Google Cloud Compute Setup (my Notes)

PointsWell

So everything from this sentence onwards is prefaced with "I am not a UNIX expert, all the steps here worked for me, you might get different mileage, if your home explodes or your dog suddenly hates you I accept no liability"

After a rather tedious 4 days of fighting with Google Cloud Compute I appear to have managed to set up AwareIM on an external server - Yay for me.

I wasn't super diligent in taking notes but I did end up having to do it about three times so I am reasonably certain that it is mostly complete. I'm happy to answer questions about what I did, but I am really not going to be the best person to debug or help with stuff not in the steps below.

I chose Centos 7 as the server and MySQL as the Cloud database. My choices were based on cost and that I really dislike Windows.

Setting Up with Google Cloud.

1	Create a Project - Everything below then is associated with this project
2	Create an Cloud Compute instance (UNIX)
	- choose your name carefully - it cannot be changed after the event
3	Ensure that you have enabled the SQL API for the instance
4	Create an CloudSQL instance - take a note of the instance name
5	Login to your Cloud COmpute instance
	Install the SQL proxy in your Cloud Compute instance - this psychs the instance into believing that it 
	is dealing directly with a local mySQL 
	instance
	- sudo yum install wget
	- sudo wget https://dl.google.com/cloudsql/cloud_sql_proxy.linux.amd64
	* be aware where you are downloading this to that is where it will end up (I put mine in /bin/)
	- sudo mv cloud_sql_proxy.linux.amd64 cloud_sql_proxy
	- sudo chmod +x cloud_sql_proxy
	- sudo ./cloud_sql_proxy -instances=[YOUR INSTANCE NAME FROM STEP4]=tcp:3306 
	- you will also need to install Java (sudo yum install java-1.8.0-openjdk-devel)
6	Ensure that on the Networking Console Page that you have opened ports 8080, 9000, 61616
7	Obtain a static IP address
8	Assign it to your Cloud Compute instance
9	mkdir /opt/awareim - I did this to place the Aware install in a commonly available location

10	Unzip your AwareIM.tar file (sudo tar -xvf AwareIM.tar -C /opt/awareim/)

11	Rename BASServer.props to BASServer-Default.props on the Cloud Compute 
		Instance in the /opt/awareim/bin folder - 
		Rename BASServerMySQL.props to BASServer.props
		Edit the BASServer.props file use the mySQL root password but leave it set to localhost (you are 
		using the proxy to connect to the database) 
			- I downloaded nano to edit with as it is about a zillion times easier to use that vi (sudo yum 
			install nano)
			- sudo nano /opt/aware/bin/BASServer.props

12	While in the BASServer.props edit
		DirectoryServiceProvider=tcp://localhost:61616 change localhost to the name you chose in step 2
		JMS_BROKER_CONNECTOR=tcp://localhost:61616 change localhost to the name you chose in step 2
		Write out (Ctrl-O) and exit Ctrl-X

13	From the /opt/awareim/bin directory run the server - bash startAwareIMNoGUI.sh

14	On your Mac install the eval version of AwareIM
		DO NOT RUN it
15	Edit the UIConfig.props file in the AwareIM folder and use the server name of the Cloud Compute instance where it says localhost
16	Edit the etc/hosts file on your Mac (terminal sudo nano etc/hosts) add the External IP address from step 7 and the Name from step 2

You should probably add a startup script for the Cloud SQL Proxy and to restart the server. I have not gotten that to work yet.

My learnings are:
Google Cloud Compute is not very forgiving once you have set up a server. If you name it incorrectly or you didn't provision the correct APIs I found it easier to just scratch it and start again - the help docs are not the most straightforward.

Also bear in mind that SQL Cloud doesn't need to have any of it's IP addresses exposed if you use the CloudSQL Proxy - this means that you can connect to your SQL server remotely without an IP address as long as you have the SSH keys and the instance name on your desktop. Likewise for your Cloud Compute server does not need any IP addresses or hostnames to connect to your Cloud SQL server instance it is spoofed into thinking it is local. I don't know if that makes it more secure or makes no difference.

I have also added a bunch of files to the home user folder:
/bin/BASServer.props - copied from /opt/awareim/bin
/Webapps/AwareIM/start.html
/Webapps/AwareIM/Custom/
/Webapps/AwareIM/Font-Awesome-4.7.0

In the event that I need to reinstall AwareIM I will then be able to copy these back to installation.

I still have a permissions issue on the Tomcat folder and AwareIM server gives warnings that it cannot write to scratch Dirs, but it is working at the moment.

[Edit]
This link http://www.tecmint.com/create-new-service-units-in-systemd/ explains how to setup services on Centos 7 and was really useful in making sure that the SQL Proxy runs on setup

This thread also helped with the setting up of the client
https://www.awareim.com/forum/d/9604>

kklosson

I missed the part where you explain why you even did this.

PointsWell

kklosson wrote
I missed the part where you explain why you even did this.

That is possibly the snarkiest comment that I have read on here. Frankly it is attitudes and responses like this that discourage people from using products, especially products that do not have a large install base.

the reasons I setup as I did:

I am working with a colleague 17,000km away
I have no desire to provide and manage a VPN onto my private network
Google Cloud provides USD300 of free credit valid for a year. On a quick back of the envelope calculation that is worth about 3 months free development time to me.
I chose Linux because I hate Windows with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.
I chose CentOS because it is a community version of RedHat, but has a lower cost while I am setting up my installation
I posted this information because of this post https://www.awareim.com/forum/d/9561> and in an attempt to provide something to the community in return for the help that I have received from others here,

mrbdrm

Thank you for this information i am sure it will be very useful for anyone using google cloud.

JonP

You are awesome! This is a generous contribution to the forum.

I was shocked by how fast I am burning through that $300. It's been 37 days, I've done almost nothing with the 2 GCE instances in the last 2 weeks, and I've already burned through $160. I'm sure your mileage will be better with your setup, but that's still too expensive for my taste. I'm looking at switching to Digital Ocean with their flat rate. Hopefully the steps you've outlined will translate to setting-up over there.

PointsWell

JonP wrote
You are awesome! This is a generous contribution to the forum.

I was shocked by how fast I am burning through that $300. It's been 37 days, I've done almost nothing with the 2 GCE instances in the last 2 weeks, and I've already burned through $160. I'm sure your mileage will be better with your setup, but that's still too expensive for my taste. I'm looking at switching to Digital Ocean with their flat rate. Hopefully the steps you've outlined will translate to setting-up over there.

😮

I am running at about USD4 a day with little activity. I'm running a single core 3.5GB of ram and a 10GB SQL instance. Which sounds about similar to your daily burn.

Will check out Digital Ocean

tford

What am I missing? We are running a dedicated server that costs about $4 / day from an ISP.

PointsWell

tford wrote
What am I missing? We are running a dedicated server that costs about $4 / day from an ISP.

My setup is:
1 Cloud Compute Environment (1CPU 3.75GB Ram 10GB drive)
1 separate SQL instance (10GB) with backup
1 External IP address
1 Storage bucket (unstructured storage space)
I am charged for data egress but not for intra Google data

I've just checked my billing account and I appear to have used AUD25 in 6 days which averages out at AUD4 per day.

They are calculating at an exchange rate of ₁.30 USD:AUD so that works out at USD 3.20 per day.

I would stress though that the bulk of that time there was very little going on data egress wise and the rest of the time it is configuration work that I am doing, so not data heavy.

Data egress for the 1st & 2nd of this month worked out at 0.055 Gibibytes [ Currency conversion: USD to AUD using rate 1.336 ] which cost me AUD 0.01 which looks like it would be about AUD1 per 1GB, I think I can probably tweak this by working out the best instance location versus data exit point, but I haven't been bothered to fine tune that at the moment.

Would be interested to compare how that stacks up to your local ISP. I will probably look to an alternative provider once I am out of development as I'd rather spend locally - don't believe Google really needs my dollar.

RLJB

Our experience on digital ocean (about 3 years ago).... woke up to no mail server, after logging into digital ocean was informed they had deleted my instance by accident, no reason, no apologies... just a recommendation to restore it from a backup and a credit for a years worth of that instance (which I never used, unsurprisingly)

I was on holidays too!

UnionSystems

Hi Pointswell,

We’re just reviewing our AWS hosting which is starting to cost a lot. Just wondering how you,ve found Google Cloud’s peformance and durability after 6 months of use.

Thanks

customaware

Forget 1 Core... 2 Core minimum

Independent Evaluation

Google Vs UpCloud
https://www.vpsbenchmarks.com/compare/gce_vs_upcloud

AWS Vs UpCloud
https://www.vpsbenchmarks.com/compare/ec2_vs_upcloud

Vultr Vs UpCloud
https://www.vpsbenchmarks.com/compare/upcloud_vs_vultr

Digital Ocean Vs UpCloud
https://www.vpsbenchmarks.com/compare/docean_vs_upcloud

Dave,
Try spinning up an instance in Singapore and see how it performs. Might be ok.

PointsWell

UnionSystems wrote
Hi Pointswell,

We’re just reviewing our AWS hosting which is starting to cost a lot. Just wondering how you,ve found Google Cloud’s peformance and durability after 6 months of use.

Thanks

Hmm, I’m just using it for development at the moment, that said it has been rock solid though I am not at the stage of optimisation yet so can’t tell if the slow bits of my app are bad design, bad database or needs more iron. there are $300 free credits to test out Google Cloud Compute. I found that that lasted about 3 months for my limited usage.

If you’re running just AIM then it may be worth reviewing the platform Mark’s using. Google benefit is that it is wide ranging services like AWS (but with less confusing product names).