Installing The NuNet Appliance

Appliance Types

It is important to understand that the NuNet Appliance can be installed in a few different ways, different options will work better for different scenarios. This will be discussed in greater detail later but this is the overview.

Virtual machine images (VM)

We have several Virtual machine images that can be used for both Virtualbox (that will work across all platforms - Windows, Mac, Linux) or WSL "Windows Subsystem for Linux" that will run on a modern Windows machine running an up to date version of Windows 10/11.

Cloud Init Script

The cloud init script can be used to deploy an appliance onto any cloud instance.

ISO Image

The ISO image can be used to do a "bare metal" deployment directly onto physical hardware.

Raspberry Pi Image

There is an image specifically for the raspi that you can copy directly to an SD card and boot your Raspi.

Which option should I choose ?

Initally we recommend using one of the virtual machine images to do your initial testing as its very easy to set up and can run on top of an exisiting system without having to make changes to your operating system (other than installing/configuring the relevent virtualization software)

GPU Resources

If you want the Appliance to use GPU resources in your machine then you will need to

• use Virtualbox image on MacOS (If you are using APPLE silicon e.g. any of the M series processors) or
• use the WSL appliance on Windows or
• do a bare metal install on dedicated hardware (this is the most reliable option and will give you the best performance).

Note Virtualbox does not support sharing the GPU with the Windows OS or earlier apple macs (Intel CPU) with descreete GPU's at this time.

Virtual Machine images are also useful to act as your Entry point to the network if you want to run workloads and use resources of other peers in NuNet network (like other peoples GPU's).

When you are ready to run a NuNet node to provide compute resource to the network we recommend using the ISO image to install the appliance on a dedicated machine.

System Requirements

System requirements vary depending on your intended role in the NuNet network. See the Capabilities section for detailed explanations of each role.

If you just want to test out the appliance then you will need at least: 2 CPU cores and 4 GB of ram to be able to access the network and run some simple demos.

After that look at Hardware Specs for minimum and recommended specifications based on the role you want your appliance to play on the network.

Installation Instructions

Installation Steps using VirtualBox

Follow these steps to install and run the NuNet Appliance using VirtualBox:

1. Download and install VirtualBox

2. Download the correct Appliance Image

   • AMD64 (Windows & Linux)
   • ARM64 (MacOS)

3. Import into VirtualBox

• Open VirtualBox software.
• Select File → Import Appliance, then select the appliance image you just downloaded or you can Double-click the downloaded .ova file from the file manager.
• Adjust resources based on your role:
  • Compute Provider: 4+ CPUs, 8GB+ RAM, 100GB+ disk
  • Compute Consumer: 2+ CPUs, 4GB+ RAM, 20GB+ disk

4. Configure Network Settings
   • In VirtualBox, select your NuNet Appliance instance and click Settings.
   • Navigate to Network settings.
   • Change the Attached to dropdown from NAT to Bridged Adapter.
   • Select your network adapter from the Name dropdown.
   • Click OK to save the settings.

Note: Bridged adapter mode allows the appliance to receive its own IP address on your local network, which is required for proper network connectivity.

5. Start the Appliance

   • The NuNet appliance launches automatically on boot.
   • Wait for initialization and verify you see a QR code at the end of the boot process.

6. Proceed to next steps

⚠️ Security Reminder:
Only download official appliance images from NuNet sources.

Installation Steps for WSL

The following steps describe how to install and run the NuNet Appliance using the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

1. Download the NuNet WSL distribution package and the installer script AMD64 NVIDIA GPU

2. Extract the ZIP file. It will contain two files.

3. Move both files to the same directory. Then open a PowerShell window as Administrator and navigate to that directory. In this example, we use C:\nunet

4. Run the following command in the elevated PowerShell window to execute the installer script with administrative privileges:

   powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "C:\nunet\deploy-nunet-appliance-wsl.ps1" -ImagePath "C:\nunet\nunet-appliance-wsl.tar" -DistroName "nunet-appliance"

5. The installation process may take a few minutes, depending on your system's performance.

The installer will import the NuNet Appliance as a new WSL distribution (without affecting any exisiting WSL distributions). It will also configure networking to allow the appliance to share the Windows host's IP address. Additionally, it will create firewall rules to enable access to the web interface from the local machine and other devices on the same network (for example, to manage it from a mobile phone).

6. Once the installation is complete, you can start the appliance using:

   wsl -d nunet-appliance

7. Proceed to next steps

For a visual walkthrough of installing the WSL distribution and joining an organization, refer to this tutorial.

Installation Steps for Bare Metal Setup

Overview of the steps

1. Download the Appliance Image

   • Bare Metal ISO (Intel & AMD): Download here

   ⚠️ IMPORTANT DATA LOSS WARNING This image is configured to AUTOBOOT AND ERASE the ENTIRE internal hard disk of the computer it is started on. Ensure you CAREFULLY LABEL any usb key you burn this to.

2. Create a bootable USB stick using the image

Note: You will need admin privileges.

Minimum 8GB space is needed. ⚠️ Note that any existing data on the stick will be erased

We recommend that you use balenaEtcher to do this.

3. Use the USB stick to install and boot the Nunet Appliance on your device

   ⚠️ Do NOT insert this USB into a computer you do not intend to erase all data on the target machine will be wiped without prompting.

⚠️ Security Reminder:
Only download official appliance images from NuNet sources

Next Steps

After installation, proceed to Launching the Appliance to start the appliance and verify it's running correctly.

Hardware Specs

Compute Provider Requirements

If you plan to provide compute resources to the network:

Component	Minimum	Recommended
CPU	2 cores	4+ cores
RAM	8 GB	16 GB
Disk Space	100 GB	200 GB+
Internet	Stable broadband	High-speed broadband

Note: Compute providers need sufficient resources to run workloads allocated by the network. Higher specifications enable more concurrent allocations and better performance.

It is also recommended to enable UPnP on your router to allow for easy port forwarding setup from the Appliance web UI.

Orchestrator or Compute Consumer Requirements

If you plan to use the compute resources from the network:

Component	Minimum	Recommended
CPU	2 cores	4 cores
RAM	4 GB	8 GB
Disk Space	20 GB	40 GB
Internet	Stable broadband	High-speed broadband