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Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat

0. Introduction

For production using official Ubuntu 24.04 packages.

1. Requirements

In order to run an official Aleph.im Compute Resource Node (CRN), you will also need the following resources:

  • CPU (2 options):
  • Min. 8 cores / 16 threads, 3.0 ghz+ CPU (gaming CPU for fast boot-up of microVMs)
  • Min. 12 core / 24 threads, 2.4ghz+ CPU (datacenter CPU for multiple concurrent loads)
  • RAM: 64GB
  • STORAGE: 1TB (NVMe SSD preferred, datacenter fast HDD possible under conditions, you’ll want a big and fast cache)
  • NETWORK: Minimum 500 MB/s symmetrical, dedicated IPv4, and /64 or larger IPv6 subnet.

You will need a public domain name with access to add TXT and wildcard records.

💡 This documentation will use the invalid vm.example.org domain name. Replace it when needed.

2. Installation

Run the following commands:

First install the VM-Connector using Docker:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install -y docker.io
docker run -d -p 127.0.0.1:4021:4021/tcp --restart=always --name vm-connector alephim/vm-connector:alpha

Then install the VM-Supervisor using the official Ubuntu 24.04 package. The procedure is similar for updates.

# Download the latest release
release=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/aleph-im/aleph-vm/releases/latest | awk -F'"' '/"tag_name":/ {print $4}')
sudo wget -P /opt/ https://github.com/aleph-im/aleph-vm/releases/download/${release}/aleph-vm.ubuntu-24.04.deb
# Install it
sudo apt install /opt/aleph-vm.ubuntu-24.04.deb

Reboot if required (new kernel, ...).

3. Configuration

Update the configuration in /etc/aleph-vm/supervisor.env using your favourite editor.

Hostname

You will want to insert your domain name in the form of:

ALEPH_VM_DOMAIN_NAME=vm.example.org

Network configuration

IPv6 address pool

The range of IPv6 addresses usable by the virtual machines must be specified manually.

According to the IPv6 specifications, a system is expected to receive an IPv6 with a /64 mask and all addresses inside that mask should simply be routed to the host.

The option takes the form of: 

ALEPH_VM_IPV6_ADDRESS_POOL="2a01:4f8:171:787::/64"

Assuming hosting provider follows the specification, the procedure is the following:

  1. Obtain the IPv6 address of your node.
  2. Remove the trailing number after :: if present, for example 2a01:4f8:171:787::2/64 becomes 2a01:4f8:171:787::/64.
  3. Add the IPv6 range you obtained under the setting ALEPH_VM_IPV6_ADDRESS_POOL in the configuration.

Network Interface

The default network interface is detected automatically from the IP routes. You can configure the default interface manually instead by adding:

ALEPH_VM_NETWORK_INTERFACE=enp0s1

(don't forget to replace enp0s1 with the name of your default network interface).

Domain Name Servers

You can configure the DNS resolver manually by using one of the following options:

ALEPH_VM_DNS_RESOLUTION=resolvectl
ALEPH_VM_DNS_RESOLUTION=resolv.conf

💡 You can instead specify the DNS resolvers used by the VMs using ALEPH_VM_DNS_NAMESERVERS=["1.2.3.4", "5.6.7.8"].

Volumes and partitions

Two directories are used to store data from the network:

  • /var/lib/aleph/vm contains all the execution and persistent data.
  • /var/cache/aleph/vm contains data downloaded from the network.

These two directories must be stored on the same partition. That partition must meet the minimum requirements specified for a CRN.

💡 This is required due to the software using hard links to optimize performance and disk usage.

Applying changes

Finally, restart the service:

sudo systemctl restart aleph-vm-supervisor

4. Reverse Proxy

We document how to use Caddy as a reverse proxy since it manages and renews HTTPS certificates automatically.

Any other reverse-proxy (Nginx, HAProxy, Apache2, ...) should do the job as well, just make sure to renew the HTTPS/TLS certificates on time.

First, create a domain name that points to the server on IPv4 (A) and IPv6 (AAAA).

This is a simple configuration. For more options, check CONFIGURE_CADDY.

Again, run these commands as root:

sudo apt install -y debian-keyring debian-archive-keyring apt-transport-https
curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/gpg.key' | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/caddy-stable-archive-keyring.gpg
curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/debian.deb.txt' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/caddy-stable.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install caddy

Then, after replacing the domain vm.example.org with your own, use configure Caddy:

sudo cat >/etc/caddy/Caddyfile <<EOL
{
    https_port 443
}
vm.example.org:443 {
    reverse_proxy http://127.0.0.1:4020 {
        # Forward Host header to the backend
        header_up Host {host}
    }
}
EOL

Finally, restart Caddy to use the new configuration:

sudo systemctl restart caddy

5. Test

Open https://[YOUR DOMAIN] in a web browser, wait for diagnostic to complete and look for

image

If you face an issue, check the logs of the different services for errors:

VM-Supervisor:

sudo journalctl -f -u aleph-vm-supervisor.service

Caddy:

sudo journalctl -f -u caddy.service

VM-Connector:

sudo docker logs -f vm-connector

IPv6 connectivity can be checked by opening the path /status/check/ipv6 on the CRN's URL after restarting the service.

https://vm.example.org/status/check/ipv6

Common errors

"Network interface eth0 does not exist"

Did you update the configuration file /etc/aleph-vm/supervisor.env with ALEPH_VM_NETWORK_INTERFACE equal to the default network interface of your server ?

"Aleph Connector unavailable"

Investigate the installation of the VM-Connector using Docker in step 2.