Autodesk Flame Configuration (Networked)

From your local machine, connect to the instance through ssh. Use the flameadmin account and the keypair of the instance.

ssh -i <keypair> flameadmin@<INSTANCE PUBLIC IP>

In a shell, run the command to assign a new machine ID to your instance:

dbus-uuidgen | sudo tee /etc/machine-id

To stop Autodesk Backburner and Autodesk Stone & Wire Services.

sudo systemctl stop adsk_backburner
sudo systemctl stop adsk_sw

1. Connect to the instance.
2. Set the hostname of the instance.

   sudo hostnamectl set-hostname --static <Your-host-name>

Follow the instructions for your identity management system.

• FreeIPA documentation.
• AWS Directory Service documentation. 
• AWS SimpleAD documentation.

In a shell, enter the following command.

echo Y | sudo /opt/Autodesk/sw/tools/sw_generateFramestoreId

In a shell, enter the following:

sudo /opt/Autodesk/backburner/backburnerConfig

At the prompts, provide the following answers:

• Do you want to run the Backburner Manager on this machine? ([y]es/[n]o/[s]kip/[q]uit): n
• Do you want to run the Backburner Server(s) on this machine? ([y]es/[n]o/[s]kip): y
• Enter the hostname (or IP address) of the Manager for this Server or localhost to use default. (leave empty to keep 'localhost'): <Your-ProjectServer-hostname>
• Enter the hostname (or IP address) that the Manager should use to communicate to this Server or localhost to use default. (leave empty to keep 'localhost'): <Your-Flame-name>

To restart Autodesk Backburner and Autodesk Stone & Wire Services.

sudo systemctl start adsk_backburner
sudo systemctl start adsk_sw

By default, the Flame instance doesn't have a swap partition. It's missing from the instance because the large number of possible use cases makes it impossible to predict and set the size of the swap partition. 

You create the swap partition and size it according to your needs. To help you out, here is an example of a configuration that uses the ephemeral instance storage available to G4dn and G5 instances to set up a swap partition. You want to use the ephemeral storage for the swap partition because A. The swap partition doesn't need saving between restarts and B. Ephemeral storage costs are included in your instance costs.

1. Find the instance storage by listing the disks attached to the instance with lsblk:

   [flameadmin@vxfhost ~]$ lsblk
   NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
   nvme0n1     259:1    0    50G  0 disk
   └─nvme0n1p1 259:2    0    50G  0 part /
   nvme1n1     259:0    0 838.2G  0 disk

   In this example, nvme1n1 is not mounted, indicating that this is our ephemeral instance storage device (data on this device is not kept when the instance is stopped). This is a good candidate for use as a swap file.

   Warning

   Do not select your media storage!

2. Verify that the swap partition is always created on the ephemeral storage when the instance starts, add the following to /etc/rc.local

   # Create swap partition
   mkswap /dev/nvme1n1
   swapon /dev/nvme1n1

   Verify that the device name matches the ephemeral device name found earlier with lsblk!

3. Restart the instance with

   sudo reboot

Once the instance is restarted, verify that the swap space is now available with lsblk:

[flameadmin@vxfhost ~]$ lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
nvme0n1     259:1    0    50G  0 disk
└─nvme0n1p1 259:2    0    50G  0 part /
nvme1n1     259:0    0 838.2G  0 disk [SWAP]

The swap partition is identified by the [SWAP] tag. In the previous example, nvme1n1 is now identified as the swap partition.

In a workgroup configuration, your media is stored on a network attached storage (NAS). You've configured the NAS previously, and now you mount it on the instance to use it as your media storage.

In a shell, run the following commands.

1. Install autofs.

   sudo yum install autofs

2. Create the directory where the media is stored.

   sudo mkdir /mnt/StorageMedia

3. Redirect to the NAS. Use the command sudo vi /etc/auto.direct and add the following line to the file

   /mnt/StorageMedia   -rw,noatime,nodiratime,bg   nas:/mnt/nas/StorageMedia

   Note: The above is an example of an NFS exported filesystem from server nas. Different shared storage solutions will use slightly different syntax. You must adapt this line to your setup.

4. Set up the automount. Use the command sudo vi /etc/auto.master and add the following line at the end of the file.

   /-  auto.direct

5. Enable and restart autofs.

   sudo systemctl enable autofs
   sudo systemctl start autofs

What you do here depends on whether or not you're using an identity management system.

You have an identity management system

If you're using an identity management system, now's the time to add the instance to the system. The procedure to do so is outside the scope of this document, but here are links to the documentation of some common identity management systems.

• FreeIPA documentation.
• AWS Directory Service documentation. 
• AWS SimpleAD documentation.

From now on, connect to the instance with an identity managed user instead of flameadmin.

You don't have an identity management system

If you're not using an identity management system, you must create a new user account. Use this account to connect to the instance with AWS NICE DCV or HP Anyware because flameadmin cannot be used with NICE DCV or HP Anyware.

This user account must match in user name, user ID, and user group one of the user accounts defined on the Burn instances for Burn jobs to be successful.

1. From the root account, open a shell.

2. Create the user account. Enter:

   sudo useradd <username>

3. Create the user account, making sure to correctly enter ther user's <user id>, <user group>, and <username>.

   sudo useradd -u <user id> -g <user group> <username>

4. Follow the onscreen instructions.

5. Once passwd is done, give the user administrative privileges:

   sudo usermod -aG wheel <username>