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layout: default
navsection: installguide
title: Arvados-in-a-box
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Copyright (C) The Arvados Authors. All rights reserved.
SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-3.0
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Arvbox is a Docker-based self-contained development, demonstration and testing environment for Arvados. It is not intended for production use.
h2. Quick start
$ curl -O https://git.arvados.org/arvados.git/blob_plain/refs/heads/main:/tools/arvbox/bin/arvbox
$ chmod +x arvbox
$ ./arvbox start localdemo latest
$ ./arvbox adduser demouser demo@example.com
You can now log in as @demouser@ using the password you selected.
h2. Requirements
* Linux 3.x+ and Docker 1.9+
* Minimum of 3 GiB of RAM + additional memory to run jobs
* Minimum of 3 GiB of disk + storage for actual data
h2. Usage
$ arvbox
Arvados-in-a-box https://doc.arvados.org/install/arvbox.html
start|run [tag] start arvbox container
stop stop arvbox container
restart stop, then run again
status print some information about current arvbox
ip print arvbox docker container ip address
host print arvbox published host
shell enter shell as root
ashell enter shell as 'arvbox'
psql enter postgres console
open open arvbox workbench in a web browser
root-cert get copy of root certificate
update stop, pull latest image, run
build build arvbox Docker image
reboot stop, build arvbox Docker image, run
rebuild build arvbox Docker image, no layer cache
checkpoint create database backup
restore restore checkpoint
hotreset reset database and restart API without restarting container
reset delete arvbox arvados data (be careful!)
destroy delete all arvbox code and data (be careful!)
log tail log of specified service
ls list directories inside arvbox
cat get contents of files inside arvbox
pipe run a bash script piped in from stdin
sv
change state of service inside arvbox
clone clone dev arvbox
adduser
add a user login
removeuser
remove user login
listusers list user logins
h2. Install root certificate
Arvbox creates root certificate to authorize Arvbox services. Installing the root certificate into your web browser will prevent security errors when accessing Arvbox services with your web browser. Every Arvbox instance generates a new root signing key.
# Export the certificate using @arvbox root-cert@
# Go to the certificate manager in your browser.
#* In Chrome, this can be found under "Settings → Advanced → Manage Certificates" or by entering @chrome://settings/certificates@ in the URL bar.
#* In Firefox, this can be found under "Preferences → Privacy & Security" or entering @about:preferences#privacy@ in the URL bar and then choosing "View Certificates...".
# Select the "Authorities" tab, then press the "Import" button. Choose @arvbox-root-cert.pem@
The certificate will be added under the "Arvados testing" organization as "arvbox testing root CA".
To access your Arvbox instance using command line clients (such as arv-get and arv-put) without security errors, install the certificate into the OS certificate storage.
h3. On Debian/Ubuntu:
cp arvbox-root-cert.pem /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/
/usr/sbin/update-ca-certificates
h3. On CentOS:
cp arvbox-root-cert.pem /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/
/usr/bin/update-ca-trust
h2. Configs
h3. dev
Development configuration. Boots a complete Arvados environment inside the container. The "arvados" and "arvados-dev" code directories along data directories "postgres", "var", "passenger" and "gems" are bind mounted from the host file system for easy access and persistence across container rebuilds. Services are bound to the Docker container's network IP address and can only be accessed on the local host.
In "dev" mode, you can override the default autogenerated settings of Rails projects by adding "application.yml.override" to any Rails project (api, workbench). This can be used to test out API server settings or point Workbench at an alternate API server.
h3. localdemo
Demo configuration. Boots a complete Arvados environment inside the container. Unlike the development configuration, code directories are included in the demo image, and data directories are stored in a separate data volume container. Services are bound to the Docker container's network IP address and can only be accessed on the local host.
h3. test
Starts postgres and initializes the API server, then runs the Arvados test suite. Will pass command line arguments to test runner. Supports test runner interactive mode.
h3. devenv
Starts a minimal container with no services and the host's $HOME bind mounted inside the container, then enters an interactive login shell. Intended to make it convenient to use tools installed in arvbox that don't require services.
h3. publicdev
Publicly accessible development configuration. Similar to 'dev' except that service ports are published to the host's IP address and can accessed by anyone who can connect to the host system. See below for more information. WARNING! The public arvbox configuration is NOT SECURE and must not be placed on a public IP address or used for production work.
h3. publicdemo
Publicly accessible development configuration. Similar to 'localdemo' except that service ports are published to the host's IP address and can accessed by anyone who can connect to the host system. See below for more information. WARNING! The public arvbox configuration is NOT SECURE and must not be placed on a public IP address or used for production work.
h2. Environment variables
h3. ARVBOX_DOCKER
The location of Dockerfile.base and associated files used by "arvbox build".
default: result of $(readlink -f $(dirname $0)/../lib/arvbox/docker)
h3. ARVBOX_CONTAINER
The name of the Docker container to manipulate.
default: arvbox
h3. ARVBOX_BASE
The base directory to store persistent data for arvbox containers.
default: $HOME/.arvbox
h3. ARVBOX_DATA
The base directory to store persistent data for the current container.
default: $ARVBOX_BASE/$ARVBOX_CONTAINER
h3. ARVADOS_ROOT
The root directory of the Arvados source tree
default: $ARVBOX_DATA/arvados
h3. ARVADOS_DEV_ROOT
The root directory of the Arvados-dev source tree
default: $ARVBOX_DATA/arvados-dev
h3. ARVBOX_PUBLISH_IP
The IP address on which to publish services when running in public configuration. Overrides default detection of the host's IP address.
h2. Using Arvbox for Arvados development
The "Arvbox section of Hacking Arvados":https://dev.arvados.org/projects/arvados/wiki/Arvbox has information about using Arvbox for Arvados development.
h2. Making Arvbox accessible from other hosts
In "dev" and "localdemo" mode, Arvbox can only be accessed on the same host it is running. To publish Arvbox service ports to the host's service ports and advertise the host's IP address for services, use @publicdev@ or @publicdemo@:
$ arvbox start publicdemo
This attempts to auto-detect the correct IP address to use by taking the IP address of the default route device. If the auto-detection is wrong, you want to publish a hostname instead of a raw address, or you need to access it through a different device (such as a router or firewall), set @ARVBOX_PUBLISH_IP@ to the desire hostname or IP address.
$ export ARVBOX_PUBLISH_IP=example.com
$ arvbox start publicdemo
Note: this expects to bind the host's port 80 (http) for workbench, so you cannot have a conflicting web server already running on the host. It does not attempt to take bind the host's port 22 (ssh), as a result the arvbox ssh port is not published.
h2. Notes
Services are designed to install and auto-configure on start or restart. For example, the service script for keepstore always compiles keepstore from source and registers the daemon with the API server.
Services are run with process supervision, so a service which exits will be restarted. Dependencies between services are handled by repeatedly trying and failing the service script until dependencies are fulfilled (by other service scripts) enabling the service script to complete.