This section describes how to build a fresh Ubuntu 20.04 VM on your workstation with few commands using Multipass.
Notice: another option to install Akamas is using a VM running a freshly installed Ubuntu 20.04 or RHEL / CentOS 8 on your workstation or cloud service provider of choice. If this is the case you can skip this section.
Notice that, as of the date of this document, Multipass is not yet supported on macOS for Apple M1-based computers.
The following picture represents the high-level architecture of how Akamas operates in this scenario. As this picture illustrates, the Akamas commands in this guide need to be executed from an Akamas shell in the VM while those related to Multipass need to be executed from a shell on your workstation (the host running the VM).
First of all, get Multipass installed by following the instructions on the multipass website. Multipass is a lightweight VM manager that provides the fastest way to create an Ubuntu VM on Linux, Windows, or macOS.
If you already use VMware or VirtualBox, it is better to create a new VM starting from the Ubuntu ISO, since Multipass may conflict with your current virtualization setup. If you are not currently using any other virtual machine, then you should be fine.
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Once Multipass is installed, you can create an Ubuntu 20.04 instance with the resources required by Akamas by executing the following command:
Once this step is complete, you can check the instance IP (note this down, it will be required later)
Now you can launch a shell logged into this instance:
In this guide, you will install an Akamas-in-a-box, which is a full-functional Akamas instance as a Virtual Machine (VM), running on your workstation or in the cloud.
How to install an Akamas instance on a VM
How to execute some basic Akamas commands
The minimum requirements to get Akamas running are:
2 CPUs
8 GB of RAM
30 GB of disk space
an Akamas license.
These requirements refer to the VM that hosts Akamas. If you are creating it on your desktop or laptop it should have at least 4 Cores and 12GB of RAM to effectively run the Akamas VM.
To get started, you only need the following:
A workstation to install Akamas
An Akamas license
Notice: an Akamas license should have been sent to you as part of the free trial welcome kit. If that's not the case, please send a request to info@akamas.io
At this point, you should have your VM up and running.
To get Akamas installed, you just need to first download the installation script:
and then run it:
Please take into account that this installation procedure may take a while as it has to first download the entire Akamas software and then boot all Akamas services. Depending on how fast is your internet connection, please plan from 30 to 60 minutes to get this step done.
Please make sure to reply Yes to all requests related to whether to get AWS CLI and Docker packages installed. And of course please say yes also to Akamas' license agreement.
Once the installation process is completed, you can verify if the installation has been successful. Please take into account that right after the installation, Akamas services are automatically started for the first time and that this may require a few more minutes.
You can verify if Akamas services are up and running by executing the following command or by accessing directly the UI (see next section):
Once Akamas services are up and running, you can access the Akamas UI.
You can retrieve the IP address of your Akamas instance from the dashboard of your cloud service provider or, if you are running on Multipass on your workstation, by executing the following command from the host machine:
Now you can open your browser and type this IP address to get access the Akamas login page:
Notice: If you get a message "Waiting for Akamas services" or "Loading Akamas (90%)", then this means that some Akamas services are still starting. You can always check the status of Akamas services by running the following command:
akamas status -d
At this point, You are almost done: you just need to install the Akamas license
To install the Akamas license, you need to upload the license file which contains your license key on your Akamas instance. For example, you can leverage Multipass to transfer the license file by running the following command from the host system:
Alternatively, you can put the license key into a file using your favorite text editor. Also in this case we assume the license file to be named license.ak
.
Once you have the license file on your VM, you can install the license you have been provided by running the following commands from inside the Akamas shell (the path to the license file may be also specified) and finally log into Akamas using your credentials (that you received from Akamas support).
Congratulations, your Akamas instance is now fully installed and ready to be used!