Exporting applications

You can export applications to be used outside of Nuvolos

Nuvolos features application exports to enhance user productivity, scientific openness and collaboration. This enables you to reuse your existing Nuvolos applications outside the platform for a wide range of use cases:

• students experimenting with code of an old course on their own machines

• authors sharing applications for the peer-review process of their papers and long-term archival

• researchers running applications across multiple infrastructures (e.g. HPC clusters)

The export feature allows users to export eligible applications as public Docker images hosted on DockerHub. These images can run on any infrastructure that supports Docker containers, from desktop computers to compute clusters.

Some Nuvolos applications have licensing or technological restrictions that prevent export. If you believe your application should be eligible for export, please contact us on Intercom.

Starting the export process

For eligible apps, you'll see an Export application option in the actions dropdown.

JupyterLab can be exported to a docker image

Clicking this option opens a dialog where you can name your Docker image (you can only customize the final part of the image tag—the system automatically generates the rest to avoid collisions). You can also control whether Workspace files are included in the Docker image:

Your application will be exported to a public Docker image hosted on DockerHub. Anyone can use your image without authentication. Do not store sensitive data in your application's library area, as it will be included in the exported image. The same applies to Workspace files if you opt to export them too.

Contents of an exported image

An exported Nuvolos application image contains the following data:

• Your application configuration, including installed packages and extensions stored in the APP LIBRARY area

• Environment variables

• A default startup command to launch the application executable

• Workspace files, unless you opt out at image creation

Exported images do not contain:

• Files from your HOME area (unix home folder)

• Environment secrets

• Application addons

Managing exports

You can review all exported applications in an instance by clicking the exports button next to the Add new application button on the applications screen:

The exports button is at the top left, next to the Add new application button

In the exported environments screen, you can review all your exported images and delete them when you no longer want them accessible.

By default all exports are shown, but failed and deleted entries can be filtered out

Running the exported image

You only need a container runtime environment to run the exported images. If you're unfamiliar with container runtimes, we recommend to install Docker Desktop:

• Installation instructions for Mac

• Installation instructions for Windows

• Installation instructions for Linux

Nuvolos exports applications as standard Docker images. On machines with a Docker runtime and internet access, you can use the start command provided in the actions column on the exports screen:

You can copy the run command to clipboard with the button in the actions column

The command will look like this:

docker run -p 8888:8888 ...

If the image isn't present locally, this command will automatically pull it from DockerHub and run it. Access your application by connecting to port 8888 on your machine:

http://localhost:8888

Archiving your image

You may want to back up or archive your images outside of DockerHub. We recommend pulling the image using Docker, then saving it as an archive:

docker pull ...
docker save ... | gzip > my_archive.tar.gz

Load the archived image back using the load command:

docker load < my_archive.tar.gz