spinifex/INSTALL.md

Hive installation

Dependencies

For running on Ubuntu 22.04

sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt install nbdkit nbdkit-plugin-dev pkg-config qemu-system qemu-utils qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon-system  libvirt-clients libvirt-dev

Create hive user

sudo adduser --disabled-password hive

Add hive to the libvirt group to manage VMs

sudo adduser hive libvirt

Hive provided AWS API/SDK layer functionality, which requires the AWS CLI tool to be installed to interface with the system.

sudo apt install awscli

Build

Compile hive binary which will be used throughout the installation tutorial.

make

Confirm ./bin/hive exists and executable.

Init

When running Hive for the first time, run the init function to create the default directories for data, config files and layout required.

./bin/hive admin init

Next, set the AWS profile to use hive which points to the local environment.

export AWS_PROFILE=hive

Launch services

Start the core services

./scripts/start-dev.sh

Create SSH key

For first install users, create or import an existing key pair which can be used to launch EC2 instances.

Import existing key

Import an existing key pair, replace ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub with your specified key.

aws ec2 import-key-pair --key-name "hive-key" --public-key-material fileb://~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Create new key pair

Alternatively, create a new key pair and store the JSON output of the AWS SDK using the jq command.

aws ec2 create-key-pair \
  --key-name hive-key \
| jq -r '.KeyMaterial | rtrimstr("\n")' > ~/.ssh/hive-key

Update permissions to SSH will accept reading the file.

chmod 600 ~/.ssh/hive-key

Next, generate a public key from the specified private key pair.

ssh-keygen -y -f ~/.ssh/hive-key > ~/.ssh/hive-key.pub

Validate the new key is available

aws ec2 describe-key-pairs

{
    "KeyPairs": [
        {
            "KeyPairId": "key-3caa0a34f53d12a3",
            "KeyType": "ed25519",
            "Tags": [],
            "CreateTime": "2025-10-28T13:39:23.458000+00:00",
            "KeyName": "hive-key",
            "KeyFingerprint": "SHA256:/g/A5OkeZeSydz9WUErXYVdCt00b0VbfN6RLn2YVFAY"
        }
    ]
}

Create AMI template (new method)

Use the hive CLI tool to import a selected OS image. Note, the source file can be compressed (e.g image.tar.gz, image.gz, image.tar.xz) and the tool will automatically extract and upload the raw OS image as an AMI.

Note, when downloading OS images, use supported platforms that support the cloud-init feature to automatically bootstrap when using the Hive EC2 functionality.

Automatic import

Discover available images to automatically download and install. This will pull the images from the distro official mirror and simplify the process to bootstrap a Hive installation with AMIs that include common operating systems.

./bin/hive admin images list

NAME                 | DISTRO | VERSION | ARCH   | BOOT
alpine-3.22.2-x86_64 | alpine | 3.22.2  | x86_64 | bios
debian-12-arm64      | debian | 12      | arm64  | bios
debian-12-x86_64     | debian | 12      | x86_64 | bios
ubuntu-24.04-arm64   | ubuntu | 24.04   | arm64  | bios
ubuntu-24.04-x86_64  | ubuntu | 24.04   | x86_64 | bios

Next, choose the image you would like to import as an AMI.

./bin/hive admin images import --name debian-12-arm64 --force

Downloading image https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/cloud/bookworm/latest/debian-12-generic-arm64.tar.xz to /home/ben/hive/images/debian/12/arm64/debian-12-generic-amd64.tar.xz
Downloading local-debian-12-arm64 [283748988/283748988] ██████████████ 100% | 1s
Saved /home/ben/hive/images/debian/12/arm64/debian-12-generic-amd64.tar.xz (270.6 MiB)
Extracted image to: /home/ben/hive/images/debian/12/arm64/disk.raw

✅ Image import complete. Image-ID (AMI): ami-e29fcc65734aec9ea

Next, verify available disk images to confirm the import was successful

aws ec2 describe-images --image-ids ami-e29fcc65734aec9ea

Manual import

Using this method you can import any OS disk image. For example, download the Debian 12 image from the repository https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/bookworm/latest/

Download the image:

wget https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/bookworm/latest/debian-12-genericcloud-arm64.tar.xz -O ~/debian-12-genericcloud-arm64.tar.xz

Import as an AMI to the backend store:

./bin/hive admin images import --file ~/debian-12-genericcloud-arm64.tar.xz --arch arm64 --distro debian --version 12

Next, verify available disk images to confirm the import was successful

aws ec2 describe-images

Run Instance

Once Hive is successfully installed and bootstrapped with a system AMI and SSH keys, proceed to run an instance. Replace ami-XXX with your imported ImageId above.

export HIVE_AMI="ami-XXX"

Launch a new instance, note hive-key is the SSH key specified in the previous stage.

aws ec2 run-instances \
  --image-id $HIVE_AMI \
  --instance-type t3.micro \
  --key-name hive-key \
  --security-group-ids sg-0123456789abcdef0 \
  --subnet-id subnet-6e7f829e \
  --count 1

A sample response is below from the RunInstance request, note the InstanceId attribute:

{
    "ReservationId": "r-f101157331e261a68",
    "OwnerId": "123456789012",
    "Instances": [
        {
            "InstanceId": "i-36765eb0c6609e4d2",
            "ImageId": "ami-15c3dcfe607460f15",
            "State": {
                "Code": 0,
                "Name": "pending"
            },
            "KeyName": "hive-key",
            "InstanceType": "t3.micro",
            "LaunchTime": "2025-11-12T13:07:47.548000+00:00"
        }
    ]
}

Export the instance ID for following the rest of the tutorial

export INSTANCE_ID="i-XXX"

Next, validate the running instance is ready

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids $INSTANCE_ID

Confirm the State.Name attribute is set as running

{
    "Reservations": [
        {
            "ReservationId": "r-f101157331e261a68",
            "OwnerId": "123456789012",
            "Instances": [
                {
                    "InstanceId": "i-36765eb0c6609e4d2",
                    "ImageId": "ami-15c3dcfe607460f15",
                    "State": {
                        "Code": 16,
                        "Name": "running"
                    },
                    "KeyName": "hive-key",
                    "InstanceType": "t3.micro",
                    "LaunchTime": "2025-11-12T13:07:47.548000+00:00"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

SSH connection (development)

For a Hive development environment (toggled off for production), a local SSH port forwaring will be active to connect directly to the instance, regardless of the VPC and network settings.

Determine the SSH port allocated

ps auxw | grep $INSTANCE_ID

qemu-system-x86_64 -daemonize -pidfile /run/user/1000/i-36765eb0c6609e4d.pid -qmp unix:/run/user/1000/qmp-i-36765eb0c6609e4d2.sock,server,nowait -enable-kvm -M ubuntu -serial pty -cpu host -smp 2 -m 1024 -drive file=nbd://127.0.0.1:42653,format=raw,if=none,media=disk,id=os -drive file=nbd://127.0.0.1:44499,format=raw,if=virtio,media=cdrom,id=cloudinit -device virtio-blk-pci,drive=os,bootindex=1 -device virtio-rng-pci -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=net0 -netdev user,id=net0,hostfwd=tcp:127.0.0.1:33683-:22

Note the hostfwd=tcp:127.0.0.1:33683-:22, in this case the local port 33683 will connect to the new instance.

ssh -i ~/.ssh/hive-key ec2-user@127.0.0.1 -p 33683

...

Linux hive-vm-36765eb0 6.1.0-40-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.153-1 (2025-09-20) x86_64
ec2-user@hive-vm-36765eb0:~$

Congratulations, your first AMI image is imported, a new EC2 instance launched, and successfully connected via SSH for the configured SSH key, using the OS cloud-init procedure.

Managing instances

Stop instance

To stop a running instance gracefully:

aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids $INSTANCE_ID

{
    "StoppingInstances": [
        {
            "InstanceId": "i-36765eb0c6609e4d2",
            "CurrentState": {
                "Code": 64,
                "Name": "stopping"
            },
            "PreviousState": {
                "Code": 16,
                "Name": "running"
            }
        }
    ]

Next, confirm the instance has stopped as requested

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids $INSTANCE_ID

{
    "Reservations": [
        {
            "ReservationId": "r-f101157331e261a68",
            "OwnerId": "123456789012",
            "Instances": [
                {
                    "InstanceId": "i-36765eb0c6609e4d2",
                    "ImageId": "ami-15c3dcfe607460f15",
                    "State": {
                        "Code": 80,
                        "Name": "stopped"
                    },
                    "KeyName": "hive-key",
                    "InstanceType": "t3.micro",
                    "LaunchTime": "2025-11-12T13:07:47.548000+00:00"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Start Instance

To start a previously stopped instance:

aws ec2 start-instances --instance-ids $INSTANCE_ID

{
    "StartingInstances": [
        {
            "InstanceId": "i-36765eb0c6609e4d2",
            "CurrentState": {
                "Code": 0,
                "Name": "pending"
            },
            "PreviousState": {
                "Code": 80,
                "Name": "stopped"
            }
        }
    ]

Next, validate the instance is running as expected

aws ec2 describe-instances  --instance-ids "i-36765eb0c6609e4d2"

{
    "Reservations": [
        {
            "ReservationId": "r-f101157331e261a68",
            "OwnerId": "123456789012",
            "Instances": [
                {
                    "InstanceId": "i-36765eb0c6609e4d2",
                    "ImageId": "ami-15c3dcfe607460f15",
                    "State": {
                        "Code": 16,
                        "Name": "running"
                    },
                    "KeyName": "hive-key",
                    "InstanceType": "t3.micro",
                    "LaunchTime": "2025-11-12T13:07:47.548000+00:00"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Terminate instance

To terminate an instance, which will first stop the instance, and on success, remove the EBS volumes and permanately remove the instance data.

aws ec2 terminate-instances --instance-ids $INSTANCE_ID

{
    "TerminatingInstances": [
        {
            "InstanceId": "i-36765eb0c6609e4d2",
            "CurrentState": {
                "Code": 16,
                "Name": "running"
            },
            "PreviousState": {
                "Code": 16,
                "Name": "running"
            }
        }
    ]
}

Next, validate the instance is removed, this may take a few minutes depending the instance volume size.

aws ec2 describe-instances  --instance-ids $INSTANCE_ID

On success no data will be returned, since the instance is no longer available.