[IPython-dev] IPython notebook on Windows Azure

[Brian Granger]

Dave,

Ha, yes, you are uncovering the not so pleasant details of getting the
notebook running on Azure...

On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 6:39 AM, Dave Hirschfeld
<dave.hirschfeld at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thomas Kluyver <takowl <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>>
>> Just scanning through the documentation for Windows Azure, I notice
>> that they have instructions for setting up the IPython notebook both
>> on Linux and Windows (it's not clear why you'd want the extra hassle
>> of setting everything up on Windows, but I guess someone will want
>> to).
>>
>> http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/python/tutorials/ipython-notebook/
>>
>
> Thanks Brian & Fernando for the great tutorial - I've been meaning to try out
> Azure for a while so this gave me the perfect excuse to finally give it a go!
>
> For anyone else going through the hassle of setting it up on Windows, here's a
> few things I learnt along the way:
>
> After setting up a Windows Server VM you start out with Internet Explorer having
> security settings which prevent you for visiting any website without a security
> alert popping up. More importantly, you also can't download anything. To fix
> this you need to got to Security tab in the Tools -> Internet Options dialog. In
> the "Internet Zone" you can't change the level from High so you have to click
> the Custom Level button and enable the required functionality. At this point I
> enabled everything, downloaded Chrome and proceeded from there.

I think this is the lamest security default I have ever seen.
Everytime I get on Windows, I download Chrome as fast as I possibly
can.

> Having got the notebook server up & running I then tried to view it locally on
> "http://localhost:9999". This didn't work and in the terminal where the notebook
> server was running I got the following error message:
>
> _ssl.c:503: error:1407609C:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_CLIENT_HELLO:http request
>
> A little bit of googling seemed to suggest this had something to do with trying
> to access a https site using the http protocol and sure enough
> "https://localhost:9999" took me to the notebook login page.
>
> Finally, despite confirming it was running locally I couldn't access it via
> "https://ipython-demo.cloudapp.net". I confirmed this was a firewall issue by
> turning off the firewall entirely. With a bit of trial and error I found that it
> was only necessary to open port 9999 in the firewall to have external access.
>
> This can be done from the firewall gui: go to Start -> Run, enter wf.msc then
> create a new Inbound rule to open port 9999 on the Public Profile.

Yes, when we update the tutorial next we will add a note about opening
the firewall port.  Good catch.

> Alternatively, entering the following command in a terminal will also do the
> job:
>
> netsh firewall set portopening protocol = TCP port = 9999 name = nbserver mode =
> ENABLE scope = ALL profile = CURRENT
>
>
> AFAICS you get charged for your VM whether or not it's running? Is the only way
> to stop being charged is to delete all your VMs and recreate them when you want
> to use them again? If that is the case, you'll probably want to create an image
> so when you create a new VM you can pick up from where you left off. Following
> the instructions below it was fairly easy to do:
>
> https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/how-to-guides/capture-an-
> image/
>
> I'll have to look into setting up an ipython cluster on Azure next!

I actually don't know if they charge while the VM is not running.

Cheers,

Brian

> Cheers,
> Dave
>
>
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-- 
Brian E. Granger
Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo
bgranger at calpoly.edu and ellisonbg at gmail.com