cityEHR Workshop - Virtual Machine

The following instructions will enable you to setup two things:

1. An Apache Guacamole server that will provide a website for accessing remote machines through a Web Browser.

2. One or More Virtual Machines configured with all of the software required for the purpose of teaching a cityEHR workshop.

Obtaining Servers

This can be setup either in AWS EC2, or another Virtual Environment such as KVM running on a Linux Server. The environment (which provided 1x Guacamole Server, and 9x cityEHR Virtual Machines) and that was used for the workshops delivered in Ukraine (August 2024) and XML Summer School (September 2024) was Ubuntu 24.04 running on a bare-metal server leased by Evolved Binary from Hetzner in Germany, with the following configuration:

• Xeon E5-1650 v3 @ 3.50GHz (6 Cores / 12 Threads)
• 128 GB RAM
• 2x 480GB SSD in RAID 1

Below we detail two options for setting up Virtual Machines: 1. Hetzner bare-metal server, and 2. AWS EC2.

1. Setting up a new Linux KVM VM (optional)

If you have leased a server from someone like Hetzner with Ubuntu 24.04 installed and wish to set this all up using KVM to host your VMs, then on the server (KVM host) you should run the following commands (assuming an Evolved Binary Server in Hetzner):

git clone --single-branch --branch hetzner https://github.com/adamretter/soyoustart hetzner
cd ~/hetzner

sudo uvt-simplestreams-libvirt sync --source=http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases arch=amd64 release=noble

./create-uvt-kvm.sh --hostname cityehrwork1 --release noble --memory 14336 --disk 30 --cpu 4 --bridge virbr1 --ip 5.9.214.101 --ip6 2a01:4f8:212:be9::101 --gateway 136.243.43.238 --gateway6 2a01:4f8:212:be9::2 --dns 213.133.100.100 --dns 213.133.99.99 --dns 213.133.98.98 --dns-search evolvedbinary.com --autostart

NOTE: The VM specific settings are:

• --hostname cityehrwork1
• --ip 5.9.214.101
• --ip6 2a01:4f8:212:be9::101

NOTE: The network settings specific to the host are:

• --bridge virbr1
• --gateway 136.243.43.238
• --gateway6 2a01:4f8:212:be9::2

NOTE: The network settings specific to the hosting provider are:

• --dns 213.133.100.100, --dns 213.133.99.99, --dns 213.133.98.98

2. Setting up a new AWS EC2 Instance (optional)

If you wish to set this up in AWS EC2, then for each Virtual Machine you need should setup a new EC2 instance with the following properties:

1. Name the instance 'cityehrwork1'. (change the 1 as needed for more machines).

2. Select the Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS (HVM), SSD Volume Type AMI image, and the Architecture amd64.

3. Select m6g.xlarge instance type. (i.e.: 4vCPU, 16GB Memory, 1x237 NVMe SSD, $0.1776 / hour).

4. Select the cityehrwork keypair.

5. Select the cityehrwork vm Security Group.

6. Set the default Root Volume as an EBS 30 GiB volume on GP3 at 3000 IOPS and 125 MiB throughput.

Installing Guacamole Server

Apache Guacamole provides a web interface for accessing any virtual machine remotely. This is used so that students only need a web-browser. The student accesses Guacamole, and then Guacamole connects them to the remote virtual machine.

Guacamole should be run in its own virtual machine. To install Guacamole and configure it for cityEHR run the following commands on a new VM:

git clone https://github.com/evolvedbinary/cityehr-workshop-vm-setup.git
cd cityehr-workshop-vm-setup
sudo ./install-puppet-agent.sh

cd guacamole

sudo FACTER_default_user_password=mypassword2 \
     /opt/puppetlabs/bin/puppet apply base.pp

NOTE: you should set your own passwords appropriately above! The default_user_password is used for the Linux user that can access the machine, the username is ubuntu.

We have to restart the system after the above as it may install a new Kernel and make changes to settings that require a system reboot. So run:

sudo shutdown -r now

After the system restarts and you have logged in, you need to resume from the cityehr-workshop-vm-setup/guacamole repo checkout:

cd cityehr-workshop-vm-setup/guacamole

sudo FACTER_default_user_password=mypassword2 \
     FACTER_cityehrwork_default_user_password=mypassword
     /opt/puppetlabs/bin/puppet apply .

NOTE: you should set your own passwords appropriately above!

• default_user_password this is the password to set for the default linux user on this machine (typically the user is named ubuntu on Ubuntu Cloud images).
• cityehrwork_default_user_password should be set to the password of the default user on the remote (cityEHR workstation) virtual machines that you are trying to access.

After installation Guacamole's Web Server should be accessible from: http://localhost:8080, but should be accessible (via an nginx reverse proxy) from: https://localhost

Installing a cityEHR Workstation

You can install one or more cityEHR workstations, each should be configured within its own virtual (or physical) machine. We expect to start from a clean Ubuntu Server, or Ubuntu Cloud Image install. This has been tested with Ubuntu version 24.04 LTS (x86_64).

cityEHR Software Environment

The following software will be configured:

• Desktop Environment

  • X.org
  • LXQt
  • Chromium
  • Firefox
  • Okular

• Java Development Environment

  • JDK 11
  • JDK 17
  • Apache Maven 3
  • IntelliJ IDEA CE
  • Apache Tomcat 9
  • Quercus

• Database Environment

  • MariaDB Server and Client
  • MySQL Workbench
  • DBeaver

• cityEHR

• cityEHR Workshop Tools

  • Mirth Connect and Mirth Administrator
  • Oxygen XML Editor
  • LibreOffice
  • Protégé
  • Inkscape
  • GanttProject
  • FreeMind
  • BOUML
  • Modelio

• Visual Studio Code

• Miscellaneous Tools

  • Nullmailer
  • Zsh and OhMyZsh
  • Git
  • cURL
  • wget
  • Screen
  • tar, gzip, bzip2, zstd, zip (and unzip)

Installing a cityEHR Workstation

Each cityEHR Workstation should be run in its own virtual machine. To install a cityEHR workstation run the following commands on a new VM:

git clone https://github.com/evolvedbinary/cityehr-workshop-vm-setup.git
cd cityehr-workshop-vm-setup
sudo ./install-puppet-agent.sh

cd workstation

sudo /opt/puppetlabs/bin/puppet apply locale-gb.pp

sudo FACTER_default_user_password=mypassword \
     /opt/puppetlabs/bin/puppet apply base.pp

NOTE: you should set your own passwords appropriately above!

• default_user_password this is the password to set for the default linux user on this machine (typically the user is named ubuntu on Ubuntu Cloud images).

We have to restart the system after the above as it may install a new Kernel and make changes to settings that require a system reboot. So:

sudo shutdown -r now

After the system restarts and you have logged in, you need to resume from the cityehr-workshop-vm-setup/workstation repo checkout:

cd cityehr-workshop-vm-setup/workstation
sudo FACTER_default_user_password=mypassword \
     FACTER_mariadb_db_root_password=cityehrwork \
     /opt/puppetlabs/bin/puppet apply .

NOTE: you should set your own passwords appropriately above!

• default_user_password this is the password to set for the default linux user (typically the user is named ubuntu on Ubuntu Cloud images). It needs to be the same as the password you used for this above.
• mariadb_db_root_password - This is the password to set for the root user in MariaDB.

We have to restart the system after the above as it installs a new desktop login manager.

sudo shutdown -r now

After installation you should be able to access this instance using either one of two mechanisms:

1. Directly, by using an RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) client, e.g. Microsoft Remote Desktop. This approach usually gives the most responsive performance for the user.

   • Clients:
     • Windows - run mstsc.exe
     • Mac - Install and run (Microsoft Remote Desktop](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id1295203466?mt=12) from the Apple Store.
     • Linux - run rdesktop (Ubuntu install: apt-get install -y rdesktop && rdesktop)
   • Connection Settings:
     • Host: The IP address or FQDN of the remote machine (e.g. cityehrwork1.evolvedbinary.com)
     • Username: ubuntu
     • Password: the password you set above for default_user_password

2. Indirectly via the Guacamole website by visiting the website (e.g. https://plum.evolvedbinary.com) in your web browser.

   • Login details:
     • Username: cityehrwork1 (replace 1 with the number of the instance)
     • Password: the password you set above for cityehrwork_default_user_password