LFS258 - new course version now live (v1.11.1)

fcioanca

Hi,

A new course version of LFS258 went live today. Here are some of the changes included in this version:

• A few typo corrections were made and a couple of new content pages were added.
• The course content has been updated to Kubernetes v1.11.1.

To ensure you have access to the latest updates, please clear your cache before accessing the course. 

We hope you will have a great learning experience and enjoy the new LFS258.

Regards,

The Linux Foundation Training Team

tardich

Could that explain why the course is no longer available tonight?

fcioanca

Hi, the course is available. Please make sure to clear your cache, and everything should work without any problem.

 

 

williamkoontz

Since the upgrade whenever I login to the course and the pop-up comes up to take me to wherever I left off, If I click "yes" to go to where I left off all I get is a blank page.  If I then re-launch the course the new window doesn't have that pop-up ( or if I choose no) I can manually navigate to my place.  Also the drop-down that you use to navigate moved from the upper right to lower left so apparently more than just the course content was updated.



Also using the new install instructions with Kubernetes 1,11 and Calico network overlay I have been unable to get any pod to work on my worker node.  I am using two Ubuntu 18 VMs running in VirtualBox. 

I feel frustrated that the course material doesn't have better specific instructions for those of us taking the online version vs. the instructor lead since we need to create our own lab and the instructions have only been tested by staff on Google cloud and not a setup that an actual online student would have access to without paying even more money to build a lab in Google!

fcioanca

Hi,

Have you cleared the cache? Normally, issues like the white blank page come up after an upgrade when you do not clear the cache. And yes, we updated a bit more the look of the course, and added extra accessibility features.

Regarding labs, you should be able to run all labs with a free tier Google Cloud or AWS account, without incurring any charges. 

Regards,

Flavia

 

williamkoontz

Thanks, I had two issues... the cache issues was what caused the intermittent issues loading the course, and resource issues were keeping my VMs from starting all the needed containers for Calico.  Fortunately as you mentioned the free trial period from Google should more than accomodate my needs.



However I should mention that I was never notified that there was an upgrade coming and that I would have to clear cache and all tihs stuff, it just happened one day with no warning, initially I had no idea why it wasn't working until I got in and noticed a few differences and started poking around websites eventually finding this on a google search for LFS258!



Had I known, I would have taken some better precautions to ensure a smooth transition, especially since the course material itself has changed and the lab setup! 



It would be nice to be able to view the older versions of the course material as a comparison and to aid troubleshooting etc.

fcioanca

We apologize for any inconvenience. The course forum is the go-to place for any questions or updates regarding the course - we do monitor it closely, and we will respond to inquiries; we also post all notifications regarding updates, and always advise to clear the cache, to resolve any issues. The introductory chapter references the forum as a good resource to use, on page 1.9. Class Forum Guidelines. 

We hope the experience will be smoother going forward.

Regards,

Flavia

Armox176

Hello,

I'm currently using GCP, if you always shutdown the VMs after completing the labs, I can assure you'll stay in the free-trial budget and most important, you'll learn GCP. That's a lot more valuable than learning virtualbox to solve your problems... real kubernetes clusters doesn't run on virtualbox but on cloud.

If you switch to GCP I suggest you to build VMs with 2 vCPU and 5 Gb of RAM, probably that's enought and if you need more in the future you can always increase it. In this configuration a VM eats 0,07€/hr of you free-trial budget.

Fabio

leventel

@Armox176 said:
Hello,

I'm currently using GCP, if you always shutdown the VMs after completing the labs, I can assure you'll stay in the free-trial

[...]

Fabio

especially if you are using preemptible instances, you can reduce your costs by 80%

chrispokorni

Shutting down a VM ensures savings and also at start work can be continued where it was left off before the stop.
With a preemptible VM savings are significant, but the life of the preemptible VM is only 24 hours (according to GCP documentation). Since some labs rely on previous ones, this solution may work if all labs were to be completed within 24 hours. Otherwise, work will be lost and some rework will be required.
Regards,
-Chris

leventel

@chrispokorni said:
Shutting down a VM ensures savings and also at start work can be continued where it was left off before the stop.
With a preemptible VM savings are significant, but the life of the preemptible VM is only 24 hours (according to GCP documentation). Since some labs rely on previous ones, this solution may work if all labs were to be completed within 24 hours. Otherwise, work will be lost and some rework will be required.
Regards,
-Chris

Preemptible VMs can be stopped by Google (as my experience they do that 2-3 times a day (west-europe)), although the state of the machine is persistent, so you can start it without any data loss.

serewicz

leventel,

Do you know when it will happen, any warning prior? Or does the image just freeze and you go back into the console to restart?

Cheers,

chrispokorni

This is good news then if the VMs can be restarted without any data loss. Thanks for sharing this valuable detail.
-Chris