Simple Layer 2 Experiment Using the GENI Portal

This tutorial is deprecated and only listed here for reference. A similar tutorial is ​Lab Zero

Part I/Step 1: Establish Management Environment

Instructions

1. Pre-work: Create a GENI account

Go to https://portal.geni.net and press the Use GENI button From the Drop Down menu select your institution. If you got an account through the GENI Identity Provider, please select GENI Project Office. Start typing the name of your institution and see the list become smaller. You will be transferred to the Login Page of your institution. Fill in your username and password. Complete the form that appears after you have successfully logged in and press Continue. You will be transferred to an Activation Page. Make sure both checkboxes are checked and then press Activate.

Figure 1-1 Logging into the GENI Experimenter Portal.

Congratulations, you have successfully created a GENI account.

2. Pre-work: Project lead adds you to a project

In order to use the portal to reserve resources, you must join a project. We have created a project for this tutorial.

The tutorial organizers should have added you to the project for this tutorial. On the home page, you should see that you are a member of at least one project. If you are not doing this exercise as part of an in-person tutorial please sign up for a GENI account and join a project.

3. Generate and Download SSH Keypair

Access to compute resources in GENI is provided through ssh key pairs and thus the portal needs a public key to upload to compute resources. For the purposes of the tutorial we will have the portal create an SSH key pair for you. (However, if you prefer to use your personal public key you can choose to upload it.)

Once you are logged in, click on the Profile page. On the Profile page in the SSH Keys section, select generate and download an SSH keypair button.

Figure 3-1 On the Profile page, select the "generate and download an SSH keypair" button.

3. Enter the same passphrase twice, then press Generate SSH private key.

Figure 3-2 Enter passphrase twice, then generate SSH private key.

4. Now, press the Download Private Key button
5. Open a terminal and execute:

   $ mv ~/Downloads/id_geni_ssh_rsa ~/.ssh/.
   $ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_geni_ssh_rsa
   $ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_geni_ssh_rsa
   

   Later in the tutorial, this will allow you to log into your nodes securely without a password.

Figure 3-3 Download an SSH Key Pair.

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Introduction

Next: Create a slice and reserve resources