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Version: Developer

DigitalOcean AutoScale

This guide will walk you through configuring autoscaling for Kasm Workspaces on DigitalOcean. Autoscaling in Kasm Workspaces automatically provisions and destroys agents based on user demand, ensuring optimized resource utilization and cost efficiency.

Overview​

Prerequisites​

  • Access to Digital Ocean: Ensure you have the appropriate access to your Digital Ocean environment
  • Kasm Workspaces Installed: A basic setup of Kasm Workspaces must already exist
  • Understand Key Concepts:
    • Zones: Logical groupings of Kasm services for geographical or organizational segmentation
    • Pools: Logical groupings of Kasm Docker Agents and Server Pools for load balancing
  • Plan Your Configuration:
    • Understand your deployment zone requirements
  • Configure your Digital Ocean environment

Setup your Digital Ocean Environment​

  • Create an API Token: Go to your Digital Ocean dashboard -> "API" -> "Personal Access Tokens" -> "Generate New Token"

    Create Personal Access Token in Digital Ocean
    Create Personal Access Token in Digital Ocean
    • Token Name: Give a name (e.g Kasm AutoScale)
    • Expiration: Set an expiration for your token (e.g 30 days)
    • Scopes: Choose "Custom Scopes" and give access to the following resources:
      • certificate
      • database
      • firewall
      • load_balancer
      • project
      • regions
      • sizes
      • ssh_key
      • tag
      • vpc
      • image
      • droplet
      • domain
      • action
    Custom Scopes in Digital Ocean
    Custom Scopes in Digital Ocean
    • Generate Token
    • Save your token securely as you won't be able to see it again.

  • Add SSH Key: You need to assign an SSH key to your newly provisioned droplets.

    • Go to your Digital Ocean dashboard -> "Settings" -> "Security" -> "Add SSH Key"
    • Follow the on-screen instructions from Digital Ocean to generate an SSH key pair and paste your Public Key and choose a Key Name.
    Add SSH Key to DigitalOcean
    Add SSH Key to DigitalOcean

Configure Digital Ocean Details on Kasm​

Digital Ocean VM Provider

Digital Ocean VM Provider
NameDescription
NameA name to use to identify the config.
TokenThe token to use to connect to this VM
Max DropletsThe maximum number of Digital Ocean droplets to provision , regardless of whether more are needed to fulfill user demand.
RegionThe Digital Ocean Region where droplets should be provisioned. (e.g nyc3)
ImageThe Image to use when creating droplets. (e.g docker-24-04). See Digital Ocean documentation for more details.
Droplet SizeThe droplet size configuration (e.g c-2). See https://slugs.do-api.dev for more details
TagsA tag(s) to assign the droplet when it is created. This should be a comma separated list of tags.
SSH Key NameThe SSH Key to assign to the newly created droplets. The SSH Key must already exist in the Digital Ocean Account.
Firewall NameThe name of the Firewall to apply to the newly created droplets. This Firewall must already exist in the Digital Ocean Account. Go to your Digital Ocean dashboard -> "Networking" -> "Firewalls" to view existing firewalls or create a new firewall
Startup ScriptWhen droplets are provisioned this script is executed. The script is responsible for installing and configuring the Kasm Agent. Example scripts can be found on our GitHub repository
  • Submit the Provider Config

"Tag Does Not Exist" Error​

Upon first testing AutoScaling with Digital Ocean, an error similar to the following may be presented:

Future generated an exception: tag zone:abc123 does not exist
 traceback:
 ..
 File "digitalocean/Firewall.py", line 225, in add_tags
 File "digitalocean/baseapi.py", line 196, in get_data
 digitalocean.DataReadError: tag zone:abc123 does not exist
 process: manager_api_server

This error occurs when Kasm Workspaces tries to assign a unique tag based on the Zone Id to the Digital Ocean Firewall. If that tag does not already exist in Digital Ocean, the operation will fail and present the error. To workaround the issue, manually create a tag matching the one specified in the error (e.g zone:abc123) via the Digital Ocean console. This can be done via API, or simply creating the tag on a temporary Droplet.

Test your Digital Ocean Autoscaling setup​

If you have configured non-zero Standby/Minimum Available Session values agents should start provisioning immediately. Otherwise, try launching multiple workspaces to increase resource utilization, prompting Kasm to autoscale new agents.

  • Provision a Workspace
    • Go to Workspaces > Registry
    • Make multiple workspaces available
  • Go to the Workspaces dashboard and launch sufficient workspace sessions to exceed your resource standby thresholds
  • Monitor the provisioning of new agents by going to "Infrastructure" -> "Agents"
  • Verify new VM instances in Proxmox
  • Check Downscaling
    • Terminate sessions to reduce resource usage
    • Confirm that Kasm removes agents after the back-off period