Install Backend.AI Webserver

Refer to Prepare required Python versions and virtual environments to setup Python and virtual environment for the service.

Install the latest version of Backend.AI Webserver for the current Python version:

$ cd "${HOME}/webserver"
$ # Activate a virtual environment if needed.
$ pip install -U backend.ai-webserver

If you want to install a specific version:

$ pip install -U backend.ai-webserver==${BACKEND_PKG_VERSION}

Local configuration

Backend.AI Webserver uses a config file (webserver.conf) to configure local service. Refer to the webserver.conf sample file for a detailed description of each section and item. A configuration example would be:

[service]
ip = "0.0.0.0"
port = 8080
# Not active in open-source edition.
wsproxy.url = "http://10.20.30.10:10200"

# Set or enable it when using reverse proxy for SSL-termination
# force_endpoint_protocol = "https"

mode = "webui"
enable_signup = false
allow_signup_without_confirmation = false
always_enqueue_compute_session = false
allow_project_resource_monitor = false
allow_change_signin_mode = false
mask_user_info = false
enable_container_commit = false
hide_agents = true
directory_based_usage = false

[resources]
open_port_to_public = false
allow_preferred_port = false
max_cpu_cores_per_container = 255
max_memory_per_container = 1000
max_cuda_devices_per_container = 8
max_cuda_shares_per_container = 8
max_shm_per_container = 256
# Maximum per-file upload size (bytes)
max_file_upload_size = 4294967296

[environments]
# allowlist = ""

[ui]
brand = "Backend.AI"
default_environment = "cr.backend.ai/stable/python"
default_import_environment = "cr.backend.ai/filebrowser:21.02-ubuntu20.04"

[api]
domain = "default"
endpoint = "http://bai-m1:8081"
text = "Backend.AI"
ssl-verify = false

[session]
redis.host = "bai-m1"
redis.port = 8110
redis.db = 5
redis.password = "develove"
max_age = 604800  # 1 week
flush_on_startup = false
login_block_time = 1200  # 20 min (in sec)
login_allowed_fail_count = 10
max_count_for_preopen_ports = 10

[license]

[plugin]

[pipeline]

Save the contents to ${HOME}/.config/backend.ai/webserver.conf.

Run Backend.AI Webserver service

You can run the service by specifying the config file path with -f option:

$ cd "${HOME}/webserver"
$ python -m ai.backend.web.server -f ${HOME}/.config/backend.ai/webserver.conf

Press Ctrl-C to stop both services.

Register systemd service

The service can be registered as a systemd daemon. It is recommended to automatically run the service after rebooting the host machine, although this is entirely optional.

First, create a runner script at ${HOME}/bin/run-webserver.sh:

#! /bin/bash
set -e

if [ -z "$HOME" ]; then
   export HOME="/home/bai"
fi

# -- If you have installed using pyenv --
if [ -z "$PYENV_ROOT" ]; then
   export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv"
   export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"
fi
eval "$(pyenv init --path)"
eval "$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)"

if [ "$#" -eq 0 ]; then
   exec python -m ai.backend.web.server -f ${HOME}/.config/backend.ai/webserver.conf
else
   exec "$@"
fi

Make the scripts executable:

$ chmod +x "${HOME}/bin/run-webserver.sh"

Then, create a systemd service file at /etc/systemd/system/backendai-webserver.service:

[Unit]
Description= Backend.AI Webserver
Requires=network.target
After=network.target remote-fs.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/home/bai/bin/run-webserver.sh
PIDFile=/home/bai/webserver/webserver.pid
WorkingDirectory=/home/bai/webserver
User=1100
Group=1100
TimeoutStopSec=5
KillMode=process
KillSignal=SIGTERM
PrivateTmp=false
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
LimitNOFILE=5242880
LimitNPROC=131072

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Finally, enable and start the service:

$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl enable --now backendai-webserver

$ # To check the service status
$ sudo systemctl status backendai-webserver
$ # To restart the service
$ sudo systemctl restart backendai-webserver
$ # To stop the service
$ sudo systemctl stop backendai-webserver
$ # To check the service log and follow
$ sudo journalctl --output cat -u backendai-webserver -f

Check user GUI access via web

You can check the access to the web GUI by opening the URL http://<host-ip-or-domain>:8080 in your web browser. If all goes well, you will see the login page.

Enter the email and password you set in the previous step to check login.

You can use almost every feature from the web GUI, but launching compute sesison apps like Terminal and/or Jupyer notebook is not possible from the web in the open-source edition. You can instead use the GUI desktop client to fully use the GUI features.

You can download the GUI desktop client from the web GUI in the Summary page. Please use the “Download Backend.AI Web UI App” at the bottom of the page.

Or, you can download from the following release page: https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-webui/releases

Web UI (user GUI) guide can be found at https://webui.docs.backend.ai/.