Knowledge base

Thank you for choosing Infomaniak to create your PaaS!

This guide will help you to quickly use the key features of your new product. If you have any problems, please consult our knowledge base and this document before contacting our support team.

Frequently asked questions

• What is a platform as a service (PaaS)?
• What is a container or a node?
• What is Jelastic?
• What is a Cloudlet? How does Jelastic invoicing work?
• What technologies are supported by Jelastic Cloud?
• Is it possible to create a VPS with Jelastic Cloud?
• What are the possible ways to deploy an application?
• What is the difference between Jelastic Cloud and an unmanaged server?
• What are the differences between a free (trial period) and paid account?

Technical resources

We invite you to consult the official Jelastic documentation for any technical questions:

• Installing clustered applications (WordPress, Magento, etc.)
• Creating an environment
• Deploying an application or code
• Configuring your servers: Java, PHP, Ruby, etc.
• Linking a domain name
• Adding a public IP address
• Monitoring an application
• Connecting in SSH
• Managing notifications linked to resource consumption
• Configuring dynamic resizing horizontally and vertically
• Installing packages without root access with the Yum Packages Installer

Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Jelastic Cloud is the product of close collaboration between Infomaniak and the Jelastic company.

Infomaniak

Infomaniak provides the infrastructure, ensures support and seeks to guarantee the performance, security and reliability of the solution. Our infrastructure continuously guarantees the availability and flow of your applications. It responds to traffic peaks and automatically reduces resource consumption during off-peak periods. This flexibility offers optimal cost/performance ratios because only the resources actually used are calculated. With this new Cloud service, you can thus align computing resources with the pace and flow of demand while maintaining perfect control over budget.

All of your data is managed at Infomaniak datacenters in Switzerland, and you also benefit from quality support in five languages.

Jelastic

Jelastic provides the software part of the product and ensures the software development of the solution. Founded in 2011, Jelastic is a platform that automates the creation, resizing, clustering and security updates of traditional and native applications in the Cloud. This solution also offers the advantage of accepting Java, PHP, Ruby, Node.js, Python, .NET, and Go environments, as well as Docker.

To learn more

• Getting Started with Jelastic Cloud

We are dedicated to continuously improving our products and customer service. We take every suggestion that you share with us via our support team, on social media or on the web for improving one of our services to the department concerned, where it is discussed during their next meeting. Your needs shape our priorities and allow us to continue to improve the services that we offer you.

What product does your suggestion concern?

• Domains: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Web hosting: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Mail hosting and Infomaniak Mail: French/ English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Infomaniak Drive: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Cloud servers: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Jelastic Cloud: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Newsletter tool: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• SSL certificates: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Housing and data center: French / English / Germany / Italian / Spanish
• Audio streaming: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Video streaming: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• VOD / AOD: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Synology NAS: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Swiss Backup: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Guest Manager: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish
• Swiss Transfer: French / English / German / Italian / Spanish

Our support team is also happy to help, and can be contacted by email, chat or phone if needed.

This guide specifies the resources you can benefit from with a Jelastic Cloud, depending on the type of account you subscribe to.

All Jelastic Cloud accounts offer the following advantages:

• Web applications: over 40 CMS that can be installed in 1 click
• Technologies: PHP, Java, Node.JS, Ruby, Python, Go, Docker (find out more)
• Databases: SQL & NoSQL (find out more)
• SSL certificates: free with Let's Encrypt
• Automatic backup: every 24 hours (incremental over the last 7 days)

14-day trial account

The trial period enables you to test Jelastic Cloud with no commitment. You can thus check if this solution meets your expectations and estimate the resources you need. Thanks to our calculator, you can then determine the hourly or monthly rate for your PaaS based on your tests.

During the trial period, you benefit from the following resources:

• Number of environments: 5
• Power: 8 Cloudlets (3.2 GHz of CPU and 1 GB of RAM)
• SSD storage: 10 GB
• Bandwidth: 20,000 KB/s

Paid account

When you purchase Jelastic credits, the restrictions of the trial account are removed and you are free to adjust the resources of your PaaS according to your needs:

• Number of environments: according to your needs
• Power: customizable according to your needs
• SSD storage: 20 GB included, extensible according to your needs
• Incoming and outgoing traffic: 2.8 GB / hour (2.4 TB / month) included, then invoiced per GB
• Bandwidth: 100,000 KB/s

Find out more

• How does Jelastic Cloud invoicing work? What is a Cloudlet?
• What technologies are supported by Jelastic Cloud?
• Getting Started with Jelastic Cloud

Jelastic offers an add-on that allows you to install packages that require sudo permissions without the need for root access:  https://github.com/jelastic-jps/packages-installer

All the information you need to use this add-on is given in the readmefor the add-on

This guide explains how to obtain a custom SSL certificate that you can use with a Jelastic server at Infomaniak.

Jelastic documentation for the SSL

1. It is possible to buy an SSL certificate from Infomaniak and install it on Jelastic.
2. As part of Jelastic, you will also find a valid certificate only for xxx.jcloud.ik-server.com areas: https://docs.jelastic.com/built-in-ssl
3. Let's Encrypt certificates can also be obtained free of charge and for any field: https://jelastic.com/blog/free-ssl-certificates-with-lets-encrypt/
   
4. A paid certificate can be obtained for any field: https://docs.jelastic.com/custom-ssl
5. For the purpose of testing, you can also set up a self-signed certificate: https://docs.jelastic.com/self-signed-ssl

This guide explains how to provide useful details when you request help from Infomaniak support.

Authorizing Support to access your content

It is possible to temporarily grant access to the content of your WorkSpace and your Drive with the possibility of cancelling this access at any time.

Only those Infomaniak staff members who handle your support ticket will have access.

1. Open the Manager (manager.infomaniak.com) or your WorkSpace (workspace.infomaniak.com)
2. Click your user name at the top right of the page
3. Click My profile in the menu that appears
4. Click Technical support (or https://manager.infomaniak.com/support) in the left side menu
5. Click the access authorization button for the product concerned (authorizing one does not authorize another - these authorizations are specific).

Making a screen grab

Windows

Microsoft offers preinstalled software dedicated to screen grabs. But to do them manually:

1. Display what you want/need to send on the screen
2. Press PRINTSCREEN on your keyboard (or PRTSCR, etc.) once
3. In Microsoft Word (or similar), go to "Edit" -> "Paste" to put your image on the page
4. "Save" your file
5. Repeat the operation from point 1 to point 5 as many times as the number of screen grabs you need

Mac OS X

1. Simultaneously press "cmd" + "caps/shift" (the empty arrow pointing upwards) +"3"
2. Each time you press these keys, an image file is created on your computer's desktop

Apple iOS (iPhone, iPad...)

1. Press the "Power" + "Home" buttons at the same time (the only two physical buttons)
2. You will then find the screengrabs in your device's "Photos" app

Google Android (e.g. Samsung, LG or Sony)

1. Simultaneously press the volume down (on the side) and the locking button
2. The image captured is then automatically saved in a Screenshots folder in the gallery

Popup Windows

To copy-paste an error message present in a Windows popup in text form, simply hit "CTRL" + "C" on your keyboard to copy the message onto the clipboard... You can then paste it ("CTRL" + "V") in the body of the email you send to us.

Javascript Console in the browser

Windows

Chrome, Firefox and Safari: enter the combination ctrl + caps + i
Internet Explorer and Edge: hit F12

Mac OS X

Chrome: enter the combination ⌘ + ⌥ + J
Safari: enter ⌘ + ⌥ + C

Then click on the round struck-through icon to set the log back to zero.

Display the page on your website which is relevant to your enquiry, the console tab shows the JavaScript errors and the unfound online resources. 

This guide explains how to customize the time slot(s) during which Infomaniak can carry out maintenance to improve your services (new features, corrections, etc.). For the moment, this feature is only available for Cloud Servers (managed and unmanaged) and Jelastic Cloud.

If you do not indicate otherwise, scheduled maintenance generally takes place between 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m.

Modify the time of your scheduled maintenance

1. Open the Manager (manager.infomaniak.com)
2. Go to the product concerned (Cloud Server, Jelastic Cloud, etc.)
3. Click Scheduled maintenance
4. Click Customize the time slot or Modify

Thank you for choosing Infomaniak's Jelastic Cloud! This guide explains how to transfer an environment from one Jelastic account to another.

Requirement

An environment can be transferred from any type of Jelastic account (trial, beta, disabled, etc.). Nevertheless, the recipient of the transfer must have a paid account. 

Also make sure that the recipient account has not reached:

• The maximum number of cloudlets per container
• The maximum number of calculation nodes available for an environment
• The maximum number of environments for the account

You must use the user email address of the recipient account that is located under User in the Jelastic dashboard of the Recipient account.

Transfer procedure

1. Click the Settings button opposite the environment to be transferred
2. In the Settings menu, select the Change owner option
3. Indicate the email address of the recipient account and then click Send
4. If the recipient account exists and meets the transfer criteria, a notification will appear indicating that the request has been sent
5. This icon: will appear in front of the environment to be transferred until the request for transfer has been accepted by the new owner
6. Once the request for transfer has been accepted, the environment is removed from your account

Once the transfer is complete, it is possible to cancel the Jelastic product from your account. All credit still available at the time of cancellation will be automatically transferred to your Infomaniak prepaid account.

Find out more

• Startup guide: Jelastic Cloud
• Jelastic Cloud: restrictions of resources depending on the type of account
• Jelastic Cloud: launching commands with root access to any container

This guide shows how to use the Swiss Backup extension to back up your Jelastic node data.

Swiss Backup is a backup solution that enables the automatic backup of your files, workstations, mobile devices and servers. Your data is stored in Infomaniak's datacenters in Switzerland in at least three different physical locations. You are thus ensured that nothing will be lost.

1. Requirements

• Use Jelastic (discover Jelastic Cloud)
• Have a Swiss Backup account (create a free account)
• At least one environment must be enabled with the extension installed to ensure that your backups are visible

2. Configuring Swiss Backup

1. Open the Manager (manager.infomaniak.com)
2. Go to Swiss Backup
3. Click Add a device
4. Select a Free storage space
5. Give a name to this space and determine a quota
6. Note the username (e.g., SXY-PM000000) and generate a password via the email you received

3. Configuring the Swiss Backup extension on Jelastic

1. Log in to your server's Jelastic dashboard
2. Go to the Marketplace
3. Find and install the Swiss Backup extension

Two types of backup are then possible:

1. Backing up specific folders
2. Creating a snapshot of an entire node

We will now detail these two possibilities.

3.1 Backing up specific folders

1. Enter the username and password of your free Swiss Backup location (cf. point 2, step 6)
2. Tick Back up your data
3. Tick Back up specific folders
4. Enter the absolute path of the folders you want to save in the Folders to back up field. It is possible to specify several folders by separating each path with a comma, as in the image below. e.g.: /root/admin/, /home/user1/, /jelastic/containers/ (3 folders are specified in this example).

Then refer to point 3.3. to define the frequency of backups.

3.2 Backing up an entire node

• Tick Back up your data
• Tick Back up all files to save the entire file system of a node. Note that certain files are automatically excluded:
  •  /dev, /proc, /sys, /run folders
  • file systems that are not assembled as part of the root partition, including virtual file systems.

Then refer to point 3.3. to define the frequency of backups.

3.3 Defining backup frequency and retention policy

Backup frequency

Two options are available:

• daily backups (at 8:00 p.m. UTC)
• hourly backups (at the beginning of each hour, e.g. at 1:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m., etc.)

Retention policy

You can configure the storage period in years, months, days and hours. If you wish to store your backups indefinitely, simply set the parameters to 0.

If, for example, you make hourly backups and define a retention policy of 1 year, 2 months, 4 days and 2 hours, this means that each backup will be available for a period of 1 year, 2 months, 4 days and 2 hours (=10,322 backups). Note that the deletion of backups takes place every Sunday at 10:30 p.m. (UTC).

4. Restoring backups

4.1 Restoring node data

1. Log in to your server's Jelastic dashboard
2. Go to the Marketplace
3. Find and install the Swiss Backup extension
4. Enter the username and password of your free Swiss Backup location (cf. point 2, step 6)
5. Tick Restore your data
6. Select the node that contains the backup to be restored (figure 1)
7. Select the backup to restore and the restoration folder (figure 2)
8. Click Restore

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

4.2 Restoring specific folders of a snapshot (CLI)

Each backup corresponds to a unique ID. You can include and exclude folders from your snapshots when restoring. To view your snapshots:

1. . /home/.config/swissbackup/openrc.sh
2. restic snapshots
   
    
3. use --exclude and --include to restrict restoring to a sub-set of files in the snapshot. For example, to restore a single file: restore 79766175 --target /tmp/restore-work --include /work/foo

There are some non-case-sensitive variations of --exclude and  --include called --iexclude and --iinclude. These options behave in the same way but are insensitive to the case of the paths.

5. Modifying the backup configuration

1. Log in to your server's Jelastic dashboard
2. Go to the Marketplace
3. Find and install the Swiss Backup extension
4. Modify the configuration as required

5.1 Manually modifying the backup routine (CLI)

The backup calendar is defined by a cronjob and backups are performed using the restic tool.

To modify your backup routine:

As a root user, launch the crontab -l command to display current times:

• The line containing retention-all.sh corresponds to the backup task
• The line containing purge.sh corresponds to the backup retention task

For example:

Modify the schedule using the crontab -e command

You can edit the line containing rentention-all.sh or retention.sh, these scripts correspond to the launch of your backups. Warning: the crons have not been designed to avoid causing problems between backups and multiple deletions. Please pay attention to the time required for backups and deletions

• To find out more about cronjobs, visit the crontab.guru website
• To find out more about restic, consult the restic.net/ website 

6. Manually deleting backups (CLI)

1. Open the configuration file:
   . /home/.config/swissbackup/openrc.sh
2. Display the backups available:
   restic snapshots
3. Delete the backup concerned:
   restic forget IdBackup --prune
4. Delete all the backups of a file except one:
   restic forget --tag folders --keep-last 1 --prune

7. Removing the backup routine

This button enables you to remove your backup routine:

8. Uninstalling the Swiss Backup extension

It is necessary to remove the backup routine (see chapter 8) before you are able to uninstall the Swiss Backup extension.

Find out more

• Getting started with Swiss Backup
• Try out Jelastic Cloud with a free trial
• Try out Swiss Backup with a free trial