This document details what exactly the installer does to the machine it is run on.
apt
The packages python3 and python3-venv are installed from the apt repositories. Since we need an recent & supported version of nodejs, we install it from nodesource.
python3
python3-venv
nodejs
JupyterHub is run from a python3 virtual environment located in /opt/tljh/hub. It uses the system’s installed python and is owned by root. It also contains a binary install of traefik. This virtual environment is completely managed by TLJH.
/opt/tljh/hub
Note
If you try to remove TLJH, revert this action using:
sudo rm -rf /opt/tljh/hub
By default, a miniconda environment is installed in /opt/tljh/user. This contains the notebook interface used to launch all users, and the various packages available to all users. The environment is owned by the root user. JupyterHub admins may use to sudo -E conda install or sudo -E pip install packages into this environment.
miniconda
/opt/tljh/user
root
sudo -E conda install
sudo -E pip install
This conda environment is added to $PATH for all users started with JupyterHub. If you are using ssh instead, you can activate this environment by running the following:
$PATH
ssh
source /opt/tljh/user/bin/activate
This should let you run various conda and pip commands. If you run into errors like Command 'conda' not found, try prefixing your command with:
conda
pip
Command 'conda' not found
sudo PATH=${PATH} <command>
By default, sudo does not respect any custom environments you have activated. The PATH=${PATH} ‘fixes’ that.
sudo
PATH=${PATH}
sudo rm -rf /opt/tljh/user
tljh-config
We create a symlink from /usr/bin/tljh-config to /opt/tljh/hub/bin/tljh-config, so users can run sudo tljh-config <something> from their terminal. While the user environment is added to users’ $PATH when they launch through JupyterHub, the hub environment is not. This makes it hard to access the tljh-config command used to change most config parameters. Hence we symlink the tljh-config command to /usr/bin, so it is directly accessible with sudo tljh-config <command>.
/usr/bin/tljh-config
/opt/tljh/hub/bin/tljh-config
sudo tljh-config <something>
/usr/bin
sudo tljh-config <command>
sudo unlink /usr/bin/tljh-config
jupyterhub_config.d
Any files in /opt/tljh/config/jupyterhub_config.d that end in .py and are a valid JupyterHub configuration will be loaded after any of the config options specified with tljh-config are loaded.
sudo rm -rf /opt/tljh/config
TLJH places 2 systemd units on your computer. They all start on system startup.
jupyterhub.service - starts the JupyterHub service.
jupyterhub.service
traefik.service - starts traefik proxy that manages HTTPS
traefik.service
In addition, each running Jupyter user gets their own systemd unit of the name jupyter-<username>.
jupyter-<username>
# stop the services systemctl stop jupyterhub.service systemctl stop traefik.service systemctl stop jupyter-<username> # disable the services systemctl disable jupyterhub.service systemctl disable traefik.service # run this command for all the Jupyter users systemctl disable jupyter-<username> # remove the systemd unit rm /etc/systemd/system/jupyterhub.service rm /etc/systemd/system/traefik.service # reset the state of all units systemctl daemon-reload systemctl reset-failed
TLJH places 3 jupyterhub.service and 4 traefik.service state files in /opt/tljh/state. These files save the state of JupyterHub and Traefik services and are meant to be used and modified solely by these services.
sudo rm -rf /opt/tljh/state
TLJH creates two user groups when installed:
jupyterhub-users contains all users managed by this JupyterHub
jupyterhub-users
jupyterhub-admins contains all users with admin rights managed by this JupyterHub.
jupyterhub-admins
When a new JupyterHub user logs in, a unix user is created for them. The unix user is always added to the jupyterhub-users group. If the user is an admin, they are added to the jupyterhub-admins group whenever they start / stop their notebook server.
If you uninstall TLJH, you should probably remove all user accounts associated with both these user groups, and then remove the groups themselves. You might have to archive or delete the home directories of these users under /home/.
/home/
If you try to remove TLJH, in order to remove a user and its home directory, use:
sudo userdel -r <user>
Keep in mind that the files located in other parts of the file system will have to be searched for and deleted manually.
To remove the user groups units:
sudo delgroup jupyterhub-users sudo delgroup jupyterhub-admins # remove jupyterhub-admins from the sudoers group sudo rm /etc/sudoers.d/jupyterhub-admins
/etc/sudoers.d/jupyterhub-admins is created to provide passwordless sudo for all JupyterHub admins. We also set it up to inherit $PATH with sudo -E, to more easily call conda, pip, etc.
/etc/sudoers.d/jupyterhub-admins
sudo -E
If trying to wipe out a fresh TLJH installation, follow the instructions on how to revert each specific modification the TLJH installer does to the system.
If using a VM, the recommended way to remove TLJH is destroying the VM and start fresh.
Warning
Completely uninstalling TLJH after it has been used is a difficult task because it’s highly coupled to how the system changed after it has been used and modified by the users. Thus, we cannot provide instructions on how to proceed in this case.