General Settings

1. From the Infrastructure menu, click Create Environment. The Create Environment page opens.

2. Select the desired method from the radio button options that appear in the General section:

   

3. Select from the environment options that appear in the General section:

   Field/Dropdown	Description
   Project	The project that will be associated with the new environment
   Team	If it appears, select the team that will be responsible for this environment.
   Policy	Select the policy that will govern the life cycle of the new environment. The policy determines how long the environment will be available for use, when it will be deleted, and what will happen to it during periods of inactivity. For more details, see Environment Policies. If needed, you can click the link provided to create a new policy.
   Choose CloudShare Cloud/Region	If your project has access to more than one CloudShare region, select where the environment will be created.

4. When you are done, click the Select Template next step. The VMs/Templates section is displayed.

VM/Template Settings

1. Continue according to the method you have chosen:

   Create Method	Description
   Select Project Template	Select and add the desired project from the Blueprint list to the environment. To see a detailed configuration summary for a template, click the plus icon to the left of its name.
   Custom Environment	Select and add specific VMs from the list to the environment. For more details, see Create a Custom Environment.
   Select Environment Template	Select and add the predefined environment template to the environment. To see a detailed configuration summary for a template, click the plus icon to the left of its name

   After you add the desired template or VMs, you can check the settings for the environment at the right of the page:

   

   Check to ensure that the details are correct before proceeding.

2. When you are done, go to the next step:

   • If the account is enabled to use External Resources and you have permission to define them, the External Resources next step is displayed.

   • If the account is not enabled to use External Resources, the Add Details & Save next step is displayed.

   Click the relevant next step to proceed to the next panel.

External Resources

Use this panel to optionally add external cloud platform resources to your environment.

1. Select from the resource options that appear in the External Resources section:

   Field/Dropdown	Description
   Select Cloud Provider	Click the icon of the desired cloud provider to display its configuration dialog. You can select and configure multiple external cloud providers for the environment, when needed.
   Use an External Resource Script	Activate this checkbox to enable selection of a predefined Terraform script from the list. For complete details on creating Terraform scripts for your account, click here.
   Region	The Region where the selected cloud provider will create the environment. This field enables you to specify a unique Region for each instance of a selected environment. The values available in this field will vary according to your selected cloud provider. To support technical or cost considerations, environments can be restricted to usage only in selected Regions. For more details, contact your CloudShare Support representative. Note For Azure, only Regions which support Azure Resource Groups will be available for selection. For more details on Regions, see the selected cloud provider's documentation.
   Zone (GCP only)	For GCP, select a Zone where GCP will create the environment. Each GCP Region supports different Zones. This field enables you to specify a unique Zone, as well as a unique Region, for each instance of a selected environment. For more details on Zones, see GCP documentation.
   Create an External Cloud User	Select No if your end-user will only need to access the VMs on the selected external cloud. Select Yes if your end-user will need to perform additional activities on the selected external cloud. An additional dropdown list will be displayed, enabling you to set the exact Role that will be used by the external cloud.
   User Role or IAM Policy (AWS only)	When Create an External Cloud User is set to Yes, select the Role that will be assigned by the external cloud to the end-user of this environment. CloudShare lists all default user roles that are available on the relevant external cloud. When you use GCP, any additional custom roles that you created for the GCP project will be listed here as well. Custom roles enable tight control over usage permissions that are granted to an end-user in the external cloud. For more details on GCP custom roles, click here. When you use AWS, select from: Administrator Access Without IAM. Grant Admin capabilities to the User. Note, however, that no edit permissions for the IAM service are provided. Viewer. Grant only view-level capabilities to the User.
   Add an Admin Console Machine	Activate this checkbox to automatically add the cloud provider's Administration Console to the end-user environment. Selecting this option will also allow an instructor to help students during the class, for example for tracking their work and providing assistance. In order to use this feature, the role that is assigned to the end-user on the external cloud must allow sufficient user permissions.

   Note

   CloudShare supports the three leading commodity clouds: Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure and the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

2. When you are done, click the Add Details & Save next step. The Save Environment page is displayed, displaying all configuration details you have provided for the environment.

Save New Environment

1. In the Name and Description text fields, enter a unique name and a helpful description for this environment.

2. Optionally activate the checkbox Ensure a snapshot exists before environment deletion. This will automatically create a snapshot of the complete environment state, if no snapshot exists, before it is deleted.

3. Check to ensure that all details on the page are correct. When finished, click Save Environment. The new environment will be created in your account

After saving and completing the creation process, you can monitor the progress through the top progress bar on the Environment Details page. You also have the ability to individually track the progress of each of the Public Cloud Providers added during the environment creation process. Each resource is accompanied by its own dedicated progress bar, clearly indicating the various stages of completion. 

• To view individual progress bars, click the loading icon to the left of the general progress bar.
• To view completed actions, click the check icon
• To view failed actions, click the alert icon . 

Note: Completing the AWS installation process requires the additional action of opening the Environment Viewer.

Note: In the event of a failure in the environment creation process, all activity buttons, except for the share and delete options, will be disabled. Although the Viewer and log become inaccessible through regular means, users can still access the logs by clicking on the Environment Worker Commands List. This feature enables users to pinpoint and understand the issues that led to the environment failure.

After saving and completing the creation process, you can monitor the progress through the top progress bar on the Environment Details page. You also have the ability to individually track the progress of each of the Public Cloud Providers added during the environment creation process. Each resource is accompanied by its own dedicated progress bar, clearly indicating the various stages of completion. 

• To view individual progress bars, click the loading icon to the left of the general progress bar.
• To view completed actions, click the check icon
• To view failed actions, click the alert icon . 

Note: Completing the AWS installation process requires the additional action of opening the Environment Viewer.

Note: In the event of a failure in the environment creation process, all activity buttons, except for the share and delete options, will be disabled. Although the Viewer and log become inaccessible through regular means, users can still access the logs by clicking on the Environment Worker Commands List. This feature enables users to pinpoint and understand the issues that led to the environment failure.