How to connect to your workshop environment

1. How to retrieve the IP address of the AWS/EC2 instance assigned to you.
2. Connect to your instance using SSH, Putty¹ or your web browser.
3. Verify your connection to your AWS/EC2 cloud instance.
4. Using Putty (Optional)
5. Using Multipass (Optional)

1. AWS/EC2 IP Address

In preparation for the workshop, Splunk has prepared an Ubuntu Linux instance in AWS/EC2.

To get access to the instance that you will be using in the workshop please visit the URL to access the Google Sheet provided by the workshop leader.

Search for your AWS/EC2 instance by looking for your first and last name, as provided during registration for this workshop.

Find your allocated IP address, SSH command (for Mac OS, Linux and the latest Windows versions) and password to enable you to connect to your workshop instance.

It also has the Browser Access URL that you can use in case you cannot connect via SSH or Putty - see EC2 access via Web browser

2. SSH (Mac OS/Linux)

Most attendees will be able to connect to the workshop by using SSH from their Mac or Linux device, or on Windows 10 and above.

To use SSH, open a terminal on your system and type ssh splunk@x.x.x.x (replacing x.x.x.x with the IP address found in Step #1).

When prompted Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? please type yes.

Enter the password provided in the Google Sheet from Step #1.

Upon successful login, you will be presented with the Splunk logo and the Linux prompt.

3. SSH (Windows 10 and above)

The procedure described above is the same on Windows 10, and the commands can be executed either in the Windows Command Prompt or PowerShell. However, Windows regards its SSH Client as an “optional feature”, which might need to be enabled.

You can verify if SSH is enabled by simply executing ssh

If you are shown a help text on how to use the SSH command (like shown in the screenshot below), you are all set.

If the result of executing the command looks something like the screenshot below, you want to enable the “OpenSSH Client” feature manually.

To do that, open the “Settings” menu, and click on “Apps”. While in the “Apps & features” section, click on “Optional features”.

Here, you are presented with a list of installed features. On the top, you see a button with a plus icon to “Add a feature”. Click it. In the search input field, type “OpenSSH”, and find a feature called “OpenSSH Client”, or respectively, “OpenSSH Client (Beta)”, click on it, and click the “Install”-button.

Now you are set! In case you are not able to access the provided instance despite enabling the OpenSSH feature, please do not shy away from reaching out to the course instructor, either via chat or directly.

At this point you are ready to continue and start the workshop

4. Putty (For Windows Versions prior to Windows 10)

If you do not have SSH pre-installed or if you are on a Windows system, the best option is to install Putty which you can find here.

Open Putty and enter in the Host Name (or IP address) field the IP address provided in the Google Sheet.

You can optionally save your settings by providing a name and pressing Save.

To then login to your instance click on the Open button as shown above.

If this is the first time connecting to your AWS/EC2 workshop instance, you will be presented with a security dialogue, please click Yes.

Once connected, login in as splunk and the password is the one provided in the Google Sheet.

Once you are connected successfully you should see a screen similar to the one below:

At this point, you are ready to continue and start the workshop

5. Web Browser (All)

If you are blocked from using SSH (Port 22) or unable to install Putty you may be able to connect to the workshop instance by using a web browser.

Open your web browser and type http://x.x.x.x:6501 (where X.X.X.X is the IP address from the Google Sheet).

Once connected, login in as splunk and the password is the one provided in the Google Sheet.

Once you are connected successfully you should see a screen similar to the one below:

Unlike when you are using regular SSH, copy and paste does require a few extra steps to complete when using a browser session. This is due to cross browser restrictions.

When the workshop asks you to copy instructions into your terminal, please do the following:

Copy the instruction as normal, but when ready to paste it in the web terminal, choose Paste from the browser as show below:

This will open a dialogue box asking for the text to be pasted into the web terminal:

Paste the text in the text box as shown, then press OK to complete the copy and paste process.

At this point, you are ready to continue and start the workshop.

6. Multipass (All)

If you are unable to access AWS but want to install software locally, follow the instructions for using Multipass.

Deploy OpenTelemetry Demo Applciation

Introduction

For this workshop, we’ll be using the OpenTelemetry Demo Application running in Kubernetes. This application is for an online retailer and includes more than a dozen services written in many different languages. While metrics, traces, and logs are being collected from this application, this workshop is primarily focused on how Splunk Observability Cloud can be used to more efficiently monitor infrastructure.

Pre-requisites

• You should have access to the EC2 instance provided in section 1.1 Access AWS/EC2 Instance

Initial Steps

The initial setup can be completed by executing the following steps on the command line of your EC2 instance.

cd ~/workshop/optimize-cloud-monitoring && \
./deploy-application.sh

You’ll be asked to enter your favorite city. This will be used in the OpenTelemetry Collector configuration as a custom tag to show how easy it is to add additional context to your observability data.

Your application should now be running and sending data to Splunk Observability Cloud. You’ll dig into the data in the next section.