Basic Networking

Note

Step-by-step instructions for getting started with Chameleon are available in the Getting Started section of this documentation. These instructions include using basic networking functionality.

Shared Network

All Chameleon Projects have access to the fixed network sharednet1 which is used by most experiments. The sharednet1 is a pre-configured network shared among all Chameleon Projects with one Subnet and includes a Router providing NAT access to the public Internet. All instances using sharednet1 can communicate directly.

Multiple Networks

Some Chameleon bare metal nodes support connecting to multiple networks. Currently, the number of networks allowed is limited to the number of enabled NICs on the node (currently this is up to 2). It is possible to find such nodes via Resource Discovery by filtering by the “Enabled” flag for a given Network Adapter slot. Note that the slots are 0-indexed, meaning the first NIC is referred to as Network Adapter #0.

When launching a node that supports multiple networks, simply assign multiple networks to the instance when you are launching it. The networks will be mounted on NICs in the same order that the networks are assigned; that is, the first assigned network will be mounted on Network Adapter #0, and the second on Network Adapter #1, and so on.

Floating IP Addresses

Instances on Chameleon are assigned a fixed IP address that can be used for local connectivity as well as NAT access to the public Internet. A publicly accessible IPv4 address (Floating IP address) is required in order to access Chameleon instances from the Internet or host public services. CHI@TACC and CHI@UC each have a limited number of public IP addresses that can be allocated to your instances.

The Getting Started guide shows how to allocate Floating IP address to your nodes.

Important

The Chameleon floating IP address pool is a shared and finite resource. Please be responsible and release any unused floating IP address, so other Chameleon users and projects can use them!

Floating DNS Records

Each Floating IP is also contained within a dedicated DNS A record; this means that you can access your instance over the Internet either via its Floating IP or a special hostname. This can be particularly helpful if you want to set up a TLS certificate for HTTPS to secure a service you are exposing over the web, e.g., with LetsEncrypt.

Site	Hostname pattern (for IP AA.BB.CC.DD)
CHI@TACC	chi-dyn-AA-BB-CC-DD.tacc.chameleoncloud.org e.g., chi-dyn-129-114-108-147.tacc.chameleoncloud.org
CHI@UC	chi-dyn-AA-BB-CC-DD.uc.chameleoncloud.org e.g., chi-dyn-192-5-87-98.uc.chameleoncloud.org

Security

When your instance has a Floating IP address assigned, it is reachable directly over the public Internet. For this reason, it is important to consider the security of any services running on your instance. In particular, ensure that you have not allowed SSH authentication with passwords (this is disabled by default on Chameleon-supported images.)

There are additional network security mechanisms on the testbed that you should be aware of.

Firewall

A configurable Firewall is available on CHI@TACC and CHI@UC. This is built on the OpenStack Neutron Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS) system. By default, any instances connected to the sharednet1 or sharedwan1 shared networks automatically have a firewall configured with the following rules:

Source	Destination port	Protocol
	22	TCP
	80	TCP
	443	TCP
	n/a	ICMP
10./8		TCP/UDP
172.16./12		TCP/UDP
192.168./16		TCP/UDP
fe80::/10		ICMP/UDP

Note

If you think there is a case for allowing additional services/ports on this default firewall, please open a Help Desk ticket to let us know.

Security Groups

KVM@TACC supports Security Groups, which can be assigned directly to instances upon launch or after the instance is already running. By default, instances have no Security Groups applied, so all traffic is allowed.