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Autodesk Flame Configuration (Standalone)

If you plan on using a Flame instance as a standalone Flame workstation without identity management or Wire, you can use the following instructions.

This topic covers the creation of a Flame instance that will not be networked with other Flame instances, Burn nodes, or a project server. For a networked Flame instance, see Autodesk Flame Configuration (Networked).


Set Up a Flame Instance on AWS

From the Autodesk Flame AMI you created, deploy the Flame instance. You must set its instance type, storage, EFA (if using AWS CDI), and security groups:

  • Instance type: At least G4dn.8xlarge (other recommended options: G5.8xlarge, G6.8xlarge, G6e.8xlarge, Gr6.8xlarge).

  • Storage: 500 GB for the system disk. In a standalone instance, or without a project server, the metadata can be stored on the system disk. Media is stored on an attached disk array or cloud NAS.

  • If you plan on using AWS CDI: You must configure the Flame instance to use the EFA (Elastic Fabric Adapter) network device. You cannot add an EFA network device after the instance creation.

    1. Check with AWS that EFA is available in the region where you will launch the instance.
    2. In the Launch an instance panel, under Network settings, click Edit.
    3. Select a subnet other than "No preference" and click Advanced network configuration at the bottom of the section.
    4. Click Enable under Elastic Fabric Adapter.

  • Security Groups:

Note:

When you create the instance, the option Instance volume deletion on termination controls what happens to the storage when you terminate the instance. If the volume is not deleted on instance termination, while you are no longer paying for the terminated instance, you are still paying for the storage.

To avoid paying for storage you no longer need, the instance volume can be deleted automatically when the instance is terminated.

  1. When you launch an instance, open the storage tab.
  2. Select Delete on termination.

Before selecting Delete on termination, understand that data stored on the instance volume is permanently deleted when the instance is terminated.


Flame Instance Configuration

After launching your Flame instance, you must configure it to fit your storage and network requirements.

Note:

Once all of this is done, you connect to Flame with the user you created, using Amazon DCV or HP Anyware.

  1. Connect to the Flame instance

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>
  1. Assign a new machine ID

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

dbus-uuidgen | sudo tee /etc/machine-id
  1. Stop Autodesk Backburner and Autodesk Stone & Wire services

To stop Autodesk Backburner and Autodesk Stone & Wire Services.

sudo systemctl stop adsk_backburner
sudo systemctl stop adsk_sw
  1. Set the hostname of the project server
  1. Connect to the instance.
  2. Set the hostname of the instance.
    sudo hostnamectl set-hostname --static <Your-host-name>
  1. Create the Media Storage

This procedure explains how to attach your media storage to your instance. A suggested setup is 4 x 2 TB ST1 EBS volumes in RAID0. For information on creating a RAID 0 on AWS, see AWS documentation.

To create the volumes:

  1. On AWS, open EC2 console Elastic Block Store Volumes.

  2. Click Create volume.

  3. In Create Volume, set the following options.

    • Volume Type
    • Size (GiB)
    • IOPS
    • Throughput (MiB/s)

  4. Click Create volume.

To attach the volumes to the Flame instance:

  1. On AWS, open EC2 console Elastic Block Store Volumes.

  2. Select one of the four volumes and select Actions Attach volume.

  3. In Attach Volume, set Instance to your Flame and click Attach volume. Do not edit Device name.

  1. Restart Autodesk Backburner and Autodesk Stone & Wire services

To restart Autodesk Backburner and Autodesk Stone & Wire Services.

sudo systemctl start adsk_backburner
sudo systemctl start adsk_sw
  1. Set up a swap partition

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.

Note:

This method is not optimal as it uses all the available space on the device, making the swap partition needlessly large. Consult AWS documentation for other swap partition creation methods.

  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.

  1. Create a new user account to connect to the instance using Amazon DCV or HP Anyware

In this step you create a new user account. Use this account to connect to the instance with Amazon DCV or HP Anyware because flameadmin cannot be used with Amazon DCV or HP Anyware.

  1. From the flameadmin account, open a shell.

  2. Create the user account. Enter:

    sudo useradd <username>

  3. Create a password for the new user. Enter:

    sudo passwd <username>

  4. Follow the onscreen instructions.

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

    sudo usermod -aG wheel <username>
Note: With administrative privileges, the user can use the sudo command to run commands usually reserved to the root account.

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