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Open JupyterLab

The Open button

Deploy a template whose launch mode is jupyter, wait for the instance to reach running, then open it from Instances. On the Connect tab there is an Open JupyterLab button. It takes you straight into an authenticated session in a new tab.

The button is the supported way in. Do not try to assemble the address yourself, and do not rely on a bookmark: the host and port an instance is published on can change after a stop and start, and the bookmark then points at nothing.

If the button is missing, check the launch mode of the template you deployed. Only jupyter starts a notebook server. An ssh-mode instance gives you a shell, not a notebook. See Launch modes.

About the token

The access token is minted by the platform when the instance is deployed and passed down to the container, which starts JupyterLab with that token as the only credential. You never choose it, and it is never returned as a field of its own in any API response.

Two things follow from that:

  • Open JupyterLab from the console. The button carries the token for you, so you do not have to assemble the address.
  • Setting JUPYTER_TOKEN yourself in the environment does nothing. The platform's environment overlay always wins over renter-supplied values, so your entry is overwritten. The same applies to GPU_COUNT. See Environment variables.

Where your files are

JupyterLab is rooted at JUPYTER_DIR, which defaults to /workspace. The file browser cannot navigate above that directory, so anything you want to see in the sidebar belongs under it.

SettingDefaultWhere it comes from
JUPYTER_DIR/workspacethe template's jupyter_dir field
JUPYTER_PORT8080the container port jupyter mode publishes
JUPYTER_LABtrue (Lab)the template's use_jupyter_lab field; false serves the classic notebook

/workspace is on the disk you sized at deploy, so it survives a stop and start and is deleted by a destroy. Files written elsewhere in the container are on the same disk and share the same fate — the directory is a convention, not a separate volume.

The tab opened before the server was ready

The Open JupyterLab button appears as soon as the instance reports running. The notebook server binds its port a moment after that, so an early click can land on a browser error — a refused connection, or a page that never finishes loading.

Wait a few seconds and reload the tab. The base image starts JupyterLab before it runs the template's onstart script, so a long onstart is not what is holding the notebook server up. If reloading still fails, read the server's own log over SSH:

tail -f /var/log/superheat/jupyter.log

The certificate warning

JupyterLab is served over HTTPS using a certificate the container generates for itself, so your browser warns that it cannot verify the site. That warning is expected on a fresh instance. The encryption is doing its job; only the identity is unverifiable, because no public authority has signed a certificate for a machine that came into existence minutes ago.