Access to the VSC Cloud#

Access to the VSC Cloud is linked to the central VSC account system (account.vscentrum.be), so you do not need a separate login or password. In order to use the cloud services,

  • you need an active VSC account and

  • your account must be a member of one or more Opennebula groups.

New users can obtain a VSC account by following the procedure described here. Once you have a VSC account, contact us via cloud@vscentrum.be if you want to start a new Opennebula project, or join an existing one.

You can interact with the VSC Cloud using the VSC Cloud Dashboard, a web interface, or the “one” command line interface, which you can use from any system, and which is installed for you on the HPC-UGent Tier-2 login nodes at login.hpc.ugent.be. You can log in to the VSC Cloud Dashboard using the VSC accountpage, as illustrated in the next section. To get access from the command line interface, you’ll need to obtain a login token, as explained in section Login Token.

These restrictions do not apply to someone who simply wishes to access an existing VM running in the cloud. VSC Cloud projects can decide themselves who gets access to their VM’s, and how.

Dashboard Login#

You can access the VSC Cloud Dashboard via cloudpr4.ugent.be.

To log in, choose the (default) authentication method VSC Accountpage and click “Connect”.

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From here on, follow the standard procedure to log in to your VSC account, using your home institution’s single sign-on system. The following chapters explain how to accomplish basic tasks using the VSC Cloud Dashboard.

Login Token#

If you want to use the opennebula CLI (one), or interact with its API (with OpenTofu, for example) you need a “Login token”. To obtain a login token, follow these steps:

  1. Log in on [cloudpr4.vscentrum.be](https://cloudpr4.vscentrum.be/

  2. Click on your username in the top right corner

  3. Click “settings”

  4. In this new screen, click “Security”.

  5. Scroll to the bottom, to the “Login Token” section.

  6. Fill in an expiration time in seconds, and select the group for which this token should apply

  7. Click “Get a new Token”

The token will now appear on this page until it has expired.