Deploy App via Intuitive UI, SSH access, CLI, Open API – Ultimate Guide

The following guide will provide the information you need to use the platform dashboard and help you get familiar with the options available.

Let’s start our detailed exploration of the platform dashboard:

Creating and managing Environments

1. Click New Environment in the upper left corner of the dashboard.

2. The Topology Wizard will be opened, where you can fully customize your environment settings.

You can set up all the necessary customizations within the opened topology wizard dialog. We recommend performing adjustments in the following order:

• choose a programming language or specialized deployment solution (Docker Engine or Kubernetes Cluster)
• set up topology by adding required software stacks
• configure node’s resources and specifics
• review estimations, name the environment, and confirm the creation

After finishing configurations, type your environment name and click the Create button.

3. All of your environments will be listed in the central panel of the dashboard.

You can find the following information in the columns:

• Name – includes the name (or alias, if specified) of the environment and its domain. Using the arrow icon before the environment’s name, you can expand the list of nodes it includes.
• Status – shows the current state of your environments (running, sleeping, stopping, creating, launching, stopping, closing, redeploying, exporting, installing, migrating, and deleting).
• Tags – Displays environment groups and regions of this environment, versions (tags) of the containers, and the name of the deployed project.
• Usage – shows the current load (i.e., cloudlets and disk space usage). You can also find the Billing History button here, which leads to a separate tab with your spending statistics for the current environment.

Function Icon for Environments:

Hover over a running environment to see multiple icons for its management: Set Alias, Region, Open in Browser, Settings, Change Environment Topology, Clone Environment, Start/Stop, Delete Environment, Add/Edit Env Groups.

1. Use the Set Alias icon to provide an alternative environment name (the domain will remain unchanged).
2. Click the Open in Browser icon to open the environment in a new browser tab.
3. Click on Settings to open a separate tab with numerous configuration panels. Check out the detailed description in the linked section.
4. To change the environment topology, select the needed option. Perform the required changes in the Topology Wizard dialog that appears, and click Apply to submit them.
5. To Clone Environment, click on the appropriate button. In the opened frame, specify a name for the new environment and click Clone.
6. To change the status of the environment, use the start and stop buttons.
7. To delete the Environment, click the following icon and confirm the action by entering your password.
8. Hover over the tags column to manage the groups of this environment with the Add/Edit env Group buttons, respectively.

Each environment has a region-dedicated icon for platforms with multiple regions in the Tags column. It allows you to visually separate instances hosted on the different hardware servers and, upon clicking, shows only environments in the appropriate region.

Environment Settings:

There are twelve options within the Environment Settings tab: Custom Domains, Custom SSL, SSH Access, Endpoints, Firewall, Load Alerts, Auto Horizontal Scaling, Collaboration, Change Owner, Export, and Info.

1. Select the custom domains to access the following suboptions: domain binding and swap domains.

2. Choose the custom SSL option and upload the necessary files to apply your SSL certificate.

3. The SSH Access section contains the Public Keys, SSH Connection, and SFTP/or Direct SSH Access tabs. The first one allows your public SSH keys. The second one shows the environment (either via SSH Gate or Web SSH). The third provides details on the connection over the SFTP/FISH protocols.

For authentication, generate a Public key pair from OpenSSH and PuTTy.

4. Within the Endpoints section, you can manage the mapping of your containers/UDP ports to ensure their collaboration with external resources via a direct connection.

       5. The firewall section allows setting inbound and outbound rules to manage access to your containers. These rules will enable you to explicitly define which connections should be accepted and which should be blocked.

6. Use Load Alerts to set new triggers (or adjust the default ones) to receive the appropriate email notifications if the specified resource’s usage exceeds the stated limits.

The history tab lists all the triggered alerts in the environment with the details.

7. With the Auto Horizontal Scaling option, you can configure triggers to control the number of containers within a layer (except the Maven build node). Scaling conditioning can be defined based on the CPU, memory, network, disk I/O, and disk IOPS consumption.

Switch to the History tab to view a list of all scaling operations performed by the platform due to the configured triggers.

8. In the collaboration section, you can view and manage the accounts with access to the current environment.

If you need to grant access to another user, click Add and fill in the email field. To give the Change Topology/SSH access permissions, tick the appropriate option. Click Save to apply changes.

9. Click Change Owner to transfer the environment to another user account within the confines of a single platform.

10. Select Export to pack all your environment’s settings and data into a single downloadable file. Subsequently, it can be restored on another hosting provider’s platform, creating an identical environment copy.

11. Switch to the Info section for additional information on the environment domain, its owner and creator (which can differ due to the account collaboration feature), region, and creation date.

Function Icon for layers:

Click on the environment in the dashboard to see the list of its layers (load balancers, application servers, databases, etc.). You can expand these node groups to view and manage separate containers, deployed contexts, and attached IP addresses.

Hover over a particular layer or container to see the pop-up icons with different functions.

Use these options to perform the following action:

• Click the Set Alias button to configure an alternative name for your layer/node (for example, to define primary and secondary servers in a DB cluster).
• Use Open in Browser to access a node of the layer in a new browser tab (can be hidden for some stacks, e.g., shared storage or Maven build node).
• Select the Restart Node(s) option to restart the appropriate service inside a particular container or all containers in the layer.
• Select the Config option to open a configuration file manager that can adjust nodes by mounting data, creating/uploading new files, and modifying/removing existing ones.
• Choose the Log option to view the log files for the layer’s nodes. A list of log files varies based on the selected instance.
• Click the Statistics button to track the CPU, RAM, network, disk space, and IOPS consumption data for a separate node or a set of nodes in real-time.
• Select the Web SSH option to connect to your container over SSH protocol directly in the browser.
• Use the Redeploy Container(s) option to update nodes to the preferred tag (version).
• Some nodes can have additional options, such as Add-Ons (for installing pluggable modules) or remote desktops (for managing Windows-based nodes).
• The Additionally list allows you to configure container settings (variables, links, volumes, CMD/entry points), view SFTP / Direct SSH Access details, and access Scaling Nodes functionality. Also, depending on the node, it can contain other options (e.g., Reset Password or Admin Panel Login).

How does the Import function work on our platform?

Next to the New Environment option, you can find the Import button. It processes the uploaded .json, .jps, .cs, .yml, or .yaml files to create a new or modify the existing environment according to the provided settings.

Within the opened Import frame, you’ll see the following three tabs (and Examples link to the JPS Collection with numerous ready-to-go solutions):

• Local File – select the locally stored file (via the Browse button), which should be uploaded and executed on the platform
• URL – provide a direct link to the required manifest file
• JPS – the built-in JSON/YAML editor, can be used to insert and edit your code before deployment (or even write your package from scratch)

Ready to Go Applications:

Upon clicking on the last Marketplace option at the top of the dashboard, you’ll access a separate window with a list of the pre-packaged solutions for automatic installation.

These packages are divided into two groups: applications to create new environments and Add-Ons to adjust existing ones. You can search for the required solution using the appropriate field in the top-left corner or a categorized list in the left-hand menu.

Once you’ve located the desired package, click Install for it, and follow the steps in the installation frame that appears.

How does the Environment Group work on our platform?

The platform allows for creating environment groups, which help categorize your environments. For example, the administration of multiple projects becomes much simpler when each is organized into a dedicated environment group. You can apply further division by creating subgroups, e.g., development/testing/production, servers/databases/storage, etc.

How does the Dashboard Search Works:

The platform provides a built-in search within the dashboard. The core functionality is straightforward – access the Search form at the top-right corner (or use the Ctrl+F/Cmd+F shortcut), type a search term(s), and hit Enter. For example, you can locate a container by its IP/ID, search for the particular deployed project/environment, and find and deploy applications from the platform Marketplace.

The implemented search engine can be personalized to match your needs and provide the most accurate results for your requests. Among the main options:

• Special characters for search expression (e.g., “-” prefix to exclude a term or “*” wildcard)
• Search source (either the whole account or the current environment group)
• Categories filter to search among the selected entities (e.g., exclude the Marketplace packages or look for IPs only)

Additional details can be found in the help hint for the search form (circled in the image above).

What is Deployment Manager?

Deployment Manager is located at the bottom of the dashboard. It stores applications to automate their subsequent deployment into your environments. There are two subsections within the tab:

1. Archive – stores the application package itself. Upload it from your local machine (Local File) or via any external link (URL)

• Name -Name of the uploaded archive
• Comment – custom note for your application
• Size – Size of the application archive
• Upload Date – date of the archive addition to the Deployment Manager

• Click Upload, and within the appeared dialog box, provide the appropriate file either from your local machine (the Local File tab) or anywhere over the Internet (URL):

Note: The maximum archive size for the local file upload is 150 MB. If your application size exceeds this limit, please use the URL option.

1. Git / SVN – saves the access credentials to your projects at the remote Git / SVN repositories; click the Add Repo button and specify the required details.

• Name – name of your application (no spaces or special symbols are allowed)
• choose the Git repo type
• URL – the appropriate URL to the repository
• Branch – the required branch of the project (master by default)
• optionally, tick the Use Authentication check box and provide either a Password token or SSH-based credentials

• Choose the SVN repo type:
• URL – link to your repository.
• Login and Password – authentication credentials (if required)

Once your package is added to the Deployment Manager, it can be automatically deployed to the required environment..

Automate Deployment on Accuweb.Cloud Platform:

Tasks Panel

The Tasks panel is placed at the bottom of the dashboard and contains live and historical data on the tasks the platform is doing or has already done.

The following data is provided for each record:

• Status – Shows the state of the application: spinner (in progress), green (success), or red (dot)
• Time – Shows the starting time of the respective operation with the latest records deployed at the top of a tab.
• Environment – Displays the name of the environment where the action is perform (or dash “-” if there is no target environment)
• Task – Provides an operation or error description.
• Duration – Shows an execution time for a task ( displayed after completion)

If you need to view a complete list of actions performed on the account (i.e., not just the recent ones), switch to the Active Log tab (the magnifying glass icon). You are provided advanced search and filter options to locate the required tasks quickly.

• Search is done by the parameters and server response (i.e., the data upon expanding an operation), not the action description
• You can set the date range to the last 1/6/24 hour(s), current/previous week, current month, or provide your custom period
• tick Errors only to hide all the successfully executed operations

Using the tasks panel, you can always track the activity of your account as well as troubleshoot issues.

User Settings

Click the settings button at the top-right corner of the dashboard to access User Settings configurations.

You can find the following sections: account, access tokens, SSH keys/SSH access, and collaboration.

1. The Account section allows managing two-factor authentication for your account and changing the password.

2. Within the Access Tokens tab, you can configure personal access tokens for your account.

3. The SSH keys and SSH access points open a section with four sub-tabs:

• Public Keys – Stores public keys added to the platform (required for remote access via local SSH client)
• Privet keys – Lists privet keys added to the platform (required for access to your Git repository over SSH)
• SSH Connection – Shows the required steps to connect your account via SSH gate and allows accessing particular nodes directory in the browser using Web SSH.
• SFTP/Direct SSH Access – Displays connection data for SFTP/FISH protocols.

4. The Collaboration section consists of two options shared by me and shared with me. The first allows sharing your environments with other users on the platform, while the second lists collaborations you are a part of.