Setting Up a Cluster on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) With Terraform 🚀

Welcome to the guide for setting up your own Bacalhau cluster across multiple Google Cloud Platform (GCP) regions! This guide will walk you through creating a robust, distributed compute cluster that's perfect for running your Bacalhau workloads.

What You'll Build

Think of this as building your own distributed supercomputer! Your cluster will provision compute nodes spread across different GCP regions for global coverage.

Before You Start

You'll need a few things ready:

• Terraform (version 1.0.0 or newer)

• A running Bacalhau orchestrator node

• Google Cloud SDK installed and set up

• An active GCP billing account

• Your organization ID handy

• An SSH key pair for securely accessing your nodes

Quick Setup Guide

1. Make sure you are logged in with GCP. This could involve both of the following commands:

gcloud auth login
gcloud auth application-default login

1. Clone the examples repo to your machine and go into the GCP directory.

gh repo clone bacalhau-project/examples
cd setting-up-bacalhau-cluster/setting-up-bacalhau-with-terraform-on-GC 

1. Now, make a copy of the example environment file:

   cp env.json.example env.json

2. Open up env.json and fill in your GCP details (more on this below!)

3. Update your config/config.yaml with your orchestrator information. Specifically, these lines:

     Orchestrators:
       - nats://EXAMPLE-7a02-4083-bf08-bcc2f5fbc025.us1.cloud.expanso.dev:4222
     Auth:
       Token: "EXAMPLE-aEEFukWVffnf5jb9QkpNnwfiBWEk3475csM7ysudpbFTzYBap5c7sWr6"

   1. L

4. Let Terraform get everything ready:

   terraform init --env-file env.json

5. Launch your cluster:

   terraform apply --env-file env.json

The entire process takes about 8 minutes, but should end with something like the below:

Apply complete! Resources: 17 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.

deployment_status = {
  "asia-northeast1" = {
    "external_ip" = "35.221.64.233"
    "health_check" = "healthy"
    "name" = "bacalhau-cluster-2501020854-asia-northeast1-vm"
  }
  
[...]

  "europe-west12" = {
    "external_ip" = "34.17.50.110"
    "internal_ip" = "10.210.0.2"
    "name" = "bacalhau-cluster-2501020854-europe-west12-vm"
    "zone" = "europe-west12-a"
  }
}

You're good to go!

Customizing Your Network

The env.json file is where all the magic happens. Here's what you'll need to fill in:

Essential Settings

• bootstrap_project_id: Your existing GCP project (just used for setup)

• base_project_name: What you want to call your new project

• gcp_billing_account_id: Where the charges should go

• gcp_user_email: Your GCP email address

• org_id: Your organization's ID

• app_tag: A friendly name for your resources (like "bacalhau-demo")

Node Configuration

• bacalhau_data_dir: Where job data should be stored

• bacalhau_node_dir: Where node configs should live

• username: Your SSH username

• public_key: Path to your SSH public key

Location Settings

You can set up nodes in different regions with custom configurations:

"locations": {
  "us-central1": {
    "zone": "us-central1-a",
    "node_count": 3,
    "machine_type": "e2-standard-4"
  }
}

Taking Your Cluster for a Test Drive

Once everything's up and running, let's make sure it works!

First, make sure you have the Bacalhau CLI installed. You can read more about installing the CLI here.

1. First configure the CLI to use your cluster:

   bacalhau config set -c API.Host=<orchestrator-ip>

2. Check on the health of your nodes:

   bacalhau node list

3. If you're using the Expanso Cloud hosted orchestrator (Recommended!), you can look at your nodes on the Expanso Cloud dashboard in real-time.
4. Run a simple test job:

   bacalhau docker run ubuntu echo "Hello from my cluster!" 

5. Check on your jobs:

   bacalhau list

6. Get your results:

   bacalhau get <job-id>

Troubleshooting Tips

Having issues? Here are some common solutions:

Deployment Problems

• Double-check your GCP permissions

• Make sure your billing account is active

• Verify that all needed APIs are turned on in GCP

Node Health Issues

• Look at the logs on a node: journalctl -u bacalhau-startup.service

• Check Docker logs on a node: docker logs <container-id>

• Make sure that port 4222 isn't blocked

Job Running Troubles

• Verify your NATS connection settings

• Check if nodes are properly registered

• Make sure compute is enabled in your config

Cleaning Up

When you're done, clean everything up with:

terraform destroy --env-file env.json

Need to Check on Things?

If you need to peek under the hood, here's how:

1. Find your node IPs:

   terraform output instance_ips

2. SSH into a node:

   ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa ubuntu@<public-ip>

3. Check on Docker:

   docker ps

4. Go into the container on the node:

   CONTAINER_ID=$(docker ps --filter name=^/bacalhau_node --format '{{.ID}}' | head -n1)
   docker exec -it $CONTAINER_ID /bin/bash

Understanding the Configuration Files

Here's what each important file does in your setup:

Core Files

• main.tf: Your main Terraform configuration

• variables.tf: Where input variables are defined

• outputs.tf: What information Terraform will show you

• config/config.yaml: How your Bacalhau nodes are configured

• scripts/startup.sh: Gets your nodes ready to run

• scripts/bacalhau-startup.service: Manages the Bacalhau service

Cloud-Init and Docker Setup

• cloud-init/init-vm.yml: Sets up your VM environment, installs packages, and gets services running

• config/docker-compose.yml: Runs Bacalhau in a privileged container with all the right volumes and health checks

The neat thing is that most of your configuration happens in just one file: env.json. Though if you want to get fancy, there's lots more you can customize!

Need Help?

If you get stuck or have questions:

• Open an issue in our GitHub repository
• Join our Slack

We're here to help you get your cluster running smoothly! 🌟