Orka on AWS: VNC and Screen Sharing to a VM

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Jump to: Set up port forwarding | Access the Orka VM UI

See also: Getting started | Initial configuration guide | Known limitations | Accessing the Orka Web UI

For security reasons, you can access your Orka cluster only from within your customer VPC. By default, Amazon does not provide a UI for your customer instances which means that you need to work with the VM OS and file system via SSH. To be able to reach and work with your Orka VMs via VNC or Apple Screen Sharing, you need to configure port forwarding. You will need to direct traffic from a specified available port on your local machine to a bastion host or instance in your customer VPC, which will then redirect it to the specified VNC or Screen Sharing port on your Orka VM.

Set up port forwarding

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CAUTION

Never use the customer account root user when working with your Orka VPC.

You can use the AWS CLI (recommended) or SSH to configure port forwarding.

1. Before you begin, obtain the following information:

   • <customer_vpc_region> (if using the AWS CLI): The code of the region of your customer VPC.
   • <customer_vpc_host_id> (if using the AWS CLI) or <customer_vpc_host> (if using SSH): Respectively, the ID or IP of a bastion host or an instance in your customer VPC. For more information about how to obtain the ID or the IP, see here.
   • <orka_vm_ip>: The IP of the VM in your Orka on AWS cluster. You can get the IP by running orka vm status -v <NAME> or checking the connection info in the Web UI.
   • <orka_vm_port>: The VNC or Screen Sharing port of the VM in your Orka on AWS cluster. You can get the port by running orka vm status -v <NAME> or checking the connection info in the Web UI.
   • <local_port>: An available port on your local machine.

2. (Recommended) If you have configured AWS Systems Manager (AWS SSM) for your customer VPC and you have installed the AWS CLI on your local machine, you can run the following command.

aws ssm start-session --region <customer_vpc_region> \
    --target <customer_vpc_host_id> \
    --document-name AWS-StartPortForwardingSessionToRemoteHost \
    --parameters '{"host":["<orka_vm_ip>"],"portNumber":["<orka_vm_port>"],"localPortNumber":["<local_port>"]}'

3. Otherwise, you can enable port forwarding via SSH.

ssh -L <local_port>:<orka_vm_ip>:<orka_vm_port> "UserKnownHotsFile=/dev/null" -o "StrictHostKeyChecking=no" <customer_vpc_host>

4. Repeat for every VM that you want to access via VNC or Screen Sharing.

Access the Orka VM UI

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IMPORTANT

You cannot use the VNC and Screen Sharing ports interchangeably. You need to set up port forwarding separately for VNC and Screen Sharing and use each port with its respective connection software.

• If you've configured port forwarding to a VNC port, launch your VNC client and use the following address: localhost:<orka_vm_port>.
• If you've configured port forwarding to a Screen Sharing port, launch Apple Screen Sharing (Cmd+K in Finder) and provide the following address: vnc://localhost:<orka_vm_port>.

Next, provide your Orka VM credentials when prompted or complete any pending OS setup steps.

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Not sure what your VM credentials are?

Try the admin/admin combination. These are the credentials for the default Orka base images.

See also

• Orka on AWS: Getting started
• Orka on AWS: Initial configuration guide
• Orka on AWS: Known limitations
• Orka on AWS: Accessing the Orka Web UI