Getting Started
Welcome to System Initiative! This tutorial will teach you how to use System Initiative to model your infrastructure. We will be deploying a single free-tier EC2 instance in AWS, and cleaning it up. There should be no cost to you.
To follow along, you'll need three things:
An AWS account that allows you to create free-tier resources, such as EC2 instances.
Your System Initiative workspace open in another window.
WARNING
Your AWS account must have a Default VPC to complete the quick start guide. Most accounts do!
Creating a change set
Click the create change set button.
Name your new change set Getting started, and click the Create change set button.
Add an AWS Credential component
Click AWS Credential from the AWS category of the asset pallete, and drop it on the diagram canvas. This creates a new credential component.
Resize the component until it fills most of the visible canvas by dragging the lower right corner of the frame.
Name your component
Click on the AWS Credential you just added to the canvas. The panel on the right side of your screen will show its properties. It will have a default name like si-1234.
Change the name to be Tutorial. Pressing enter or clicking outside the textbox will update the diagram with your new name.
Add a secret
Click the Select/Add Secret button next to the AWS Credential property. Then click Add Secret.
Name your secret Tutorial Secret.
Fill in your AWS accounts Access Key Id and Secret Access Key. Refer to the AWS documentation if you do not know what they are.
Click Store Secret to securely encrypt and save your secret.
TIP
If you see a red hexagon in the lower corner of your AWS credential frame (its qualification) after this step, it means that the credentials are invalid and need to be re-entered.
In some cases, you may need to also add your AWS Session Key.
Add an AWS Region component and set its properties
Click on the Region from the AWS category of the asset pallete, and drop it inside your Tutorial credential frame.
Resize the region to fill the space inside the Tutorial credential frame.
Name your region Northern Virginia.
Set the region property to us-east-1.
Add an AWS EC2 Key Pair and set its properties
Click on the Key Pair from the AWS EC2 category of the asset pallete, and drop it inside your Northern Virginia region frame.
Name your key pair si-tutorial.
Set the KeyName property to si-tutorial.
Add an AWS EC2 Instance and set its properties
Click on the EC2 Instance from the AWS EC2 category of the asset pallete, and drop it inside your Northern Virginia region frame.
Name your EC2 Instance si-tutorial.
Set the InstanceType property to t2.micro.
Connect the Key Pair to the EC2 Instance
Click the Key Name output socket of your si-tutorial Key Pair and connect it to the Key Name input socket of your new EC2 Instance component by dragging the line between them.
Add an AWS EC2 AMI component and set its properties
Click on the AMI from the AWS EC2 category of the asset pallete, and drop it inside your Northern Virginia region frame.
Name your AMI Fedora CoreOS.
Set the ImageId property to ami-068493ac5013f0936.
Connect the AMI to the EC2 Instance
Connect the Image ID output socket of your AMI component to the Image Id input socket of your EC2 Instance component.
Apply the change set
Press the Escape key, or click on the background of the canvas, to ensure the workspace itself is selected.
You will see two actions enqueued in the right hand panel - one to create the Key Pair, and the other to create your EC2 Instance.
Press the Apply Change Set button.
You'll be prompted with a dialog to confirm you want to take these two actions. Press the Apply Changes button in the dialog to confirm.
Create the Key Pair and EC2 Instance resources
Applying the change set redirects you to the HEAD change set, and enqueues your actions. The proposed changes panel on the right side of the screen shows your two pending actions. As the actions are run on AWS, their resulting resources are added to each model. As this happens, the actions will disappear from the proposed changes list.
Once both actions have been run, you'll see some confetti, and the changes panel will be empty.
Review the si-tutorial EC2 Instances resource data
Select the si-tutorial EC2 Instance. Then select the Resource sub-panel on the right side panel. You will see all the information about the EC2 Instance we created in AWS.
Congratulations! You have created your first resources with System Initiative.
Clean up
Create a new change set called Cleanup.
Select the Tutorial AWS Credential component. Press the delete key.
You'll be presented with a dialog confirming you want to delete the components we created previously. Click Confirm.
Press the escape key or click on the canvas background to select the workspace.
Click the Apply Change Set button to delete your EC2 Instance and Key Pair. Confirm you want to apply the change set.
After the two delete actions are run, you will have a blank workspace, and no more resources running in AWS.
Congratulations
Congratulations - you've created your first resources with System Initiative. You learned how to:
- Create new change sets
- Add a credentials and secrets
- Add components to the diagram canvas
- Configure components by setting their properties
- Connect components input and output sockets to dynamically configure them
- Execute actions and create resources by applying a change set