Welcome to Metalcloud’s documentation!

The Bigstep Metalcloud is an IaaS service focused on offering low latency and high performance compute and storage services. The service offers the same level of flexibility that is typical from a cloud provider but using only bare metal.

Contents:

• Introduction
  • Important concepts
  • Instance Arrays and Drive Arrays
  • Infrastructures
  • Servers and Instances
• Getting started with the Metal Cloud
• Metalcloud instances
• Metalcloud pricing
  • Instance pricing
  • Storage pricing
  • IP space pricing
  • Data Transfer prices
• Bigstep Datalake service overview
  • Architecture
  • DataLake permissions
  • Using the Bigstep Datalake with Apache Spark and Hadoop
  • Mounting the DataLake as a filesystem
• Glossary

Guides:

• Connecting to a server through SSH
  • Locating access credentials and connecting
• Connecting to Windows servers through RDP
  • Locating access credentials
  • Connect to your server via RDP.
  • Locate your RDP Rule
  • Creating Your IP Restrictions
• Using the infrastructure firewall
• Managing infrastructures
  • Creating an infrastructure using the UI
  • Creating an infrastructure using the CLI
  • Listing infrastructures using the CLI
  • Changing an infrastructure’s properties using the UI
  • Deleting an infrastructure using the CLI
• Managing instance arrays
  • Deploying an instance array using the Infrastructure Editor
  • Retrieving server access credentials using the UI
  • Deploying an instance array using the CLI
  • Retrieving server access credentials using the CLI
  • Checking the power status of all the instances in this instance array using the CLI
  • Rebooting an instance using the CLI
• Managing drive arrays
  • Creating a drive array using the UI
  • Listing drive arrays of an instance array using the UI
  • Adding a new drive
  • Removing a drive
  • Expanding disk size
  • Creating a drive array using the CLI
  • Listing drive arrays of an infrastructure using the CLI
  • Deleting a drive array via the CLI
  • Manually logging into the iscsi target
• Managing networks
  • Creating a LAN network
  • Joining an existing network
  • Adding more IPs
• Managing drive snapshots
• Managing billing information
  • Managing billing address
  • Managing payment methods
• Managing users and permissions
  • User accounts
  • Example scenario
  • The “Billable” account
  • Managing account delegation
  • Managing infrastructure delegation
• Delegating access to an infrastructure
• Retrieving the utilization report
  • The Detailed utilization report
  • Viewing server subscriptions (reservations)
  • Automating chargeback or billing in reselling scenarios
• Using the CLI
  • Installation
  • Getting the API key
  • Getting a list of supported commands
  • Getting started
  • Use flags at the end
  • Condensed format
  • Using label instead of IDs
  • Permissions
• Using the Terraform provider
  • Terraform provider requirements
  • Using the Provider
• Using the data lake command line tool
  • Retrieving access credentials
  • Installing the command line utility
  • Listing a directory from the DataLake:
  • Uploading a file/directory to the DataLake:
  • Downloading a file/directory from the DataLake:
  • Deleting a file/directory from the DataLake:
• Managing files stored in the Bigstep DataLake service using the WebHDFS API and curl
  • Obtaining the kerberos ticket
  • Finding the endpoint URL
  • Listing directory contents
  • Copying a file to the DataLake
  • Appending data to a file
  • Reading data from a file
  • Deleting a file
  • Additional resources
• Authenticating to the DataLake using kerberos utilities
  • Installing kerberos utilities in MacOS X
  • Installing kerberos utilities in CentOS/Redhat
  • Installing kerberos utilities in Ubuntu
  • Creating a keytab
  • Destroying a Kerberos ticket
• Configure Okta for SAML authentication
• How to add boot and install drivers to a repository Windows ISO

Advanced:

• Adding additional IP addresses
  • Adding a subnet
  • Deleting a subnet
• Creating a custom iSCSI OS template
  • Creating a “golden” drive
  • Creating a a volume template from the golden drive
• Creating a custom local install OS template
  • An example install process
  • Creating a new OS template using the CLI
  • Choosing an architecture
  • Specifying a bootloader and config file
  • Specifying a custom config for iPXE
  • Associating assets with OS Templates
  • Important variables
• Manually managing iSCSI connections
  • Retrieving the drive array’s connection details from the UI
  • Retriving iscsi access credentials using the CLI
  • Logging into the iSCSI target from Linux (CentOS/Redhat)
  • Logging into a drive on Windows using PowerShell
  • Prepare and format disk in Powershell
  • Disconnect from all iscsi targets in Windows using Powershell Or Just disconnect Offline target
  • Disable indexing on a drive in Powershell
• Enabling two factor authentication (2FA) in Metalcloud
• Managing assets
  • Using text assets as file templates
  • Creating an URL asset
  • Creating a text asset
  • Creating a binary asset from pipe
  • Associating assets with templates
  • List assets
  • Deleting an asset
• Managing variables and secrets
  • Referencing variables
  • Referencing secrets
  • Creating a variable from console input
  • Creating a variable using a pipe
  • Creating a secret from user input
  • Creating a secret from pipe
• Managing stage definitions
  • Creating a new stage definition
  • HTTP Request stages
  • Ansible Bundle stages
  • WorkflowReference stages
  • Listing stages
• Setting up users and permissions in reseller scenarios
  • Setting up users and permissions in a referral scenario when end-users own the infrastructures
  • Setting up users and permissions in a fully managed reseller scenario
  • Setting up users and permissions in a reseller scenario when end-users have access to infrastructures
• Deploying a Kubernetes cluster and managing/setting up a sample app using the UI
  • Deploying a Kubernetes cluster using the Infrastructure Editor
• Monitoring and connecting via SSH to the cluster using the UI
• Setting up a sample application on Kubernetes

Others:

• Additional resources
• Release notes
  • R4.8 - 25 August 2020
  • R4.6 - 26 October 2020
  • R4.5 - 12 August 2020
  • R4.4 - 9 July 2020
  • R4.1 - 21 April 2020
  • R4.0 - 12 March 2020

Additional resources

• Terraform Provider
• CLI
• GO SDK
• User API Documentation
• Additional SDKs