RONIN LINK - Our Handy Desktop App!

RONIN LINK uses the MIT Open Source Software license as detailed here

What is RONIN LINK?

After writing articles like CONNECTING TO YOUR MACHINE IN RONIN and ACCESSING YOUR SERVER APPLICATION WITH SSH PORT FORWARDING, we started to realise the learning curve for new cloud users is quite high. Running command line tools can be daunting and new users often got stuck with learning repetitive commands just to start work.

We aim to minimise the complexity of cloud and make it available for everyone, not just those with IT degrees, while maintaining the level of security those nerds in the basement are happy with.

Introducing... RONIN LINK!

After you have created your machine, you can use RONIN LINK to link to your machine!

How to link to a machine in RONIN

Step 1 - Download RONIN LINK

Once you have installed RONIN LINK, open it from your applications menu!

Step 2 - Navigate to the Machine Summary page in RONIN

Make sure your machine key is in your Downloads OR .ssh folder!

Step 3 - Click Open with RONIN LINK

Your machine will connect automatically!

Launch a Secure Windows / Ubuntu Remote Desktop

Step 1 - Click Machine Tools on the Machine Card in RONIN LINK

This is available for Windows 2019 Server and >= Ubuntu 18.04 with more to come!

Step 2 - Choose Desktop

Using Nice DCV, we run all the commands needed to save you time.

Step 3 - Wait for it to install

This will take a few minutes on your first run, so please be patient!

Step 4 - You're there!

Proof it works for Windows too

How to link to any machine

Step 1 - Download RONIN LINK

Once you have installed RONIN LINK, open it from your applications menu!

Step 2 - Fill in the fields

Machine Name - Your machine name (e.g. link.ronin.cloud)
User Name - The username your machine in RONIN is expecting

If you're not sure what the user name is, click the 3 dots in the card to enter the default usernames we provide in RONIN
Secure Key - The key you downloaded when creating this machine
OR
Password - The windows password you connect with when creating this machine

Not sure what key you used for this machine? RONIN gives you a clue as to what the key is called on the machine summary page

Step 3 - Click Link Machine!

If the link is successful, a card with your machine will show up in the application

Open the machine's terminal

Click the Terminal button and a new terminal window will open! You're now in the RONIN machine.

Connect your app

For example, we have installed apache on our ubuntu-desktop.ronin.cloud machine. Click Connect to Machine and scroll down to the bottom

With apache, it listens via HTTP, so by clicking Link on the Web (HTTP) button, enter your password, and voila!

To close the connection, click remove on the machine card and the link will be closed.

Show machine performance or Restart and Shutdown Machine

Amazing! What else can it do?!

Check out our blog posts for linking to RStudio, Ganglia (Clusters), Jupyter Notebooks and more! We will continue updating this app to make cloud usage easier, so keep updated and subscribe to our blog / join our Slack channel!

HAVING ISSUES?

To help you the best we can, please attach your error log file found in your HOME directory to the support link here!

• Windows: C:\Users<username>.ronin-link\error.log
• Mac and Ubuntu: /Users//.ronin-link/error.log