B4J Tutorial [GCE] For Noobs, Part 4 - Connecting To Your Virtual Machine

Doing something useful with your VM instance requires that you connect to it. By that I mean opening a console window that you can use to execute commands or start/stop services. To open a console window and connect to your VM instance requires nothing more complicated than a click of a button. In the image below I’ve carefully circled one of the buttons within the cloud console. It doesn’t look like a button but trust me - it’s a button.



Go ahead, give it a click. The technical term for your SSH console is a ‘pop-up’. Because it is a ‘pop-up’ Google Chrome may mistakenly block the pop-up that is your SSH console. If nothing opens up on your first click then try clicking the button again. Some of you might have been curious enough to click on the dropdown arrow next to the button. Doing this will provide you with a few different options to connect to your VM. If you’re OK with using the other methods of connection then go for it. I’m using the SSH console through the browser method as I do not need any other software installed.

When you are connected to your VM you should see a window that looks similar to this



(to save space I’ve not shown the full length of the screen)

Awesome! You’re in! Now you can control the world with your B4J minion apps

First some tips...
In the top-right you will see a couple of icons with one looking a bit like a keyboard (this is a keyboard) and the other looking remarkably like a cog (it’s a cog). The keyboard is used to send keystrokes to your console. That is, it can be used to send the keystrokes that would normally be captured by the browser window. Clicking on the keyboard icon will open a pop-up menu. The pop-up menu has some predefined keystrokes that might come in handy but there is also the option to send custom keystrokes as well. The cog icon is where a bunch of settings and options exist that can be customised. I have never had the need to explore these. Feel free to have a look - it’s your console window!

Well, it’s time to get things happening with the VM instance. In the next tutorial we will learn how to install the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Read on!
 
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