IPython Notebook on AWS

How to get IPython notebook running on AWS

Prerequisite:

1. Launch an instance on your AWS account
2. SSH into your AWS account
3. Basic usage of Vim

Launch & SSH into AWS:

1. Launch Ubuntu Server 12.04.3 LTS 64 bit
2. Edit security group to allow inbound traffic for ports 22, 443, & 8888
3. SSH into your instance, should see the below

Install Analytical Toolkit from Continuum:

Run each command only after the previous has finished

1. wget http://09c8d0b2229f813c1b93-c95ac804525aac4b6dba79b00b39d1d3.r79.cf1.rackcdn.com/Anaconda-1.8.0-Linux-x86_64.sh
2. bash Anaconda-1.8.0-Linux-x86_64.sh
3. Agree to license
4. Install in default location
5. When asked, “Do you wish the installer to prepend the Anaconda install location to PATH in your /home/ubuntu/.bashrc ?” Type Yes.
6. source .bashrc (This reloads your bash settings)
7. Test that everything is working by typing ipython, you should see:

Set up IPython Notebook:

1. from IPython.lib import passwd
2. passwd()
3. Enter your secret password and record the sha1 output to be used later
4. cd
5. !mkdir certificates
6. cd certificates/
7. !openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout mycert.pem -out mycert.pem
8. Your screen should look like this:

Keep hitting enter to all the questions, this portion creates an SSL certificate. Now exit out of iPython.

Create Notebook Profile:

1. ipython profile create nbserver
2. cd ~/.ipython/profile_nbserver/
3. vim ipython_notebook_config.py
4. Add the code below to the file:

#Kernel Config
c.IPKernalApp.pylab = ‘inline’
#Notebook config
c.NotebookApp.certfile = u’/home/ubuntu/certificates/mycert.pem’
c.NotebookApp.ip = ‘*’
c.NotebookApp.open_browser = False
c.NotebookApp.password = u’sha1:bc….your sha1 from up above’
c.NotebookApp.port = 8888

It should look like:

Launching iPython Notebook, almost done : ), I promise:

1. cd
2. mkdir notebooks
3. cd notebooks
4. ipython notebook inline —profile=nbserver
5. Now it will ask you all sorts of questions, just hit ‘q’ until you see this:

Last Steps:

1. Find out your public dns from amazon ec2 control panel
2. Open up chrome/firefox and navigate to https://your_public_dns.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com:8888/
3. Your browser will yell at you that the SSL is fraudulent, proceed anyways.
4. Enter password and viola:

Credit:

I reorganized the information presented here. Thank you iamatypeofwalrus!

Troubleshooting:

To use %pylab, you may need to install:

sudo apt-get install libsm6
sudo apt-get install libxrender1
sudo apt-get install libfontconfig

Then use %pylab inline at the top of your iPython notebook

If you want to keep the instance running even when you disconnect from aws:

nohup ipython notebook inline —profile=nbserver