tiCrypt

VM Configuration Management

Prerequisites

User Role:

Sub-admin, Admin, Super-admin

Permission Requirements

• VM Administration
  • View all VM configurations
  • Edit any VM configuration (to change the project of configurations)
  • Delete any VM configuration (to delete configurations you do not own)

Access a VM Configuration from Management

1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
2. Navigate to the Virtual Machines section.
3. Click the VM Configurations in the left panel.

Rows of running configurations are green. A row is red when its hardware setup is unknown.

The following table describes the columns of the VM Configurations table.

Column	Content
Name	The name of the configuration.
State	The state of the configuration, such as Stopped or Running.
Owner(s)	The owner and co-owners of the configuration.
VM Setup	The hardware setup the configuration uses.
Project	The project tag of the configuration.
Team	The team of the configuration.
Virtual Machine	The running VM started from the configuration, when it is running.
Last Ping	When the running VM last contacted tiCrypt.
Last Launched	When the configuration was last started.
RW Drives	The number of read-write drives.
RO Drives	The number of read-only drives.
Fixed MAC	The MAC address set for the configuration, if any.
Configuration ID	The configuration's ID, with a copy button. Shown for running and stopped configurations alike.

Which actions appear

Edit and Add co-owners appear only for configurations you own: an administrator role does not let you edit or share someone else's configuration. On any configuration, you can use Bulk email and, with the right permissions, Change Project and Delete. Power appears for every configuration that is not stopped, and is greyed out, with the reason, for those who may not shut its VM down and while the VM is starting or shutting down.

View Basic Information, Projects, and Drives of a VM Configuration from Management

1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
2. Navigate to the Virtual Machines section.
3. Click the VM Configurations in the left panel.
4. Select the VM configuration to view.
5. Click the View button in the top right panel.
6. Review the VM configuration panel.

The following table describes the content of the VM configuration panel.

Section	Content
Description	The configuration description, when it has one.
Basic info	Hardware setup, Running VM (when the configuration is running, with a link to the VM's panel), Project, Team, MAC address, Host, Last launched, Last ping ("Never" when it has not happened), Slurm account and Slurm fairshare (when set) and the ID.
Owner or N Owners	The owner and co-owners.
Home drive	The first drive of the configuration.
N Additional Read-Write Drives	The other read-write drives.
N Additional Read-Only Drives	The read-only drives.

If you can view all VMs, the Running VM link opens the VM's Management panel, not the panel a VM user works from.

info

To view more Running VM actions, navigate to the Running VMs management section.

Add Co-Owners to a VM Configuration from Management

caution

You can add co-owners to configurations you own. Doing so shares the associated drives, and co-owner status carries access to those drive keys, so this grants data access rather than only administrative visibility. Your role does not let you grant that on a configuration belonging to someone else: access to another user's VM comes from its Owner adding them, not from the Management console. See VM Roles and Permissions.

1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
2. Navigate to the Virtual Machines section.
3. Click the VM Configurations in the left panel.
4. Select one VM configuration that you own. Add co-owners does not appear for configurations owned by someone else.
5. Click the Open full menu button in the top right panel.
6. Select Add co-owners.
7. In the pop-up, enter the user names to add as co-owners to the virtual machine.
8. Click Update <name>.

caution

VMs shared in Management are always in read-write mode, allowing co-owners to access the VM if the primary owner is unavailable.

tip

Grant full access to a VM only to a trusted co-owner.
To add a regular user to a VM, use the Add users to Virtual Machine option.

Edit a VM Configuration You Own from Management

Edit opens the same step-by-step form that researchers use in the Virtual Machines view, titled Update <name>. It appears only for configurations you own: an administrator role does not let you edit someone else's configuration.

Location: Management > Virtual Machines > VM Configurations

1. Select a VM configuration that you own. Edit does not appear for configurations owned by someone else, or while the configuration is stopping.
2. Click the Open full menu button in the top right panel.
3. Select Edit.
4. Click the step you want to change. When you edit a configuration, every step can be opened directly.
5. Make the change, then click Next until you reach Review, or click Review in the step list.
6. In Review, check the whole configuration, and click Save.

The following table describes the steps of the form.

Step	What you set
Name and team	The Name, the team whose quota the VM uses, and Description (optional), which supports Markdown.
Project	The optional project tag of the configuration.
Co-owners	VM Co-owners (optional): the users who own the configuration with you. Co-owners receive the keys of its drives.
Hardware setup	The hardware setup, picked from a list that can be filtered by name, cores, memory, devices, operating system or realm.
Drives	The home drive and the extra drives, dragged from the list of drives that can be mounted, or added from the keyboard. Create new drive creates a drive here. Each extra drive has a slot (Auto by default) and an access type, Read-write or Readonly.
Advanced	An optional MAC Address and, when hosts are available, the Preferred host to start VM on (Any host (scheduled) by default).
Review	The whole configuration before it is saved. Launch a VM from this configuration immediately starts it after saving, unless it is already running.

Result:

tiCrypt saves the configuration. If nothing changed, it shows "No changes made".

A step that becomes invalid, such as Drives after you pick a hardware setup that cannot use the home drive, sends you back to it: the steps after it have to be gone through again before you can save. A hardware setup can use only drives in its realm and in a format its VM image supports, and the home drive must be writable.

note

For a configuration that is starting or running, the form shows: "This VM configuration is currently starting or running. Virtual machines are only configured when starting them, so any changes you make will not take effect until you restart the configuration."

For each field and for creating drives from the form, see VM Configurations.

Change the Project of VM Configuration(s) from Management

bulk-action

Change Project sets the project tag of several configurations at once, including configurations you do not own. It also changes the project tag of every drive of those configurations, so the drives and the configuration stay in the same project.

Location: Management > Virtual Machines > VM Configurations

1. Select the VM configuration(s). Every selected configuration must be Stopped; otherwise Change Project does not appear.
2. Click the Open full menu button in the top right panel.
3. Select Change Project.
4. In the Change project tag for <name | N VM Configurations> pop-up, select the new project, or remove the project tag.
5. Click Classify, Declassify or Force change with admin privilege. The label depends on the project you choose and on the options you tick in the pop-up.

Result:

A task sets the project of each configuration, then the project tag of each of their drives.

Shut Down a Running VM Configuration from Management

Location: Management > Virtual Machines > VM Configurations

1. Select one running VM configuration. Power is greyed out, with the reason, unless you have the Shut down their VMs permission and you are the VM's Owner, a co-owner whom the Owner has added to the running VM, an Admin or Super-admin, or a Sub-admin who manages the VM's project or team. It is also greyed out while the VM is starting ("the VM is still starting") and while it is shutting down ("the VM is already shutting down").
2. Click the Open full menu button in the top right panel.
3. Select Power.
4. In the Shut down <name>? pop-up, click Normal Shutdown, or tick I accept the risk. and click Hard shutdown.

Result:

The VM started from the configuration shuts down. This pop-up has no Restart option.

warning

A hard shutdown "Instantly forces the VM to shut down, but risks data corruption on your drives. Use with caution."

Make a CSV Export of a VM Configuration from Management

bulk-action

1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
2. Navigate to the Virtual Machines section.
3. Click the VM Configurations in the left panel.
4. Select the connected VM configuration(s) to export in CSV format.
5. Click the Export CSV button in the top right corner.
6. Select the Selected items option.
7. In the new window, click Save to save the data locally.

Make a JSON Export of a VM Configuration from Management

bulk-action

1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
2. Navigate to the Virtual Machines section.
3. Click the VM Configurations in the left panel.
4. Select the connected VM configuration(s) to export in JSON format.
5. Click the Export JSON button in the top right corner.
6. Select the Export selected items option.
7. In the new window, click Save to save the data locally.

View a JSON Export of a VM Configuration from Management

bulk-action

1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
2. Navigate to the Virtual Machines section.
3. Click the VM Configurations in the left panel.
4. Select the connected VM configuration(s) to export in JSON format.
5. Click the Export JSON button in the top right corner.
6. Select the View selected items option.
7. In the pop-up, click the Expand all fields button in the top left panel.
8. View the selected VM configuration(s) by id, name, state, ownerNames, teamID, teamName, brickID, brickName, rwDriveCount, roDriveCount, mac and vmName.
9. Once done, click Copy to copy the JSON data or click Download to download the JSON data.
10. In the local window, click Save.
11. Once done, click Close.

Bulk Email All Users from VM Configuration(s) from Management

bulk-action

1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
2. Navigate to the Virtual Machines section.
3. Click the VM Configurations in the left panel.
4. Select the VM configuration(s) to bulk email.
5. Click the Open full menu button in the top right panel.
6. Select Bulk email.
7. In the Copy/download N user email(s) pop-up, which lists the owners and co-owners of the selected configurations, click Copy to copy the emails or click Download to download the emails.
8. Once done, click Close.

note

The Prefer contact email? checkbox is ticked by default, and the list uses each user's contact email, or the login email for users without one. Untick it to use the login email of every user.

Delete VM Configuration(s) from Management

bulk-action

1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
2. Navigate to the Virtual Machines section.
3. Click the VM Configurations in the left panel.
4. Select the VM configuration(s) you want to delete.
5. Click the Open full menu button in the top right panel.
6. Click Delete.
7. In the Delete <name | N VM configurations>? prompt, click Delete <name | N VM configurations>.

Result:

The configurations are deleted. The prompt warns: "If this VM configuration is shared with other users, it will no longer be accessible. VM configurations can be re-created but will need to be shared again."

note

Every selected VM configuration must be Stopped. Otherwise nothing is deleted and a message names the problem, such as "<name> is not stopped". Deleting a configuration you do not own needs the Delete any VM configuration permission.

Related

• VM Configurations: how researchers build and start the configurations this table lists.
• Running VMs: manage a configuration's VM while it runs.
• VM Hardware Setups: the setup a configuration is built on, with its image, cores, memory, and devices.
• Drives: the drives attached to a configuration's slots.
• VM Roles and Permissions: why owners and co-owners, not administrators, control what happens inside the VM.