VirtLab Deployer

This code creates virtual computer lab environments on AWS for the purposes of running remote workshops. This project aims to solve the three hardest things about delivering remote workshops.

1. Handing out student ID numbers. Easy in concept. Hard in practice. To solve this, the VirtLab console will hand out student ID's as students log in.
2. Over the shoulder debugging. Possibly the most valuable thing about being in the same room is being able to look at the same screen. VirtLab spins up virtual desktops on AWS for your students to use. Administrators can then access these desktops to work collaboratively with a student having issues.
3. Copy/Paste issues with web links and host names. With VirtLab, you can pre-populate shorcuts on your user's desktops. These shorcuts can either be SSH links or web URLs.
4. Enterprise firewall issues. All of the resources deployed by VirtLab are HTTPS encrypted with signed certificates that get generated when the cluster deployes. The console is hosted on port 443 and the remote desktop is over port 8443. No need to accept unsiged certs. No need to open port 22. None of that.

Installing the Deployer

1. Install podman. Docker can probably be used in a pinch, but it is not tested.
2. Configure your system such that your current user can run podman. You can run the deployer commands as root, but it is not preferred.
3. Run the following command to install the virtlab cli.

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rmkraus/virtlab-deployer/master/bin/virtlab-install.sh)"

VirtLab Prerequisites

1. An AWS account with permissions to create new EC2 instances, keys, security groups, VPCs, etc.
2. A configured Route53 domain.

Deploying a new Virtual Lab

Create a new context

Create a new virtlab context to work in:

virtlab context ryanlab

Configure the new context

Launch the interactive configuration tool:

virtlab config

Use the arrow keys and spacebar to select the values you'd like to change. You can select all menu items by using the 'a' key. Press Enter when you are done. The first time you are configuring a new context, you'll likely want to edit all of the items.

You will then be prompted for all of the configuration values. The Administrator Password must be sufficiently complext or the deployment will fail. I highly recomend using a random password generator. It seems that 12 charecters is a good length. If the Windows servers fail to come up during deployment, the issue is likely the Admin password. Environemnt numberings start at 0, but 0 is reserved for administrative use. Student number 0 will never be given to a student. For this reason, you'll always want to create one additional Windows Workstation.

When creating SSH Shortcuts and Web Shortcuts, you can use the variable student_number in any of the fields to reference the workspace's student number. Jinja variable syntax is used. That would look like this:

? Desktop SSH Shortcuts: What would you like to do?  a
? Shortcut Name  Control Node
? SSH User  user
? SSH Host  student{{ student_number }}.db82.rhdemo.io
? SSH Password  asdfasdf
? Desktop SSH Shortcuts: What would you like to do?  d

If you prefer to configure the environment manually without using the interactive tool, you can directly edit the file at:

$(virtlab dir)/config.sh

Deploy the Context

To deploy your virtual lab:

virtlab deploy

Destroying a Virtual Lab

When you are done with your lab, it is best to tear it down to save money.

virtlab context  # verify your active context
virtlab destroy

This will remove the lab from AWS, but keep the configuration saved locally. If you would also like to remove the configuration and context:

virtlab forget ryanlab