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Deploy Loon

Two Loon versions to choose from:

  1. Loon
    • In this version, you upload microscopy data onto a central server where users can upload and access their data over the internet
    • 🟩 Easier - Loon guides you through uploading data, data is sharable
    • 🟥 Slower upload
  2. Local Loon
    • In this version, your data is not uploaded to your server.
    • Instead, you link your data file (local to your computer).
    • 🟩 No slow data-upload required
    • 🟥 Harder - You must prepare your data in the expected format.

In short:

We recommend using the standard Loon.
If you iterate on your microscopy data frequently, and don't need to share it right away, we recommend using Local Loon.

Follow Instructions To Deploy Loon​

To get started, you'll need to first get Docker installed. You can visit the official Docker website for information on how to get Docker installed and ready-to-use.

Step 1: Create a Docker Hub Account​

We store our official releases of Loon in Docker Hub. In order to have access to these images, you'll need to first create a Docker Hub account. This can all be done inside the Docker Desktop UI

Step 2: Find and Pull the Latest loon Image​

Once you have a Docker account, you will be able to access the images in Docker Hub. In the serach bar at the top of the UI, search for visdesignlab/loon. Click the "Pull" button that is shown when clicking on the image. Once pulled, the image will appear in the set of "images" that can be accessed through the left-side navigation drawer.

Step 3: Run the Image​

Navigate to your images and find the loon image that was just pulled. Click "run" and then expand the optional settings.

In the optional settings, we'll need to specify two volume paths and one environment variable. Below is a table of what needs to be set.

The "Source" column is what needs to be entered into left column in the docker UI and the "Destination" column should be set in the right column.

Volumes​

VolumesSourceDestinationDetails
Docker Volume/var/run/docker.sock/var/run/docker.sockThis is required for to start nested docker containers.
MinIO Data VolumeAbsolute path to your data/app/dataLocation of where your data lives.

Environment Variables​

Environment VariableKeyValueDetails
MinIO Data VolumeMINIOSETTINGS_SOURCEVOLUMELOCATIONAbsolute path to your dataThis will be identical to your Data Volume source path.
MinIO Access KeyMINIOSETTINGS_MINIOSTORAGEACCESSKEYUsername for MinIO storageThis will be used as the access key when accessing the MinIO bucket via AWS CLI and will be used as the username when using the web UI. Must be longer than 3 characters in length.
MinIO Secret KeyMINIOSETTINGS_MINIOSTORAGESECRETKEYPassword for MinIO storageThis will be used as the secret access key when accessing the MinIO bucket via AWS CLI and will be used as the password when using the web UI. Must be longer than 7 characters in length.
warning

By default, the access and secret access keys will be set to "admin" and "minioadmin", respectively. We highly suggest adding these environment variables in order to override these defaults when deploying on a server. If you're just using MinIO in a local deployment, changing these defaults may not be necessary and can be left out when running the image.

Step 4: Use the Application​

Once the containers have all successfully started, you can visit the application at http://localhost/.