Skip to content

UCloud guide

As recently announced, UCloud is now approved for use with personal data. Below is a guide on how to connect remotely to a UCloud terminal app through ssh.

Accessing UCloud terminal app through ssh

See also further ressources for UCloud's general guides.

Setup ssh

See UCloud's guide here. Note that you probably already have a public ssh key on your computer.

In my case I already have a public ssh key. Therefore I copy my ssh key using

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub | wl-copy

and upload it manually to ssh-keys.

Submit job

Submit your terminal application job here. You can specify different parameters in the application form e.g. selecting access to a specific folder. I select my home folder; this will be available under /work/Home on the remote machine. Also, I select the Machine Type equal to u1-standard-1.

Access the app

After having setup the ssh access correctly, the app screen will provide you with an ssh command to run on your local machine. In my case, it gives me the command:

ssh ucloud@ssh.cloud.sdu.dk -p 2417

Note the -p port flag. This will be important when e.g. copying files to the server using scp from you local machine, see scp.

Running the ssh command yields the output:

❯ ssh ucloud@ssh.cloud.sdu.dk -p 2417
The authenticity of host '[ssh.cloud.sdu.dk]:2417' can't be established.
...
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes

Type yes. Now you should get a nice welcome message:

Welcome to Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.15.175.el8 x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/pro

This system has been minimized by removing packages and content that are
not required on a system that users do not log into.

To restore this content, you can run the 'unminimize' command.

The programs included with the Ubuntu system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Ubuntu comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by
applicable law.

ucloud@j-5175036-job-0
----------------------
OS: Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS x86_64
Host: PowerEdge C6420
Kernel: Linux 5.15.175.el8
Uptime: 27 days, 23 hours, 2 mins
Packages: 1096 (dpkg)
Shell: bash 5.2.21
CPU: 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6130 (64) @ 3.70 GHz
GPU: Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd. Integrated Matrox G200eW3 Graphics Controller
Memory: 45.09 GiB / 376.53 GiB (12%)


ucloud in 🌐 j-5175036-job-0 in ~
[ 09:18:38 ] ➜

Note the remote machine's specification in the welcome message:

  • OS: Ubuntu 24.04.1
  • CPU: CPU: 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6130 (64) @ 3.70 GHz
  • Memory: Memory: 45.09 GiB / 376.53 GiB (12%)

We now have access to a shell in the UCloud environment.

Work folder

If you have specified access to a specific holder, e.g. you home folder, when requesting the job, it should be located under /work/Home.

ucloud in 🌐 j-5175036-job-0 in ~
[ 09:32:09 ] ➜  cd /work/Home

ucloud in 🌐 j-5175036-job-0 in /work/Home
[ 09:32:18 ] ➜  ls
Jobs  Syncthing  Trash

scp

local to remote

I create a file locally on my machine and copy it to the remove server using the following commands:

❯ touch msg-to-ucloud.txt
❯ echo "hello ucloud" >> msg-to-ucloud.txt
❯ scp -P 2417 msg-to-ucloud.txt ucloud@ssh.cloud.sdu.dk:/work/Home
msg-to-ucloud.txt                                    100%   13     0.6KB/s   00:00

As it was succesful, we expect the file to be under /work/Home on the remote machine. As shown below, this is the case:

ucloud in 🌐 j-5175036-job-0 in /work/Home
[ 09:43:18 ] ➜  ls
Jobs  Syncthing  Trash  msg-to-ucloud.txt

ucloud in 🌐 j-5175036-job-0 in /work/Home
[ 09:43:19 ] ➜  cat msg-to-ucloud.txt
hello ucloud

If you inspect you home folder under drives you should also be able to see and access the file.

remote to local

Create a file on the remote machine:

ucloud in 🌐 j-5175067-job-0 in ~
[ 10:02:52 ] ➜  echo "hello world" >> msg-to-local.txt

Then on your local machine, run the following command (specify the port that you have gotten allocated):

❯ scp -P 2483 ucloud@ssh.cloud.sdu.dk:msg-to-local.txt .
msg-to-local.txt                                    100%   12     0.3KB/s   00:00
❯ cat msg-to-local.txt
hello world

Thus, the remote file has been succesfully copied to the local machine.

Note that the port has changed in the command above from 2417 to 2483. This is because, while writing this guide, my requested 1-hour session from UCloud ran out, and therefore I requested another machine and got a new port 😀

Connecting from SODAS server to UCloud server

  • ssh into the SODAS server

  • Copy your id_rsa.pub file into your clipboard or another location; inspect it by running

    cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
  • If you don't have a ssh key on the server, follow the guide here or any other on how to create a ssh key pair
  • Go to the SSH keys page on UCloud and paste your public key with a suitable title
  • You should now be able to ssh from the SODAS server to UCloud directly
    • This allows you to use scp to copy files from the server to UCloud directly (while respecting all data rules)

Notice

  • The port range that UCloud assigns has been opened from the SODAS server
  • This port range is subject to change in the future
  • If the guide above does not work, the port range may have changed; if so, contact the server administrators

Further ressources

See the excellent guides at UCloud: