Creating a virtual Linux workstation

This tutorial shows how to create a virtual workstation in Google Cloud that runs on CentOS 7 and that has a virtual display. A virtual machine (VM) with virtual display is ideal if you need to run applications that require a display device, but do not require the full power or cost of a GPU.

To create a Windows workstation, see Creating a virtual Windows workstation.

Note: This solution is not suitable for graphically intensive applications that require hardware graphics acceleration. For information about the types of virtual workstations that you can create on Google Cloud, see Creating a virtual workstation.

After you create the virtual workstation, you learn how to remotely access it using Teradici PC-over-IP (PCoIP), a remote desktop protocol that's widely used in industries such as media and entertainment, architectural visualization, finance, government, and healthcare. PCoIP offers features essential to workloads that require color accuracy and support for lossless display.

Objectives

• Create a Compute Engine instance. This instance serves as the foundation for a virtual workstation.
• Install Teradici Cloud Access Software on the virtual workstation.
• Connect to the virtual workstation using Teradici PCoIP Client or Zero Client, a type of hardware endpoint.

Note: This tutorial does not include advanced security features such as fine-grained SSH key management, certificate issuance, or multi-factor authentication (MFA). A full deployment requires a connection broker and domain controller, which help enable a stronger security profile for connecting to virtual workstations.

Costs

This tutorial uses the following billable components of Google Cloud:

• Compute Engine

You can use the Pricing Calculator to generate a cost estimate based on your projected usage. As of the time of writing, the approximate cost for a typical workstation configuration illustrated in this tutorial is $0.30 per hour.

The resources that make up the virtual workstation and the factors that affect cost in this tutorial are:

• An n1-standard-4 machine type with 4 vCPUs and 15 GB of RAM
• A 50-GB standard persistent boot disk
• Internet egress

Internet egress represents data that streams from your virtual workstation to your local display client and is billed at internet egress rates. Variables that affect data egress during a PCoIP session are bandwidth, screen resolution, number of display monitors, applications used, and the type of activity on each monitor. The cost for the virtual workstation configuration that you create in this tutorial is based on an average usage of 10 Mbps. Teradici's Session Planning Guide can help you understand different workload requirements.

Note: Costs differ depending on region and connection method. The estimated costs are based on connection over the public internet, with resources located in the us-central1 (Iowa) region.

You also need a Teradici Cloud Access Software license. If you don't already have a license, you can sign up for a trial license, or contact your Teradici representative. You will be provided with a 30-day trial registration code to use for this virtual workstation.

Before you begin

This tutorial uses gcloud and gsutil commands, which you can run from a Cloud Shell instance launched from the Google Cloud Console. If you want to use gcloud and gsutil on your local workstation, install the Cloud SDK.

The tutorial shows you how to run commands in Cloud Shell; if you use the Cloud SDK on your workstation, adjust the instructions accordingly.

1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

2. In the Google Cloud Console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Cloud project. Learn how to confirm that billing is enabled for your project.

4. Enable the Compute Engine API.

   Enable the API

In addition, make sure you have the following:

• A Cloud project with quota for 4 vCPUs in your selected zone.
• A Google Chrome browser to access the Cloud Console.
• A Teradici Zero Client or the latest Teradici software client for Windows, Mac, or Linux to access the virtual workstation.
• A Teradici Cloud Access Software license. You can get a trial license as described earlier under Costs.

Architecture

The following diagram shows the components that are used in this tutorial to deploy a single virtual workstation. Optional components shown in the diagram include different ways to connect to your virtual workstation, object and shared storage, and an additional VM instance for serving third-party licenses.

Creating the virtual workstation

Teradici Standard Agent, which you install on your virtual workstation later in this tutorial, requires you to enable IP forwarding and to allow HTTPS server traffic when you create the virtual workstation.

1. Open Cloud Shell.

   Go to Cloud Shell

2. Set the zone that you want to use later to create your virtual workstation:

   gcloud config set compute/zone zone
   

   Replace zone with the name of the zone you're using, such as us-west2-b.

3. In Cloud Shell, create the Compute Engine instance for the virtual workstation:

   gcloud compute instances create instance-name \
       --machine-type=machine-type \
       --enable-display-device \
       --can-ip-forward \
       --tags=https-server \
       --image-project=image-project \
       --image-family=image-family \
       --boot-disk-size=size \
       --boot-disk-type=book-disk-type
   

   Replace the following:

   • instance-name: The name of your instance.
   • machine-type: Either a general-purpose, predefined machine type or a custom machine type using the format custom-number-of-cpus-number-of-mb.
   • image-project: The image project of that image family.
   • image-family: An optional flag that specifies which image family this image belongs to.
   • size: The size of the boot disk in GB.
   • book-disk-type: Either pd-standard or pd-ssd.

   For example:

   gcloud compute instances create test-vws \
       --machine-type=n1-standard-4 \
       --enable-display-device \
       --can-ip-forward \
       --tags=https-server \
       --image-project=centos-cloud \
       --image-family=centos-7 \
       --boot-disk-size=50 \
       --boot-disk-type=pd-standard
   

   After the virtual workstation is created, the machine status is displayed. The output is similar to the following:

   Created https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/project/zones/zone/instances/test-vws.
   NAME      ZONE        MACHINE_TYPE   PREEMPTIBLE  INTERNAL_IP  EXTERNAL_IP   STATUS
   test-vws  us-west2-b  n1-standard-4               10.168.0.1   203.0.113.1  RUNNING
   

   The virtual workstation is created in your project's default VPC network. If you want to create your virtual workstation in a different VPC network, add the following flag to the command:

   --network=network
   

   Replace network with the name of the network to use:

4. Make a note of the virtual workstation's external IP address in the listing. You will use it later in the tutorial.

   You can retrieve the external IP address of your virtual workstation at any time using the Cloud Console.

Signing in to your virtual workstation

After you create the virtual workstation, you sign in to the machine so that you can configure it.

1. In Cloud Shell, connect to the new virtual workstation:

   gcloud compute ssh test-vws
   

2. Set your account password. Teradici PCoIP Client requires a user password.

   sudo passwd `whoami`
   

   When you're prompted, enter a password. You will use this password later in the tutorial to log onto your virtual workstation with the Teradici PCoIP Client.

Installing graphics libraries and a window manager

The default Google Cloud CentOS image is a minimal install of CentOS. The next step is to install libraries that are necessary to run your virtual workstation with the GNOME desktop environment.

• On your virtual workstation, install the required components:

  sudo yum -y update
  sudo yum -y groupinstall 'Server with GUI'
  

Installing Teradici Cloud Access Software

Teradici Cloud Access Software provides an agent that runs on your virtual workstation, delivering the desktop to your hardware or software client.

1. On your virtual workstation, install the Teradici repositories:

   sudo yum -y install https://downloads.teradici.com/rhel/teradici-repo-latest.noarch.rpm
   

2. Install Teradici Standard Agent for Linux:

   sudo yum -y update
   sudo yum -y install pcoip-agent-standard
   

Registering Teradici Standard Agent

1. On your virtual workstation, activate your Teradici Cloud Access Software license:

   pcoip-register-host --registration-code=registration-code
   

   Replace registration-code with the license registration code that you received from Teradici.

2. Reboot the virtual workstation:

   sudo reboot
   

   Your connection from Cloud Shell is closed.

Creating a firewall rule

Teradici PCoIP Client communicates with your virtual workstation using several ports. You must set firewall rules that allow traffic to and from your virtual workstation.

• In Cloud Shell (not on the virtual workstation), create a firewall rule that opens the required ports:

  gcloud compute firewall-rules create allow-teradici \
      --allow tcp:443,tcp:4172,udp:4172,tcp:60443
  

Signing in to your virtual workstation using PCo

1. On your local computer, go to the PCoIP Clients section on the Teradici support page, and then download, install, and launch Teradici PCoIP Client for your operating system.

2. Select New Connection.

3. In the Host Address field, enter the external IP address of your virtual workstation. If you want, you can enter a name for the connection.

   

   Note: By default, PCoIP traffic is encrypted using AES-256. However, Teradici Cloud Access Software uses a self-signed certificate that's issued by Teradici. This might trigger the following warning when you connect.
   
   
   
   You can remove this warning by creating and installing your own certificates. For the purposes of this tutorial, you can ignore this warning by clicking Connect Insecurely in the dialog. For more information about creating and deploying your own certificates, see Custom Security Certificates on the Teradici site.

4. When you are connected, authenticate by entering the username and password that you created earlier for the virtual workstation.

   

5. If you're prompted to select a desktop to run, select the one that you just created.

   

6. Click Connect.

   In a few seconds, you see your Linux desktop.

   

Testing your virtual workstation

After you've deployed your virtual workstation, you can test performance and interactivity using a number of tools:

• Install Google Chrome on the virtual workstation to browse your favorite sites or play YouTube videos.
• Learn more about configuring the Teradici Standard Agent for Linux.
• Install applications and test their behavior and performance.

Troubleshooting

This section lists issues you might encounter when you set up or connect to the workstation.

Unable to connect to the virtual workstation

Issue: You are using PCoIP Zero Client, and you're unable to connect to your virtual workstation.

Solution: Ensure that your Zero Client has firmware version 6.1 or later installed before you connect to the virtual workstation. For more information, contact your local Teradici representative.

Cleaning up

After you've finished the tutorial, clean up the resources you created on Google Cloud so you won't be billed for them in the future.

Stopping your virtual workstation

Stopped virtual workstations incur costs for persistent disk usage, but they can be restarted at any time. To stop your virtual workstation, run the following command in Cloud Shell:

gcloud compute instances stop test-vws

Delete the project

Caution: Deleting a project has the following effects:
• Everything in the project is deleted. If you used an existing project for this tutorial, when you delete it, you also delete any other work you've done in the project.
• Custom project IDs are lost. When you created this project, you might have created a custom project ID that you want to use in the future. To preserve the URLs that use the project ID, such as an appspot.com URL, delete selected resources inside the project instead of deleting the whole project.
1. In the Cloud Console, go to the Manage resources page.

   Go to Manage resources

2. In the project list, select the project that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
3. In the dialog, type the project ID, and then click Shut down to delete the project.

Delete all the components

1. Delete the virtual workstation.
2. Delete the firewall rule.

What's next

• Learn more about Teradici Cloud Access Software.
• Learn more about how Teradici PCoIP Client differs from other remote desktop protocols.
• Try out other Google Cloud features for yourself. Have a look at our tutorials.