Managing Complex Appliances using the GUI

Before launching a Complex Appliance, make sure that you have a reservation for the appropriate node types and a key pair configured. Since most Complex Appliances will consist of multiple nodes, make sure you have set the Minimum Number of Hosts in your Lease. You will also need a Template file or the URL for a Template file from the Appliance Catalog. At CHI@TACC site or CHI@UC site, go to Project > Orchestration > Stacks use the navigation side bar.

The Stacks page

Tip

You can go to Stacks page directly from the Appliance Catalog.

1. Go to the Appliance Catalog and identify the appliance you want to launch. Click on it to open its details page.

2. Click on the “Launch Complex Appliance at CHI@TACC” or “Launch Complex Appliance at CHI\@UC” button depending on where your reservation is created.

Launching a Complex Appliance

To launch a stack, click the Launch Stack button in the upper right of the Stacks page. Then follow the steps:

1. Start setting up a Template by choosing a Template Source in the dropdown. You may either select the File option as Template Source and upload the Template file, or select the URL option and provide the URL of the Template file.

   

   The Select Template step

   Important

   Do not change the environment source settings!

2. Once you have provided a Template, click the Next button. Chameleon will validate the Template file and proceed to the Launch Stack step.

   

   The Launch Stack step

3. Choose a name for your stack. Ignore the “Creation Timeout” and “Rollback On Failure” settings. You also need to enter your Chameleon password. Then, you need to select a value for the parameters of the template. Finally, click the Launch button.

4. Your stack should be in status “Create In Progress” for several minutes while it first launches the server instance, followed by the client instances. It will then move to the status “Create Complete”.

A Complex Appliance with the Create in Progress status

Monitoring a Complex Appliance

To monitor and get more details about your Complex Appliance, click on it in the Stacks page.

• The Topology tab displays a topology graph of the stack. The rack of machine represents the client instance group. The server’s floating IP (the public IP assigned to a resource) is represented by an IP in a circle; while an IP in a circle is also used to represent the association of the IP with the server instance (not the greatest idea to use the same symbol for both the IP and the association – we agree but can’t do much about it at the moment). Blow off some steam by dragging the visualization across the screen, it can be rather fun!

  Note

  Blinking nodes indicates that they are still provisioning.

  

  The Topology tab

• The Overview tab displays various parameters, including the ID of the stack and Outputs such as IP addresses assigned to each node. If you have a floating IP associated to the server, you can now ssh to the server using the floating IP just as you do with regular instances. The client may not have a floating IP attached to it, but you can connect to it via the server node with the client’s private IP.

  Tip

  To talk to the client without an associated floating IP, connect to the server with ssh -A to enable the SSH agent forwarding after loading your key to your SSH agent with ssh-add <path-to-your-key>.

  

  The Overview tab

• Under the Resources tab you will see the resources of the stack (the server, clients, server’s public/floating IP, and its the association) and information about them.

  

  The Resources tab

• In the Events tab you will see information about the history of the deployment so far.

  

  The Events tab

• In Template tab, you will see the template that was used to deploy this stack.

  

  The Template tab

Deleting a Complex Appliance

To delete a Complex Appliance, select it in the Stacks page and click the Delete Stacks button. This will delete all resources of the stack, such as nodes and floating IP addresses.