful data on the VDA (root) and (VDB) ephemeral storage. At the time of creation of the project, NCI gives 10GB (minimum) quota for block storage (we use Ceph).

8. Click “Volumes” tab and create a volume.
   

9. Attach the volume it to the virtual machine. It will most probably get attached as /dev/vdc but it is always a good idea to check. On your virtual machine fdisk –l command will give you a clear idea.

   fdisk sample output

   [root@awesome]# fdisk -l
   
   Disk /dev/vda: 10.7 GB, 10737418240 bytes
   255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1305 cylinders
   Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
   Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   Disk identifier: 0x000c62bf
   
      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
   /dev/vda1   *           1        1306    10484736   83  Linux
   
   Disk /dev/vdb: 32.2 GB, 32212254720 bytes
   16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 62415 cylinders
   Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
   Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   Disk identifier: 0x00000000
   
   
   Disk /dev/vdc: 10.7 GB, 10737418240 bytes
   16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 20805 cylinders
   Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
   Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   Disk identifier: 0x00000000
   

10. Create a filesystem on /dev/vdc 

    [root@awesome /]# mkfs.ext4 /dev/vdc

    mke2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)

    
    

11. Mount the volume on your virtual machine. 

    [root@awesome /]# mkdir /data; mount /dev/vdc /data

Access Global File-systems

NFS Export Policy for global file-systems to Nirin