Using Jetstream Virtual Machines
Last updated
Last updated
First we will need to log in to https://use.jetstream-cloud.org and navigate to the "Images" page.
For this example, we will search for an image with Anaconda 3 installed. Type "anaconda" into the search bar as shown below. Jetstream has a "live" search bar so it will start filtering the VM images as soon as you start typing.
If we scroll down the page we will see an image titled "Doane CST210 Ubuntu". This VM image looks like it has everything we need.
While we are here, I am going to favorite this VM image by clicking the star in the upper right corner of the VM's panel as shown below. The star should now be filled in with a color.
Now, we will scroll to the top of the page and click on the "FAVORITES" button in the VM Images Navigation Menu. This way we can have fewer VM images filling up our screen.
Once there, we will now click on the "Doane CST210 Ubuntu" VM image panel. Clicking anywhere in the white area of the panel will work.
This new page provides detailed information about the selected VM image. This includes previous versions of the VM image and what was changed in each version.
If you are happy with the information provided and think this VM will work for your needs, we will need to create a project to actually store and run the VMs related to our project. In the top (main) navigation menu, click on the "Projects" button.
Once on the projects page, click on the "CREATE NEW PROJECT" button as shown below.
Now enter a name and description for your new project. Click the "CREATE" button when you are finished.
Now we have successfully created a new project.
Click on the Project panel to open up the detail page for the project.
From here we will want to click the pink "NEW" button which will open a drop down menu. In the drop down menu select "Instance" to begin the process of making a Virtual Machine.
Once the new popup page opens, click on the "Show Favorites" tab to bring up our favorited VM images.
Select you desired VM Image you want to use for your new Virtual Machine. After doing that, you will be brought to the next step in the Instance Wizard. Here you can specify the information for the VM. These options include the Instance Name, version of the Base Image to use, the Project that the VM she be housed in, which allocation account that Jetstream should charge for the VM, and the physical Size for the VM. Jetstream also provides a graphical representation of how much of the allocation resources this instance will use given the selected configuration.
We will cover the advanced options in another tutorial. For now, when you are happy with your configuration options, click the "LAUNCH INSTANCE" button. This and the next few steps to launch the VM will take around 25 minutes to complete.
Once it is done loading, the VM will be added to the queue to be built and will have a Activity status of "Scheduling".
Once the VM is successfully built, it will move to the Activity status of "Initalizing".
When the VM is done being built, scheduled, and deployed, the status will turn from a yellow dot, to a green dot. A note of warning, now that the VM is active, it WILL be charging the allocation account. Please make sure to shelve or suspend your instance once you are done with it to quit being charged for the resources.
You may have noticed that the name of your new VM instance shows up as a link. Go ahead and click on that link as highlighted in the below image.
On this new page, we can see all of the useful information about our VM on the left side. The menu on the right side of the page shows us some useful options for interacting with the VM. The most important options in the right side menu are "Suspend" and "Open Web Desktop".
Now that we have gone through all of the trouble to build and initalize our VM instance, let's go ahead and connect to the VM and use it. Click on the "Open Web Desktop" button in the right side menu as shown below.