Virtual Machines

Codio supports Windows and Ubuntu OS in Virtual Machine boxes. To enable this for your organization, send an email to help@codio.com with approximate details of the number of students who will require access to computed VMs.

Note

Codio is not responsible for licensing issues in regard to any software you install to use.

The virtual machines can support 1, 4, 8 or 16Gb memory. VM’s are enabled for the organization and then set up at the Course level. All assignments in the course can utilize the virtual machines boxes, so we would recommend setting up a new course for those assignments that require them. All assignments in the course would use the same VM Stack.

Virtual machines are not available for individual projects (ie when created in My Projects area).

Please note: we have plans to develop this feature in the future but if you have ideas/suggestions please raise in our Feedback area

When virtual machines have been enabled for your organization, follow these steps:

Enabling VM for the Course

  • On the Courses page, select the course and then click the Course Details tab.

  • In the Virtual Machine section, toggle the Enable Virtual Machine button to On.

  • Select Operating System (currently supported: Windows & Ubuntu).

  • Select Memory to allocate the memory required.

  • Select Stack - select either Windows Codio Ami or Ubuntu Codio Ami depending on the OS type selected above but once you have published your own VM Stack (see below), you will be able to select those as required.

  • Save the changes.

Setting up the assignment(s)

  • Create an assignment and open the working copy in the usual manner.

  • Go to Tools>Virtual Machine to open the VM. If using Ubuntu OS you can use open ssh to open the same instance of the main ubuntu vm if you’d prefer to install/set up your VM that way. You can have both options active at the same time.

Note

It takes some time for the VM to activate and start.

  • Once the VM has started you can setup or install any items you need. If using Ubuntu OS you can also use Tools>Virtual Machine>open ssh to be able to open the same instance of the main ubuntu vm if you’d prefer to install/set up your VM that way. You can have both options active at the same time

  • Once you have completed setting up your environment and tested everything select Tools>Virtual Machine>Publish from the menu to publish the changes as an updated VM stack assignment providing your own name for the VM Stack.

Note

It can take around 10 minutes for the new stack to be created and available for use.

  • When the stack has been fully published go to Courses>Virtual Machine>Stack and select the newly published stack to make it available to students for their assignment(s).

  • Save the changes.

  • Return to the assignment in Edit Assignments and publish the assignment either from the publish button in the upper right corner or from Education>Publish Assignment to make the assignment accessible to your students.

Note

Publishing the assignment should be done as the last step to avoid students starting the assignments before the required VM Stack is saved to the course.

Updating the VM Stack after students have started the assignment(s)

Students that have already started working before a new/updated VM stack has been published will need to reset the Virtual Machine in their assignment(s) to use the updated VM stack, restart the VM if it does not restart itself. There are buttons available for this purpose in the VM tab.

Note

Reset and restart for students can take a substantial period of time (around 20mins on average) so we recommend that you fully test the VM stack you create before making it available to students.

Updating the assignment content after initial publish

Any changes to the actual assignment (ie in Guides or the file structure) only require the assignment to be published in the usual manner either from the publish button in the upper right corner or from Education>Publish Assignment menu item..

Automatically starting/opening Virtual Machine

You can automatically start/open the Virtual Machine for students using Open tab setting for VM or direct them to Tools>Virtual Machine>Open to start themselves.

Pair Programming

Pair Programming is not supported for Virtual Machines.

Interacting with guides and Codio file system

You can interact with Virtual Machine using commands that can run from the Terminal

VM Commands

or from a Custom Guide Button

{Try it | terminal}(codio-vm help)

The working directories for:

  • Codio - “/home/codio/workspace”

  • Windows Virtual Machine - “C:\”

  • Ubuntu Virtual Machine - “/home/ubuntu”

Following are some example of commands that can be used to interact with Virtual Machine:

  • codio-vm help - This command gives you a brief introduction about many commands that can be used to interact with Virtual Machine.

  • codio-vm upload - This command is used to upload a file from Codio filetree to Virtual Machine.

    Windows example:

    codio-vm upload "/home/codio/workspace/local_file.sh" "C:\remote_file.sh"

    Running above command will upload ‘local_file.sh’ file present in your Codio filetree into the Virtual Machine as ‘remote_file.sh’.

    Same Command in Ubuntu would be:

    codio-vm upload "/home/codio/workspace/local_file.sh" "/home/ubuntu/remote_file.sh"

    Similar to file, you can also upload the Folder

    In Windows:

    codio-vm upload "/home/codio/workspace/local_folder" "C:\remote_folder"

    In Ubuntu:

    codio-vm upload "/home/codio/workspace/local_folder" "/home/ubuntu/remote_folder"

  • codio-vm download - This command is used to download a file from Virtual Machine into your Codio filetree.

    Windows example:

    codio-vm download "C:\remote_file.sh" "/home/codio/workspace/local_file.sh"

    Running above command will download ‘remote_file.sh’ file from your Virtual Machine into your Codio filetree and saves it as ‘local_file.sh’.

    Same Command in Ubuntu would be:

    codio-vm download "/home/ubuntu/remote_file.sh" "/home/codio/workspace/local_file.sh"

    Similar to file, you can also download the Folder from your Virtual Machine

    In Windows:

    codio-vm download "C:\remote_folder" /home/codio/workspace/local_folder"

    In Ubuntu:

    codio-vm download "/home/ubuntu/remote_folder" /home/codio/workspace/local_folder"

  • codio-vm start - This command is used to start the Virtual Machine.

  • codio-vm restart - This command is used to restart the Virtual Machine.

  • codio-vm terminate - This command is used to reset the Virtual Machine.

  • codio-vm status - This command will return the current state of Virtual Machine. The returned value will be one of RUNNING, INACTIVE, STARTING, STOPPING.

  • codio-vm get-ip - This command will return the IP address of Virtual Machine.

  • codio-vm get-host-name - This command will return the Host Name of Virtual Machine.

  • codio-vm exec/codio-vm exec-async - This command is used to execute a command on Virtual Machine.

    For example

    codio-vm exec mkdir -p “my_folder”

    Running above command will create “my_folder” folder in the working directories of your Virtual Machine.

    You can also open the Chrome browser using this command

    codio-vm exec start chrome

    Can also open a particular URL in the Chrome browser

    codio-vm exec start chrome /incognito  https://codio.com

  • codio-vm sync - This command is used to sync folder/file between Codio box and Virtual Machine.

    Windows example:

    codio-vm sync "/home/codio/workspace/folder" "C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\folder"

    Running above command will sync both, ‘folder’ in Codio box and ‘folder’ in Windows VM. The latest changes made to one of ‘folder’ will automatically synced to the other ‘folder’. If the mentioned file/folder does not exist in the Virtual Machine, it will be copied from Codio box to the Virtual Machine at the mentioned path.

    Same Command in Ubuntu would be:

    codio-vm sync "/home/codio/workspace/folder" "/home/ubuntu/folder"

  • codio-vm port forwarding - This command is used to enable access to services running on the Virtual Machine from Codio box.

    codio-vm port-forwarding 3355 3344

    Running above command will enable access to service running on port 3344 in Virtual Machine from port 3355 in Codio box. You can use either Box URL with port 3355 or call ‘curl localhost:3355’ from terminal in Codio box. The port values mentioned here are just an example, you can use different port values.

  • codio-vm daemonized-list - This command will list all the daemonized processes.

  • codio-vm kill-all-daemonized - This command will kill all the daemonized processes.

  • codio-vm kill-daemonized - This command will kill the specific daemonized process.

    codio-vm kill-daemonized 353

    Running above command will kill the daemonized process whose PID is 353. You can see PID of all daemonized processes using codio-vm daemonized-list.