Google Compute Engine

The Halon platform runs on Google Cloud's Compute Engine.

Launching the image

Our public image "gs://halon/halon-sp-gce-3.3-frosty-amd64.tar.gz" can be imported on the Compute > Compute Engine > Images page in Google Cloud "Developers Console" by creating a new image with the source type "Cloud Storage object", or using the Cloud SDK commands

gcutil addimage halon-sp-33 gs://halon/halon-sp-gce-3.3-frosty-amd64.tar.gz
gcloud compute instances create VM-NAME --image "https://.../images/halon-sp-33" --local-ssd-count 1 OTHER-OPTIONS

You can also download the "serial" image from our website and import it yourself.

Getting started

1. Create a new VM using whichever method you prefer
   • It's recommended to add an extra disk (used for storage) right away (press "Show advanced options"), because it will be automatically formatted and mounted during first boot
   • The provided SSH key won't be used, the username/password defaults to "admin"
2. Browse to its web admin on port 443
3. Login with username and password "admin"
4. Choose a new password in the getting started guide
5. Once the getting started guide is completed, you will be redirected to the web admin's overview page

If you added an extra disk when creating the VM it should be used; otherwise a "no storage warning" will be shown. If so, follow these steps

1. Attach an extra disk to the VM in Google Cloud
2. Go to the Halon's System > Hardware page
3. Format the desired storage disk (the system will reboot)
4. Login and go to the same page again, and choose the desired storage disk at as storage device (the system will reboot again)

Storage disks

The system partiton is read-only during normal operation, and all data (email, database, definitions, temp) are written to a separate storage partition. There are many different storage partitions options; the most simple in the GCE case is to attach a disk when creating the VM; it will be automatically used.

Another option is to "extend" the system partitions's disk by adding the storage partition to the end of it. An option to use the system disk as storage will automatically appear on the System > Hardware page if it's large enough (more than 10 GB). This is very common in "bare metal" installations, because the system partitons's disk is almost always larger than the 500 MB that the system partition occupies. In the GCE case, this is as simple as creating a large enough disk from the image (thus "resizing" the system disk) and using it as VM boot disk.