Tips & Limitations

pip

If you install a python package with pip but you cannot find it, then add the following path as the official jupyterlab document stated.

export PATH="/home/name/.local/bin:$PATH"

conda

If you want to use conda in your notebook, run the following code as the first executable cell.

!pip install -q git+https://github.com/vessl-ai/condacolab.git
import condacolab
condacolab.install()

Disk persistency and node affinity problem

In VESSL, /root is the only persistent directory. Other directories reset eveytime you restart a workspace. If you need libraries or packages that should be installed outside /root, fill the Init script with the install commands. You can also build your own docker image on top of VESSL managed docker images.

VESSL provides disk persistency in two ways:

• For cloud providers (managed cluster and custom cluster provided by AWS or GCP), VESSL uses storage provisioners like aws-efs-csi-driver. It automatically attaches Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes to container when started, and stored persistently until the workspace is terminated.
• For on-premises cluster, VESSL use storage provisioners like local-path-provisioner. It stores data on the host machine assigned to when the workspace is created. (So it fixes to one machine due to storage persistency).
  • VESSL does online backup/restore to resolve this issue. VESSL automatically backup and upload all contents in /root when the workspace is stopped. All contents will be downloaded and restored when the workspace is resumed.
  • If /root/ is larger than 15GB, VESSL does not online backup/restore, so it fixes to one machine.
  • For enterprise plan, Organization admin can specify the detail rules of online backup, such as the backup location.

Backup & restore manually

If /root/ is larger than 15GB, VESSL CLI does not support backup and restore.

You can manually backup and restore /root/ with CLI. This feature is useful in the following situations:

• Move the workspace to another cluster
• Clone the workspace

You can proceed the following order:

• Run vessl workspace backup from the source workspace
• Run vessl workspace restore from the destination workspace
  • /root/ folder should be empty in the destination workspace

Docker

VESSL workspaces are docker containers running on Kubernetes. The Docker daemon inside a docker container is not supported unless specifically privileged. VESSL does not support privileged containers for security reasons.