Running a container towards EP5G

This guide will walk you through the steps of running a server container on a worker node, complete with networking definitions that allow clients using EP5G to communicate with the server container application.

Step 1: Reserve a worker node

See the “reservation of a worker node” section.

Step 2: Reserve EP5G and define edge networking

See the “Network definittion for EP5G” section. The subnet “10.70.70.0/24” subnet defined at the end there, for communication with a container in a worker node, will be used here towards the container application.

Step 3: Create a container

We will here create a container with the “Openrtist” backend application. “Openrtist” has two parts, a client and a backend application. The client sends a video feed to the backend, which processes it and sends it back to the client with the appearance inspired by famous paintings. The client, in this case, will run on a user of the EP5G system.

  • From the ExPECA home page, click Container -> Containers

Containers main page

  • Click + Create Container

  • Under Info tab, give the container the name “openrtist”

  • Type “cmusatyalab/openrtist:stable” as image name

Create container, first screen

  • Under Networks tab, click the arrow to the right of the network you have defined for local communication with containers. It will then move up to the “allocated” section. In this case, that network name is “edge-net”

Create container, second screen

  • Under Labels tab, define the network interface we will use in the worker node, the IP address to use for the container, and the running_container we will use to route traffic back towards the EP5G network. In this case, it is “networks.1.interface=ens1,networks.1.ip=10.70.70.30/24,networks.1.routes=172.16.0.0/16-10.70.70.1”

  • Note that the interface is picked from the Hardware Discovery section for your chosen worker node, the IP is picked from the subnet of your “local network”, and the route back to EP5G uses the subnet of EP5G (172.16.0.0/16) and the default gateway of your “local network”. “Local network”, in this case, is “edge-net”.

Create container, second screen
Create container, second screen

  • Under Scheduler Hints tab, add “reservation” as hint

  • Paste the “reservation ID” for the worker node lease you have created. Note that the “reservation ID” can be obtained from Reservations -> Leases -> click on your lease.

Create container, second screen
Create container, third screen

  • Now click on Create to create your container. After a short time, the container is created, and by default should be running.

  • You should now be able to run the “openrtist” client from a user device using the EP5G system. The IP address of the server application would be the 10.70.70.30 address picked for the container in the worker node.