Exosphere: the User-Friendliest Interface for Non-proprietary Cloud Infrastructure

• Empowers researchers and other non-IT professionals to deploy code and run services on OpenStack-based cloud systems, without advanced virtualization or networking knowledge
• Fills the gap between OpenStack interfaces built for system administrators (like Horizon), and intuitive-but-proprietary services like DigitalOcean and Amazon Lightsail
• Enables cloud operators to deliver a friendly, powerful interface to their community with customized branding, nomenclature, and single sign-on integration

Watch a video presentation and demo:

Try Exosphere

• Visit try.exosphere.app if you have access to an existing OpenStack cloud with internet-facing APIs
• Use jetstream2.exosphere.app if you have an allocation on Jetstream2
• Run Exosphere locally if you don't want to use our hosted site

Overview and Features

Wait, what is OpenStack? OpenStack is the operating system and APIs that power public research clouds like Jetstream2 and Chameleon, private clouds at organizations like Wikimedia and CERN, and public commercial clouds like OVH, Fuga, Vexxhost, and Leafcloud. Any organization can run OpenStack on its own hardware to provide a cloud service for its own community, or for the world.

What can I do with Exosphere?

• Create instances to run your code, and volumes to manage your data
  • Works great for containers, intensive compute jobs, disposable experiments, and persistent web services
• Get one-click, browser-based shell and graphical desktop access to cloud instances (via Apache Guacamole)
• Pretty graphs show an instance's resource usage at a glance
• If you're a cloud operator, deliver a customized interface with white-labeling, localization, and single sign-on
• 100% self-hostable, 99% standalone client application
  • Two small proxy servers secure web browser connections to OpenStack APIs, and interactive services running on cloud instances
• On the roadmap:
  • First-class support for container and data science workbench resources
  • Cluster orchestration
  • Community-curated deployment automations for scientific workflows and custom services
• Free, open source, and open development process -- come hack with us!
  • See Exosphere's values and goals

Documentation Index

For Users and Anyone Else

• Running Exosphere yourself (instead of using one of the hosted sites)
• Exosphere Compatibility (with clouds and instance operating systems)
• Values and Goals of the Exosphere Project
• Nomenclature Reference
• Installing Exosphere Progressive Web Application
• Cockpit Deprecation and Manual Installation

For Cloud Operators

• Configuration Options
• Instance Setup Code
• Solving the CORS Problem (Cloud CORS Proxy)
• User Application Proxy (UAP)
• Configuring Instance Types
• Message for desktop environment users
• Federated Login Support

For Exosphere Contributors

• Contributing to Exosphere (new contributors start here)
• Tour of Exosphere Codebase
• UI, Layout, Style & Design System
• Architecture Decision Records
• Exosphere Tests
• Browser Integration Tests
• MkDocs Site
• Code of Conduct

Legal Docs

• Exosphere Project License
• Acceptable Use Policy for Exosphere Hosted Sites
• Privacy Policy for Exosphere Hosted Sites

Collaborate With Us

Talk to us in real-time on Matrix / Element. You can also browse an archive of the chat history.

We use GitLab to track issues and contributions. To request a new feature or report a bug, create a new issue on our GitLab project.

We have a weekly community video call Mondays at 16:00 UTC. Join here, or dial in at +1.512.647.1431, PIN: 3037 7824 88#. (agenda and previous meeting notes)

Exosphere's Impact

• Jetstream2, a science and engineering research cloud, offers Exosphere as its primary user interface. Jetstream2 is available to any US-based researcher.
• Exosphere has a $298k award from the US National Science Foundation's Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems. Read about it in this news release.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2229642. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.