* a server host running Debian 10 (buster) or Debian 11 (bullseye).
* a unique 5-character ID like @x9999@ for your cluster (first character should be @[a-w]@ for a long-lived / production cluster; all characters are @[a-z0-9]@).
* a DNS name like @x9999.example.com@ that resolves to your server host (or a load balancer / proxy that passes HTTP and HTTPS requests through to your server host).
-* a Google account (use it in place of <code>example@gmail.com.example</code> in the instructions below).
+
+h2. Options
+
+Arvados needs a PostgreSQL database. To get started quickly, install the postgresql-server package on your server host.
+
+<pre>
+# apt install postgresql
+</pre>
+
+Arvados normally uses cloud VMs or a Slurm/LSF cluster to run containers. To get started quickly, install Docker on your system host. The @arvados-server init@ command, as shown below, will configure Arvados to run containers on the system host.
+
+<pre>
+# apt install docker.io
+</pre>
+
+Arvados needs a login backend. To get started quickly, add a user account on your server host and assign a password. The @arvados-server init ... -login pam@ option, as shown below, will configure Arvados so you can log in with this username and password.
+
+<pre>
+# adduser exampleUserName
+</pre>
h2. Initialize the cluster
<pre>
# echo > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/arvados.list "deb http://apt.arvados.org/buster buster main"
-# apt-get update
-# apt-get install arvados-server-easy
-# arvados-server init -cluster-id x9999 -domain x9999.example.com -tls auto -admin-email example@gmail.com.example
+# apt update
+# apt install arvados-server-easy
+# arvados-server init -cluster-id x9999 -domain x9999.example.com -tls auto -login pam
</pre>
-When the "init" command is finished, navigate to the link shown in the terminal (e.g., @https://x9999.example.com/token?api_token=zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz@). This will log you in to your admin account.
+When the "init" command is finished, navigate to the link shown in the terminal (e.g., @https://x9999.example.com/@) and log in with the account you created above.
-h2. Enable login
+Activate your new Arvados user account.
-Follow the instructions to "set up Google login":{{site.baseurl}}/install/setup-login.html or another authentication option.
+<pre>
+# arv root user setup exampleUserName
+</pre>
+
+Run the diagnostics tool to ensure everything is working.
+
+<pre>
+# arv root diagnostics
+</pre>
+
+h2. Customize the cluster
+
+Things you should plan to update before using your cluster in production:
+* "Set up Google login":{{site.baseurl}}/install/setup-login.html or another authentication option.
+* Set up a wildcard TLS certificate and DNS name, or enable @TrustAllContent@ mode.
+* Update storage configuration to use a cloud storage bucket instead of the local filesystem.
+* Update CloudVMs configuration to use a cloud provider to bring up VMs on demand instead of running containers on the server host.
+
+h2. Updating configuration
+
+After updating your configuration file (@/etc/arvados/config.yml@), notify the server:
+
+<pre>
+# systemctl reload arvados-server
+</pre>
-After updating your configuration file (@/etc/arvados/config.yml@), restart the server to make your changes take effect:
+Optionally, add "AutoReloadConfig: true" at the top of @/etc/arvados/config.yml@. Arvados will automatically reload the config file when it changes.
<pre>
-# systemctl restart arvados-server
+AutoReloadConfig: true
+Clusters:
+ [...]
</pre>