Set up Nectar

author: Nay San date: 2017-12-11

tags: - Nectar - SSH - Setup

categories: - Tutorials

Nectar setup

About

The primary purpose of this tutorial is to be referred from other tutorials making use of the Nectar system. Here I give a quick introduction to:

  1. logging into Nectar Dashboard for the first time

  2. launching an instance on Nectar

  3. logging into the launched instance

0. Have your SSH key ready

If you do not have an SSH key already generated for your computer, follow Step 1 of this guide: https://kb.dynamicsoflanguage.edu.au/contribute/setup/. The end of step 1 requires you to copy a generated public key ready for pasting elsewhere.

1. Log into Nectar and add SSH key

You can login and access the Nectar Dashboard by going to https://dashboard.rc.nectar.org.au/, and authorising yourself through your institution’s credentials.

  1. After logging in, go to the Access and Security page (left menu), and click Import Key Pair (top right):

    ![Import Key Pair](Screen Shot 2017-12-11 at 3.53.01 pm.png)

  2. Paste your copied Public Key from Step 0 into the text area for the public key, and give the key a meaningful name which identifies the computer you generated the key on (i.e. ns-mbp-2016 is for my 2016 Macbook Pro).

    ![Name pasted key](Screen Shot 2017-12-11 at 4.12.08 pm.png)

You will only have to perform this step for every new computer from which you wish to access Nectar instances.

2. Launch Nectar instance, with SSH Security Group checked

  1. Go to the Instances page (left menu), and click Launch Instance (top right).

  2. Name and configure the instance. For this demo, just select one of the official Ubuntu images from Nectar (e.g. NeCTAR Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial) amd64):

    ![Name and configure machine](Screen Shot 2017-12-11 at 4.20.10 pm.png)

  3. Make sure you check ssh in the Access & Security tab of the Launch Instance window:

    ![Check ssh as security group](Screen Shot 2017-12-11 at 4.20.13 pm.png) Note. if you want to serve out web data from the instance, you should also check http (port 80).

3. Log into your launched instance, e.g. nectar-demo

After Step 2, you should see an active instance with an assigned IP address in your instances page:

![Active instances](Screen Shot 2017-12-11 at 4.28.31 pm.png)

In a Terminal window, type ssh ubuntu@144.6.226.20, where 144.6.226.20 is the IP address Nectar assigned to the launched instance (you will be asked whether you really want to connect when connecting for the first time, answer yes).

![Log into your launched instance](Screen Cast 2017-12-11 at 4.37.31 pm.gif)

Once you’ve logged in, you’ll notice that the prompt is of the form ubuntu@nectar-demo (i.e. ubuntu + @ + name of instance), and not that of your local user/computer. Now you’re ready to do things within the instance!