Help user guide in short

Virtual Machines

Sorry, you have no permission to launch virtual machines.

After selecting a virtual machine, you will see the machine’s detailed page. Here, you can see the details, usage statistics, manage the virtual machine, change access rights and network interfaces, modify resources and show the activity log.

Details

If you select a virtual machine, you get to a page with all the details and operations listed. On the left, you will see the state of the machine and a summary about how you can connect to the machine. In the middle there is a tabbed pane, which contains details about the machine in categories.

How can I connect to the virtual machine?

If the machine is already started click on the ‘connect’ button or simply copy the connection string to the terminal. Another option is using the VNC console.

How can I change the VM’s password?

Click on the ‘Generate new password!’ link.

Operations

The upper right corner is the operation toolbar with the most important actions that control the lifecycle of the machine. The tool buttons are color coded by their effect, and enabled/disabled based on the current state of the machine. The recommended operation is always the biggest tool button with the name displayed. You can click on them as the confirmation dialog explains in detail what they do.

What kind of operations are allowed to do with my VM?

deploy Deploy and start the virtual machine (including storage and network configuration).

wake up Wake up sleeping (suspended) virtual machine. This will load the saved memory of the system and start the virtual machine from this state.

sleep Suspend virtual machine. This means the machine is stopped and its memory is saved to disk, so if the machine is waked up, all the applications will keep running. Most of the applications will be able to continue even after a long suspension, but those which need a continous network connection may fail when resumed. In the meantime, the machine will only use storage resources, and keep network resources allocated.

migrate Move a running virtual machine to an other worker node keeping its full state.

save as template Save virtual machine as a template so they can be shared with users and groups. Anyone who has access to a template (and to the networks it uses) will be able to start an instance of it.

reboot Warm reboot virtual machine by sending Ctrl+Alt+Del signal to its console.

reset Cold reboot virtual machine (power cycle).

shutdown Try to halt virtual machine by a standard ACPI signal, allowing the operating system to keep a consistent state. The operation will fail if the machine does not turn itself off in a period.

shut off Forcibly halt a virtual machine without notifying the operating system. This operation will even work in cases when shutdown does not, but the operating system and the file systems are likely to be in an inconsistent state, so data loss is also possible. The effect of this operation is the same as interrupting the power supply of a physical machine.

recover Try to recover virtual machine disks from destroyed state. Network resources (allocations) are already lost, so you will have to manually add interfaces afterwards.

emergency state change Change the virtual machine state to NOSTATE. This should only be used if manual intervention was needed in the virtualization layer, and the machine has to be redeployed without losing its storage and network resources.

redeploy Change the virtual machine state to NOSTATE and redeploy the VM. This operation allows starting machines formerly running on a failed node.

destroy Permanently destroy virtual machine, its network settings and disks.

Home

This shows statistics about the virtual machine, and this is where you can change the name, description and tags of the instance. We strongly advise to add a description to make the work of the cloud administrators easier in case of maintenance.

Expiration

Here is a summary about the expiration times as well. Each virtual machine has a deadline for suspending and destroying based on predefined leases.

How can I extend the VM's expiration date?

With the renew button you can extend the suspend and remove time. Before the virtual machine is suspended or removed you get a notification about it.

How can I share previously uploaded files with the VM?

With the ‘Mount Store’ option the virtual machine mounts your personal storage.

Resources

Resources contains details about how much memory and CPU the VM has, and how is it scheduled. Users with specific permission can change these settings if the machine is stopped.

Users with specific permission can change these settings if the machine is stopped.

Console

This panel allows to see the console of the virtual machine for troubleshooting and operating system installation. You can also use the keyboard and mouse. You should normally use the machine by connecting remotely over SSH or Remote Desktop.

Access

Allows sharing the machine with others and transferring the ownership. Users can see the details of the machine, operators can use most functions and owners can also destroy the machine.

How can I give access to others?

Type the user/group ID, set permissions and click Save.

What kind of permissions are available?

User
User level grants access to the virtual machine’s details page. Users are able to connect to this machine.

Operator
Operator level permit the modification of the name and description fields. Allow the operator to open ports and grant/revoke User level access to the virtual machine.

Owner
Owner level enables all operations on the virtual machine. Owners are able to grant/revoke Operator, User and Owner level access to others. The accountable owner (the one who deployed the machine) can not be demoted. The accountable ownership can be transferred to other User via the “Transfer onwership” button.

Network

Shows how the virtual machine is connected to the network. You can add or remove interfaces and allow remote access of different TCP/UDP ports.

How can I add a network interface?

Click on the add interface on the Network pane and select from the list.

Activity

Shows the full life cycle of the virtual machine. This is where you can see the causes of failed actions (just point the mouse to the name of the action) with the starting/finishing times.

Multiple VM operations

On the dashboard, by clicking the list button, the virtual machine list page opens. Here the owner can execute operations on multiple virtual machines simultaneously.

How can I see shared or destroyed VMs?

Check the ‘Include deleted VMs’ checkbox to list already deleted machines.

Templates

Sorry, you have no permission to create templates.

Templates are the prototypes of virtual machine instances: they contain configuration values for the different technical details of a VM to create, and also the network interfaces and disks to attach.

In the dashboard box you see your own templates and those, for which you have operator permission. This means that you can share them with your groups or other users.

How can I create templates?

You can create templates from any virtual machine with the save as template button. Additionally, you can also click on the new button of the template box, and follow the template creation wizard.

On the template detail page you can modify the template's name and the given resources like CPU count and memory size.

What kind of options are customizable in the template?

Architecture

The user can choose the template's architecture (x86 or x86-64).

Access method

The default access method is modifiable. Currently SSH, RDP and NX are supported.

Boot menu

Check it to turn on the boot menu.

Traits

By adding or removing traits we can guarantee specific features the host node will have (like GPU) for the virtual machine.

Operating system

The name of the operating system.

Agent

Check this if the machine has agent installed and the manager should wait for its start.

Raw data

The CIRCLE Cloud is using libvirt, so the owner can customize the running VM's options here by libvirt domain parameters.

How can I transfer the template ownership to someone else?

After clicking the ‘Transfer ownership’ you can select a user to give the template to.

How can I grant access for users or groups to the template?

Same as the VM access rights handling. You can type the user or group ID at the template detail page's Manage access box and select a suitable access level.

Groups

Sorry, you have no permission to create groups.

Groups are the main building blocks of permission management. On the dashboard you see a list of groups you have access to.

How can I create groups?

You can create your own groups by clicking on the new button of the groups box.

Users logged in with SSO authentication can automatically become members of groups based on its organizational identifier. Those who are administrators of an organizational group (or a professor of a subject in academics) can create groups with the specific organizational identifier set, so members will automatically added if they log in. You can also add users based on their identifier, also if they have not logged in at the time.

How can I manage the users in a group?

On the group page the owner can add or remove users or change the access rights over the group.

How can I manage privileges with the group?

The owner can add or remove privileges at the bottom of the group page like ‘can download disk’ or ‘can configure port forwards’.

Files

Each user has a simple personal file store, which is the easiest way to keep and retrieve your work done on virtual machines.

You can get and upload files from both the web interface and from virtual machines. The web interface works like any other graphical file browser. Virtual machines normally don’t get the credentials for your personal store, to prevent accidentally sharing them with other users of the same machine.

How can I share my files with a VM?

To access the file store press the mount store button on the virtual machine's home panel.