Setup for DreamCompute Instances
Log in to DreamCompute
Create a Volume to Store Data
If you create a blank one then you’ll have to format it later in the process.
Launch an Instance
Chose a Source
I generally prefer the most recent LTS version of Ubuntu.
Choose a Flavor
I’m still trying to figure out if the ‘slowest possible’ (my miserly first instinct) is the righ tway to go here.
Generate a Private Key
Dreamhost generates the key and lets you download the private key. You must move it to an appropriate directory and then change the file’s permissions. You must remove the read and write permissions from ‘group’ and ‘others’.
mv ~/Downloads KEYFILE /appropriate/directory/KEYFILE
chmod go-rw /path/to/KEYFILE
Start the Instance
Make sure you note the instance’s IP address. It will appear in the instances panel.
Use the Instance
Log in:
ssh -i path/to/KEYFILE ubuntu@instance_address
Mount a Volume
Attach the volume to the instance
This is easiest with the web control panel. Once it is attached, you can see
the device path that it is attached at. The path is usually /dev/vdb.
You may need to format the volume
If it’s brand new, the volume won’t have a file system on it yet. It seems like
‘ext4’ is the best option for file systems. If that’s the case, then you can
format the volume with the mkfs command.
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/vdb
Mount the volume
You need to mount the volume and make the current user (probably ‘ubuntu’) its
owner. You can also bind the volume to a path in the user’s home directory.
That will make it easier to transfer files with scp.
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/DRIVE_PATH
sudo mount /dev/vdb /mnt/DRIVE_PATH
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /mnt/DRIVE_PATH
# optional
sudo mount --bind /mnt/DRIVE_PATH ~/PATH/IN/HOME/DIRECTORY
Make it Automatic
The previous section is great the first time that you set up your drive. Once
you know that it works, though, you won’t want to have to run all of those
commands manually every time that you start the instance. That’s where the
/etc/fstab file comes in! Based on the information from DreamHost, you
can add lines to the end of that file that basically emulate the sudo mount
commands in the previous section. Note the helpful header that explains what
different fields are.
- file system
- the source of the mount
- mount point
- the location of the mount
- type
- probably ‘ext4’, but you should know it
- options
- probably ‘defaults’, but can be ‘bind’
- dump
- just leave this as zero
- pass
- 0 for bindings, 1 for the root file system, and 2 otherwise
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# Don't alter the first two lines! They are critical system resoruces.
LABEL=cloudimg-rootfs / ext4 defaults 0 0
LABEL=UEFI /boot/efi vfat defaults 0 0
# These two lines are the ones that mimic the mnt commands above.
UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /mnt/DRIVE_PATH ext4 defaults 0 2
/mnt/DRIVE_PATH /home/ubuntu/PATH/IN/HOME/DIRECTORY none bind 0 0
Set Up a venv
make sure the virtual environment toolchain is installed:
sudo apt install --upgrade python3-venv
create the virtual environment
Let’s say that you have mounted the storage volume at ~/volume, and you want the virtual environment directory to be called ‘venv’.
cd ~/volume
python3 -m venv --clear --copies venv
If you have already set up the virtual environment, then you activate it this way:
source ~/volume/venv/bin/activate
clone the relevant parts of the LAC monorepo from GitHub
I first started working on this with lacwebsockets’ registry server application, so that’s what I will use as an example.
git clone --no-checkout https://github.com/sternarubra/LAC.git
git sparse-checkout set /lacwebsockets /public-key-infrastructure
~/volume/venv/bin/pip3 install --upgrade -e lacwebsockets