User manual: quick start
This page assumes you have a working installation of the EJabberd and Archipel Agent, as described in the Installation Manual. It will guide you through the first steps in Archipel GUI, and will explain its basic operations.
Enter the URL of the HTTP served directory where Archipel GUI is installed in your browser. After a small pre-loading phase, the connection prompt will open.
Enter the following information (all the fields must be filled):
-
Jabber ID: your XMPP admin account, which must be like
admin@your.fqdn.fr - Password: the password associated with the admin account
-
BOSH Service: the BOSH URL of your XMPP server. If you use our sample conf for Ejabberd, it should be
http://your.fqdn.fr:5280/http-bind - Remember: remember credentials (will connect automatically at next loading of Archipel)
Usually, your BOSH hostname is the same as the domain of your JID.
Then click on the Connect button.
The user's preferences for Archipel are linked with a JID. This means that all information in the Preferences window will be stored in the XMPP account of the user and will be persistent over reload, or switching browsers or computers.
The Preferences window contains several tabs, one named "General" and several others. The other tabs are dynamic module preferences. To get more information about a module's user preferences, see its documentation (which doesn't exist yet :)).
To access preferences, Select the "Archipel" menu, and then "Preferences".
You may also type
CMD + ,on a Mac, orCTRL + ,to open this panel
This will open the Preferences window:
- Welcome page URL: The URL of the page that will be displayed when no entity is selected.
- Module loading delay time: The time to wait before actually loading a module when an entity is selected.
- BOSH Resource: The XMPP resource to use. It can be whatever you want, just keep in mind that a JID cannot be connected several times with the same resource.
- Language: The language of the user interface (changing this will require a reload of the web interface).
- Use animation: Use eye candy animations.
- XMPP Monitoring: Enable the traffic LED activity (this decreases performance).
- Updates: If checked, Archipel will search for new versions at connection.
- Display welcome message: Open the first connection window.
- Debug level: Set the level at which to store logs. All logs are printed in the JavaScript console of your browser.
The Reset button resets all the custom preferences to their factory defaults.
To communicate with Archipel agents, you need to add them in your roster (list of contacts). This is the exact same system you would use with your GMail account when you want to communicate with someone. You must ask the hypervisor for a subscription request. Then hypervisor then checks whether you have permission to talk with it and if you do, it will accept your subscription request.
To add your hypervisor, click on the bottom left "+" button and select "Add a contact".
Enter the JID of your hypervisor. It should be myfqdn@myfqdn if this is your first or only hypervisor. You also can choose to name it. This name is just the nickname you want to use in your own roster. It is not visible to others. If you leave this field blank, the actual name of the hypervisor will be used. You will be able to change this later.
Note: the account is in general account@jabberserver where account is the value set in archipel.conf for
hypervisor_xmpp_jid.
Then your hypervisor will be added to your roster.
In Archipel, virtual machines are XMPP entities, just like the hypervisors. They have their own JID and own roster. In order to create a virtual machine, you have to ask one hypervisor to do it for you. Then the virtual machine will be created, and it will ask you a subscription request when it will be ready.
Select your hypervisor from your roster then select the tab named "Virtual Machines":
Click on the bottom "+" button, and enter the name of the virtual machine. This is name cannot be changed. You will be able to change the display name (nickname) but never the name. If you leave this field blank, Archipel will pick up a random name, from a list of named asteroids in our solar system.
Once the virtual machine has been initialized, you must answer its subscription request:
Then the virtual machine will appear in your roster in a Not defined status. The virtual machine is now ready to be configured. Create and connect a virtual hard drive, connect an ISO image or add whatever other media you may need, and your virtual machine will be ready to boot. Don't forget to configure a NIC if you need network connectivity on the VM.
You can sort entities into groups. Groups can also be placed into other groups. One advantage of groups is that you will be able to send commands to the whole group.
Click on the bottom left "+" button and choose "Add a group":
Then enter the name of your group:
Finally you can put entities and other groups in it by drag and drop:
More to come...