CSEVA:Index

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Welcome to the Coastal Science Educational Virtual Appliance (CSEVA)!

The CSEVA is learning environment which helps to educate people about Coastal Science. The CSEVA includes hands-on applications that can be used to perform model simulations either on the user's local computer on a world-wide network of Grid computing resources.

The CSEVA itself incorporates multiple EVA's into one easy-to-use distribution:

EVA (links to website) Application
CI-TEAM Simulated contaminant release in the GTM Estuary located in NE Florida
SCOOP SCOOP catalog interfaces

The simulation of storm surge and inundation in a simple test domain

The simulation of storm surge and inundation during Hurricane Charley (2004)

MTEVA Demonstrates the coupling of a traffic network model with the simulation of storm surge and inundation

Using the CSEVA

The specific instructions listed below were tested on a Acer Aspire 5100-5840 Laptop:

  • CPU: 1.6 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile
  • Memory: 1.75 GB
  • Total Disk Space: 150GB
  • Available Disk Space: 96GB
  • Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP with SP3
  • Web Browser: Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702

Other hardware, operating systems and browsers can also be used; however, the install instructions will needed to be modified slightly as appropriate.

Distributions

Virtual Machine Version

This version of the CSEVA requires that you install a VMM (Virtual Machine Manager) on your computer. Then, the CSEVA is run using your computer hard drive. In addition to being able to run all of the CSEVA applications, you can permanently store data within the CSEVA itself as well as customize it as you see fit.

You will need ~4.5 GB of available disk space during the install process:

  • VMware Player Installer: ~100 MB
  • VMware Player Install Directory: ~200 MB
  • Zipped CSEVA: ~1100 MB
  • Unzipped CSEVA: ~3.4 GB

Once the CSEVA is up and runing, both VMware Player Installer and Zipped CSEVA package can be removed bringing the total disk usage down to ~3.6 GB.

Installing VMware Player

  1. Navigate to the VMware website and select the VMware Player product
  2. Cick on the blue download button on the left
  3. Although VMware Player is free, you must have a VMware account before you can download it.
    1. If you do not have an account with VMware, fill in the requested information in the "Register for your free download" section.
      1. Fill in the requested information and then read agree to the "VMware Player End User License Agreement"
      2. Click register.
      3. You will be sent 2 emails:
        1. Activate VMware Account. Follow the instructions in the email to activate your account.
        2. Access your VMware Player Download. Follow the instructions in the email to download VMware Player by selecting the appropriate link (e.g. VMware Player 3.1.3 for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows). Download/save this file to an appropriate place on your computer. The file is approximately 104MB so it may take a few minutes to download.
    2. Otherwise fill in your existing information and login. Follow the instructions in the email to download VMware Player by selecting the appropriate link (e.g. VMware Player 3.1.3 for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows). Download/save this file to an appropriate place on your computer. The file is approximately 104MB so it may take a few minutes to download
  4. Once downloaded, run the VMware Player installer executable by either selecting run in the download dialog box or by navigating to the directory where the Player downloaded and doublie clicking on the installer.
  5. During the install process, the installer will ask several questions about how the product should be installed. In general, the default choices should be sufficient for most users. To complete the installation takes a couple of minutes. The final step will require your computer to be restarted.

Getting the CSEVA

  1. Click on this link to download a zip file containing the CSEVA v1.5.1. Compressed, this file is about 1100 MB, so it will take a few minutes to download. Make sure you have enough disk space to download and extract its contents.
  2. Once the download is complete, you will be prompted to unzip the file. Unzip and expanded the contents to an appropriate place on your computer (e.g. your desktop). For example, with UltimateZip you would click "Extract". The fully expanded MTEVA is ~2 GB.
  3. Once unzipped, the original zip file can be removed to save disk space.

Starting the CSEVA

  1. Navigate into the folder where the CSEVA appliance was unzipped. Then navigate into the "Grid Appliance" folder and double-click on the "Grid Appliance.vmx" file.
File:GridApplianceDir.JPG
  1. If this is the first time you are using the VMware Player, you must then accept the "MASTER END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT".
  2. If this is the first time you have used the CSEVA, the VMware Player will ask you if you "copied" or "moved" the appliance. Select "I copied it" and click OK.
  3. You may be asked to download VMware Tools. This is optional. You do not need to download this at this time. Click "Remind me later" to dismiss this message.
  4. The CSEVA should now be booting. After the boot process is complete, the VMware Player window should look like the following figure.
File:appliance-snapshot.jpg

As mentioned previously, the CSEVA is based upon the Grid Appliance technology. The Grid Appliance itself runs the Debian-based Ubunto GNU/Linux operating system and includes the lightweight window manager (IceWM) which is shown in the figure above. To learn more about the Grid Appliance see the Grid Appliance Tutorial.

Bootable Live USB (Beta) Version

This version of the CSEVA requires that you install a USB Installer. Once the CSEVA is installed on your USB device, the CSEVA runs soley off the USB drive in a read-only fashion, your hard disk is not used at all. In addition to being able to run all of the CSEVA applications; you can temporarily store data on the CSEVA as well as temporarily customize it as you see fit. However, once your computer is rebooted, all changes will be lost.

As of now, this is still a beta version. All of the applications work; however, it takes a couple more steps to get to things. When the CSEVA first boots, select the option which runs the live version of Ubuntu (NOT the install option). And below, where it refers to accessing the interface via an IP number, use "http://localhost" instead.

You will need ~1.1 GB of available disk space during the install process:

  • ISO CSEVA: ~1100 MB

Once the CSEVA is installed on the USB device, the USB Installer and ISO image can be removed.

Download the Universal USB Installer

  1. Download the Universal USB Installer.

Getting the CSEVA

  1. Click on this link to download a ISO file containing the CSEVA v1.5.1. Compressed, this file is about 1100 MB, so it will take a few minutes to download.

Install the image on a USB drive

    1. Start the installer (You will need to have "Administrator" rights)
    2. Agree to the "License Agreement"
    3. Complete the 3 step process
      1. Select the Linux Distribution: "Try Unlisted Linux ISO (Old Syslinux)" (second to last choice)
      2. Select the ISO you just downloaded
      3. Select the USB drive to install the image on. The size of the drive should be greater than the size of the ISO. 
         WARNING: THIS WILL DESTROY ALL DATA ON YOUR USB DRIVE!!!
    4. Click "Create"
    5. Once complete, hit Close. You now have a bootable USB drive with the CSEVA installed!

Starting the CSEVA

    1. With the USB drive plugged in, reboot your computer
      1. If your boot order is such that your computer tries to boot of USB devices before anything else (your hard drive), then the CSEVA will start on its own. Otherwise, you will need to tell your computer to boot of the USB drive.
        1. Permanent Boot Order Change: Enter your BIOS settings (usually hitting F2 when booting will get you here) and make sure that boot off USB is listed first. -or-
        2. One-time Boot Order Change: Enter your boot order menu (usually hitting F12 will get you here) and make sure that boot off USB is listed first.
    2. As your machine boots, it will ask you if you want to run a Live version of Ubuntu or if you want to install Ubuntu. Make sure you select the default option "Try Ubuntu without Installing" (or equivalent language) or else you may erase (after many more clicks) any data on your hard drive. By default, Ubuntu will select the correct option automatically after about 5 s.

Accessing the CSEVA GUIs

  1. Record the IP number (e.g. 192.168.125.128) of the appliance indicated in the xmessage dialog box in the upper left of the window manager:
    File:xmessage-w-ip.JPG
  2. Enter this IP number into the address bar of your web browser and then select the approriate GUI.
    File:CSEVA.jpg
  3. The right hand column of the table explains how to access each of the GUIs. For example, to access the CI-TEAM v1 GUI (Rappture-based), right click in the background of the appliance and then select the CI-TEAM GUI(v1).
File:appliance-snapshot-ci-team-v1.JPG
After a few seconds, the v1 GUI will start
File:ci-team-gui-v1.jpg

or to access the CI-TEAM v2 GUI, enter the IP number you recorded above into the web browser on your computer and then select the appropriate link in the table. In a few seconds, the v2 GUI will start in your browser

File:ci-team-gui-v2.jpg

Trouble with the Grid Appliance

If you have any difficulties with the Grid Appliance framework, help can be found here.

Site Linking

If you would like to link to the CSEVA website, please use http://cseva.coastal.ufl.edu.

For More Information

For more information, to report a problem, or to just let us know what you think, please contact: davis (at) coastal (dot) ufl (dot) edu

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