2.2. Node#

2.2.1. Introduction#

It is assumed you have successfully installed vantage6-node. To verify this you can run the command vnode --help. If that prints a list of commands, the installation is completed. Also, make sure that Docker is running.

Note

An organization runs a node for each of the collaborations it participates in

Quick start#

To create a new node, run the command below. A menu will be started that allows you to set up a node configuration file. For more details, check out the Configure section.

vnode new

To run a node, execute the command below. The --attach flag will cause log output to be printed to the console.

vnode start --name <your_node> --attach

Finally, a node can be stopped again with:

vnode stop --name <your_node>

Available commands#

Below is a list of all commands you can run for your node(s). To see all available options per command use the --help flag, i.e. vnode start --help .

Command	Description
`vnode new`	Create a new node configuration file
`vnode start`	Start a node
`vnode stop`	Stop one or all nodes
`vnode files`	List the files of a node
`vnode attach`	Print the node logs to the console
`vnode list`	List all available nodes
`vnode create-private-key`	Create and upload a new public key for your organization

See the following sections on how to configure and maintain a vantage6-node instance:

Configure
Security
Logging

2.2.2. Configure#

The vantage6-node requires a configuration file to run. This is a yaml file with a specific format. To create an initial configuration file, start the configuration wizard via: vnode new . You can also create and/or edit this file manually.

The directory where the configuration file is stored depends on your operating system (OS). It is possible to store the configuration file at system or at user level. By default, node configuration files are stored at user level. The default directories per OS are as follows:

Opera- ting System	System-folder	User-folder
Windows	`C:\ProgramData \vantage\node`	`C:\Users\<user> \AppData\Local\vantage\node`
MacOS	`/Library/Application Support/vantage6/node`	`/Users/<user>/Library/Appli cation Support/vantage6/node`
Linux	`/etc/vantage6/node`	`/home/<user> /.config/vantage6/node`

Warning

The command vnode looks in certain directories by default. It is possible to use any directory and specify the location with the --config flag. However, note that using a different directory requires you to specify the --config flag every time!

Configuration file structure#

Each node instance (configuration) can have multiple environments. You can specify these under the key environments which allows four types: dev , test,acc and prod . If you do not want to specify any environment, you should only specify the key application (not within environments) .

Example configuration file

application:

  # API key used to authenticate at the server.
  api_key: ***

  # URL of the vantage6 server
  server_url: https://petronas.vantage6.ai

  # port the server listens to
  port: 443

  # API path prefix that the server uses. Usually '/api' or an empty string
  api_path: ''

  # subnet of the VPN server
  vpn_subnet: 10.76.0.0/16

  # add additional environment variables to the algorithm containers.
  # this could be usefull for passwords or other things that algorithms
  # need to know about the node it is running on
  # OPTIONAL
  algorithm_env:

    # in this example the environment variable 'player' has
    # the value 'Alice' inside the algorithm container
    player: Alice

  # specify custom Docker images to use for starting the different
  # components.
  # OPTIONAL
  images:
    node: harbor2.vantage6.ai/infrastructure/node:petronas
    alpine: harbor2.vantage6.ai/infrastructure/alpine
    vpn_client: harbor2.vantage6.ai/infrastructure/vpn_client
    network_config: harbor2.vantage6.ai/infrastructure/vpn_network

  # path or endpoint to the local data source. The client can request a
  # certain database to be used if it is specified here. They are
  # specified as label:local_path pairs.
  databases:
    default: D:\data\datafile.csv

  # end-to-end encryption settings
  encryption:

    # whenever encryption is enabled or not. This should be the same
    # as the `encrypted` setting of the collaboration to which this
    # node belongs.
    enabled: false

    # location to the private key file
    private_key: /path/to/private_key.pem

  # To control which algorithms are allowed at the node you can set
  # the allowed_images key. This is expected to be a valid regular
  # expression
  allowed_images:
    - ^harbor.vantage6.ai/[a-zA-Z]+/[a-zA-Z]+

  # credentials used to login to private Docker registries
  docker_registries:
    - registry: docker-registry.org
      username: docker-registry-user
      password: docker-registry-password

  # Settings for the logger
  logging:
      # Controls the logging output level. Could be one of the following
      # levels: CRITICAL, ERROR, WARNING, INFO, DEBUG, NOTSET
      level:        DEBUG

      # Filename of the log-file, used by RotatingFileHandler
      file:         my_node.log

      # whenever the output needs to be shown in the console
      use_console:  True

      # The number of log files that are kept, used by RotatingFileHandler
      backup_count: 5

      # Size kb of a single log file, used by RotatingFileHandler
      max_size:     1024

      # format: input for logging.Formatter,
      format:       "%(asctime)s - %(name)-14s - %(levelname)-8s - %(message)s"
      datefmt:      "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

  # directory where local task files (input/output) are stored
  task_dir: C:\Users\<your-user>\AppData\Local\vantage6\node\tno1

Note

We use DTAP for key environments. In short:

dev: Development environment. It is ok to break things here
test: Testing environment. Here, you can verify that everything works as expected. This environment should resemble the target environment where the final solution will be deployed as much as possible.
acc: Acceptance environment. If the tests were successful, you can try this environment, where the final user will test his/her analysis to verify if everything meets his/her expectations.
prod: Production environment. The version of the proposed solution where the final analyses are executed.

Configure using the Wizard#

The most straightforward way of creating a new server configuration is using the command vnode new which allows you to configure the most basic settings.

By default, the configuration is stored at user level, which makes this configuration available only for your user. In case you want to use a system directory you can add the --system flag when invoking the vnode new command.

Update configuration#

To update a configuration you need to modify the created yaml file. To see where this file is located, you can use the command vnode files . Do not forget to specify the flag --system in case of a system-wide configuration or the --user flag in case of a user-level configuration.

Local test setup#

Check the section on Local test setup of the server if you want to run both the node and server on the same machine.

2.2.3. Security#

As a data owner it is important that you take the necessary steps to protect your data. Vantage6 allows algorithms to run on your data and share the results with other parties. It is important that you review the algorithms before allowing them to run on your data.

Once you approved the algorithm, it is important that you can verify that the approved algorithm is the algorithm that runs on your data. There are two important steps to be taken to accomplish this:

Set the (optional) allowed_images option in the node-configuration file. You can specify a regex expression here. For example
1. ^harbor2.vantage6.ai/[a-zA-Z]+/[a-zA-Z]+: allows all images from the vantage6 registry
2. ^harbor2.vantage6.ai/algorithms/glm: only allows this specific image, but all builds of this image
3. ^harbor2.vantage6.ai/algorithms/glm@sha256:82becede498899ec668628e7cb0a d87b6e1c371cb8a1e597d83a47fac21d6af3: allows only this specific build from the GLM to run on your data
Enable DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST to verify the origin of the image. For more details see the documentation from Docker.

Warning

By enabling DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST you might not be able to use certain algorithms. You can check this by verifying that the images you want to be used are signed.

In case you are using our Docker repository you need to use harbor2.vantage6.ai as harbor.vantage6.ai does not have a notary.

2.2.4. Logging#

Logging is enabled by default. To configure the logger, look at the logging section in the example configuration file in Configuration file structure.

Useful commands:

vnode files: shows you where the log file is stored
vnode attach: shows live logs of a running server in your current console. This can also be achieved when starting the node with vnode start --attach