If you’re familiar with Deadline 10 and looking to start using AWS Portal, we recommend starting here.

Note

While AWS Portal can enable cloud rendering in Deadline 10, AWS Deadline Cloud is a newer offering that has been built specifically for the cloud. It is a fully managed service that does not require installation or maintenance of infrastructure (e.g., repository, database, or license server). Worker fleet auto-scaling, asset synching, and licensing are all managed natively within AWS by Deadline Cloud. See here for more information on Deadline Cloud and its capabilities.

Connecting to a Linux AWS Portal Worker From a Linux/macOS Machine

If you are connecting to the Gateway instance from a Linux or macOS machine use the following steps.

Prerequisites

Before you connect to your Gateway instance, you will need to:

  • Install an SSH client
    Your Linux or Mac computer most likely includes an SSH client by default. You can check for an SSH client by typing ssh at the command line. If your computer doesn’t recognize the command, the OpenSSH project provides a free implementation of the full suite of SSH tools. For more information, see https://www.openssh.com/.

Setup SSH Agent Forwarding

  1. Run the following command to start the ssh-agent

    eval \`ssh-agent\`

  2. Next you must configure ssh to allow agent forwarding.

    1. Open /etc/ssh/ssh_config as the root user

    2. Add the following line to the end of the file.

      ForwardAgent yes

To connect to the Gateway instance using SSH

  1. In a command-line shell, change directories to the location of the DashKey file that you found earlier.

  2. Use the ssh command to connect to the instance. You specify the DashKey file and ec2-user@public_dns_name_or_ipv4_address. For example:

    ssh -i /path/DashKey ec2-user@ec2-54-189-199-216.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com

You will see the following response.

The authenticity of host 'ec2-54-189-199-216.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com (10.128.2.4)'
can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 1f:51:ae:28:bf:89:e9:d8:1f:25:5d:37:2d:7d:b8:ca:9f:f5:f1:6f.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

  1. Enter yes.

    You will see the following response.

    Warning: Permanently added 'ec2-54-189-199-216.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com' (RSA)
to the list of known hosts.

You are now connected to your Gateway instance.

Connecting to the Worker

Once you have logged into the Gateway instance you can now log into your AWS Portal Worker instances.

  1. Use the ssh command to connect to the instance. You specify ec2-user@private_ipv4_address. For example:

    ssh ec2-user@10.128.31.167

You will see the following response.

The authenticity of host '10.128.31.167 (10.128.31.167)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsT0123.
ECDSA key fingerprint is MD5:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

  1. Enter yes.

    You will see the following response.

    Warning: Permanently added '10.128.31.167' (RSA)
to the list of known hosts.

You are now connected to your AWS Portal Worker instance.