Installing workspace service and user resource

Publish and register a workspace service template

We will use the Guacamole workspace service bundle for the purposes of this tutorial; a template that provides Virtual Desktop functionality allowing the deployment of VMs for users. These steps can be repeated for any workspace service template depending on the functionalities required.

1. Run:

   make workspace_service_bundle BUNDLE=guacamole
   

Publish and register a user resource template

The Guacamole workspace service also has user resources: the VMs that researchers will deploy. These steps can be repeated for any user resource template.

1. Run:

   make user_resource_bundle BUNDLE=guacamole-azure-windowsvm WORKSPACE_SERVICE=guacamole
   

Creating a workspace service

Now that we have published and registered both workspace service and user resource bundles we can use the workspace API to create a workspace service in our workspace.

1. Navigate to the Swagger UI at https://<azure_tre_fqdn>/api/workspaces/<workspace_id>/docs . Where <workspace_id> is the workspace ID of the workspace created in the previous step.

Info

All routes are auth protected. Click the green Authorize button to receive a token for Swagger client.

1. Log into the Swagger UI by clicking Authorize, then Authorize again. You will be redirected to the login page.

Info

You need to log in with a user with assigned the WorkspaceOwner role in the app regsitration used when deploying your workspace.

1. Once logged in, click Try it out on the POST /api/workspaces/<workspace_id>/workspace-services operation.

2. Enter the workspace_id in the workspace_id field.

3. Paste the following payload json into the Request body field. Then click Execute. Review the server response.

   {
     "templateName": "tre-service-guacamole",
     "properties": {
       "display_name": "Virtual Desktop",
       "description": "Create virtual desktops for running research workloads",
       "is_exposed_externally": true,
       "guac_disable_copy": true,
       "guac_disable_paste": true
     }
   }
   

The API will return an operation object with a Location header to query the operation status, as well as the resourceId and resourcePath properties to query the resource under creation. Record this ID for later use.

You can also follow the progress in Azure portal as various resources come up.

Info

There is currently a bug where the redirect URI isn't automatically set up correctly in the Workspace API app registration. Until this is fixed, you need to head to the app registration in the Azure portal, click on Add a redirect URI > Add a platform > Web > then paste in the Guacamole URI in the redirect URI box. You can find this in the Guacamole app service properties and append /oauth2/callback to the end - it should look like this: https://guacamole-{TRE_ID}-ws-XXXX-svc-XXXX.azurewebsites.net/oauth2/callback/). Finally, make sure you check the ID tokens checkbox and click Configure.

Creating a user resource

Once the workspace service has been created, we can use the workspace API to create a user resource in our workspace.

Caution

Before deploying Guacamole user resources, you will want to make sure you have a Nexus shared service deployed in the workspace so that your VMs can access package repositories through a proxy (as they can't access public repositories directly). See Configuring shared services.

1. Navigate to the Swagger UI at https://<azure_tre_fqdn>/api/workspaces/<workspace_id>/docs . Where <workspace_id> is the workspace ID of your workspace.

2. Click Try it out on the POST /api/workspaces/<workspace_id>/workspace-services/<service_id>/user_resources operation. Where <workspace_id> and <service_id> are the workspace ID of your workspace and workspace service ID of your workspace service.

3. Enter the workspace ID and workspace service id in the workspace_id and service_id fields.

4. Paste the following payload json into the Request body field, then click Execute. Review the server response.

   {
     "templateName": "tre-service-guacamole-windowsvm",
     "properties": {
       "display_name": "My VM",
       "description": "Will be using this VM for my research",
       "os_image": "Server 2019 Data Science VM",
       "nexus_version": "V2"
     }
   }
   

   Note: You can also specify "Windows 10" in "os_image" for a standard Windows 10 image.

The API will return an operation object with a Location header to query the operation status, as well as the resourceId and resourcePath properties to query the resource under creation.

You can also follow the progress in Azure portal as various resources come up. Once deployment has completed you can connect to the user resource using the connection_uri property returned by the API.