Explore Your InterSystems IRIS Instance

This section describes several ways to interact with your containerized Community Edition InterSystems IRIS instance. The first step after connecting is to secure your instance by changing the instance’s default passwords.

Change the Default Passwords

To ensure that you have immediate access after installation, InterSystems IRIS comes with several predefined user accountsOpens in a new tab, each of which has the default password SYS. To secure your instance, you should change these default passwords as soon as possible. The steps differ whether your container is running on your own system or a cloud node, as follows:

On any system other than one of the cloud nodes described above, when you connect to a Community Edition using the Management Portal, you must log in using one of the predefined accounts, for example _SYSTEM. If it is your first time logging in to this account, you must use the default password SYS, then change the password for the account when you are prompted immediately afterwards.
Next, change the default passwords for all of the predefined accounts as soon as possible; it is a best practice to make them all different. You can change them in either of the following ways:
- Use one of the methods described in Authentication and PasswordsOpens in a new tab in Running InterSystems Products in Containers.
- Log in to each of the predefined user accountsOpens in a new tab using the Management Portal and change the password when prompted. You can also disableOpens in a new tab one or more of these accounts .
On a cloud node, the recommended and easiest way to do this is by connecting to the node using SSH and issuing the command iris password at the shell prompt, because this changes the default passwords for all of the predefined accounts at the same time. The command also displays the predefined account usernames; you will use one of these with the new password you just entered when you first log in to the InterSystems IRIS instance.
Note:

On GCP cloud nodes, you may see an error message that begins with the following when you use iris password or the other iris utility commands:
```
Got permission denied while trying to connect to the Docker
  daemon socket at unix:///var/run/docker.sock ...
```
If this happens, add yourself (the user you are logged in as, as reflected in the shell prompt) to the docker group by issuing the following commands:
```
sudo usermod -aG docker <username>
newgrp docker
```
The first permanently adds you to the group, effective on the next login, while the second adds you for this login session. This will also enable you to run Docker commands without prefixing them with sudo.
Even with the default password changed by the iris password command, all of the predefined user accountsOpens in a new tab still share a single password, which is not the best security practice. You can make them all different by logging in to each using the Management Portal and changing the password when prompted. You can also disableOpens in a new tab one or more of these accounts using the portal.

Connect to the Cloud Node Using SSH

You can connect to your cloud node using SSH to change the default passwords, explore the InterSystems IRIS container, and interact with InterSystems IRIS using the InterSystems Terminal. The way in which you connect depends on the platform you are using, as follows:

The GCP interface includes a built-in SSH connection option; just click the SSH button for the VM instance on the Compute Engine > VM Instances page. (There are other ways to connect, as described in the GCP documentation, but this is the simplest.)
Azure uses the credentials you provided for the administrator account on the Create a virtual machine page when deploying the node. To connect using a separate program such as PuTTY, follow the instructions in Instances > Connect to Linux VMs under Virtual machines in AzureOpens in a new tab in the Azure documentation .
AWS uses the public-private key pair you designated or created when launching the instance, and you must supply the program you use to make an SSH connection with the private key from this pair. You can connect with the popular program PuTTY using these steps:
1. Open the PuTTYgen key generator program that is installed with PuTTY and do the following:
  1. Use the Load button to load the .pem private key file provided by AWS. (Remember to set the file type selector in the file browser dialog to All files (*.*) to display the .pem file you want to load.)
  2. Use the Save private key button to save the key in .ppk format.
2. Open the PuTTY program itself and do the following:
  1. In the Host Name box, enter ubuntu@host, where host is either the DNS name or the IP address, for example ubuntu@ec2-34-000-53-213.compute-1.amazonaws.com or ubuntu@34.000.53.213.
  2. In the navigation tree on the left, expand SSH and select Auth, and at the Private key file for authentication prompt browse for the .ppk file you saved in the previous step.
  3. Click Open.
  Once you have successfully connected, you can save the connection settings in PuTTY so that fewer steps will be required to connect in the future.
For other ways to connect to an AWS cloud node, see Connect to your linuxOpens in a new tab in the AWS documentation.

Interact with InterSystems IRIS

Several ways to interact with your containerized InterSystems IRIS instance are listed in the following. The ones you’ll use depend on what InterSystems IRIS features you want to explore. For detailed information about using a containerized InterSystems IRIS instance, see Running InterSystems Products in ContainersOpens in a new tab.

Note:

If you are using InterSystems IRIS on a GCP cloud node and receive an error message when you use the iris or docker commands described in the following, see the Note in Change the Default Passwords.

Interacting from the Shell

At the shell prompt on a cloud node only, you can

Use the special iris utility, which along with iris password includes the following commands:
- iris status to display the status of the InterSystems IRIS instance.
- iris info to show information about connecting to the instance.
- iris load to load data into the instance from a specified GitHub repo.
- iris help to list the above commands.
Review the Docker compose file that was used to create the InterSystems IRIS container, located at /opt/ISC/docker-compose.yml.

At the shell prompt on any system hosting the InterSystems IRIS container, cloud node or otherwise, you can

See how containerization makes upgrades a snap by exploring the instance-specific dataOpens in a new tab stored outside the InterSystems IRIS container.
- On the cloud node’s file system, it is in /ISC/dur.
- On the system hosting the container you ran from the downloaded image, it is on the volume you specified with the --volume option, in the directory you specified in the ISC_DATA_DIRECTORY environment variable. For example, suppose your docker run command included these options:
```
--volume /home/user/iris_external:/external
--env ISC_DATA_DIRECTORY=/external/dur
```
  In this case, the instance-specific data would be located in /home/user/iris_external/dur outside the container and /external/dur inside the container.
Issue Docker commands, including the following docker execOpens in a new tab command to open a shell within the InterSystems IRIS container, which is called iris. (The -i option makes the command interactive and -t allocates a text terminal.)
```
docker exec -it iris bash
```
Using the container command line you can interact directly with the containerized InterSystems IRIS instance, as described in the next section, and also explore the instance’s installation directory structure.

Interact Using the InterSystems Terminal

Open a shell within the container using docker exec -it iris bash as described in the previous section, then execute the InterSystems IRIS iris commandOpens in a new tab to connect to and manage the instance using the InterSystems TerminalOpens in a new tab. For example, to open a Terminal session for the instance (which is called IRIS), issue the commandiris terminal IRIS. You can also do this directly from the container host’s shell with the command docker exec -it iris iris terminal IRIS.

Note:

As described in Ownership and DirectoriesOpens in a new tab in Running InterSystems Products in Containers, commands issued from outside an InterSystems IRIS container using docker exec are executed inside the container as irisowner, and therefore do not require authentication. For this reason, you can use the commands cited above to open the InterSystems Terminal for the instance without being prompted for credentials.

You can also open the InterSystems IRIS SQL ShellOpens in a new tab by logging in as sqluser/sqluser.

Interact Using the Management Portal

To open the Management Portal for your Community Edition instance, load this URL in your browser.

http://host-IP:52773/csp/sys/UtilHome.csp

where host-IP is the IP address of the cloud node or other system hosting the container, for example http://35.192.00.154:52773/csp/sys/UtilHome.csp. 52773 is the default web server port, and this URL assumes it was published to the host as the same port. The specific link for your cloud node instance is shown when you connect to a cloud node using SSH, and you can display it at any time using the iris info command in the shell. If the container is running on your local system, you can use 127.0.0.1 or localhost in place of host-IP. If you published another host port for 52773 when you started the container, for example --publish 99999:52773, you need to use that host port instead, for example http://localhost:99999/csp/sys/UtilHome.csp.

Important:

You can access the Management Portal using the URL described above only for a Community Edition instance. For information about accessing the Management Portal for other containerized InterSystems IRIS instances, see Web Access Using the Web Gateway ContainerOpens in a new tab in Running InterSystems Products in Containers; for information about noncontainerized instances, see Access the Management Portal and Other System ApplicationsOpens in a new tab in the Web Gateway Guide.

When the portal opens, log in using _SYSTEM or one of the other predefined account usernames and

If you changed the default passwords using the iris password command or another method, the new password you provided.
If you have not yet changed the default passwords, and it is your first login to this user account, the default password SYS. You are immediately prompted to change it for that account, and should change it for the other predefined accounts as soon as possible.

The Management PortalOpens in a new tab is the comprehensive web-based user interface to an InterSystems IRIS instance. Load it in your browser to configure and manage the instance and to access the InterSystems IRIS data platform features you are interested in. For example, you can create a custom namespace and databaseOpens in a new tab, create resources, roles, and users for authorizationOpens in a new tab and manage other InterSystems IRIS security and encryptionOpens in a new tab features, and configure connectivity, national language supportOpens in a new tab, and other settings. You can also explore the pages used to create and manage interoperability productionsOpens in a new tab, and use the System ExplorerOpens in a new tab page to examine tables, views, and stored procedures on the instance, execute SQL queries and review query plans, and review the code on the instance and the globals that provide direct programmatic access to its data. You might want to search the documentationOpens in a new tab to review everything InterSystems IRIS has to offer on a topic of interest to you.

Connect an Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

To connect an IDE to your Community Edition instance, you’ll need some or all of the following information:

The hostname or external IP address of the container’s host (as in the Management Portal link).
The host port the instance’s superserver port, 1972, was published to.
Credentials to log in to the instance, either one of the predefined account usernames with the default or new password as explained above for the Management Portal, or a new user account you have created using the Management Portal.

You can use a variety of IDEsOpens in a new tab to develop InterSystems ObjectScript, Python, .NET, Java, JavaScript, and Node.js code on your InterSystems IRIS instance.

Develop Applications

You can develop applications on your InterSystems IRIS instance using any or all of these tools:

InterSystems IRIS features multi-model databasesOpens in a new tab, providing objectOpens in a new tab, SQLOpens in a new tab, multidimensionalOpens in a new tab, and documentOpens in a new tab data access. Use the InterSystems JDBC driverOpens in a new tab or the InterSystems ODBC driverOpens in a new tab to load data into a database on your InterSystems IRIS instance.

The InterSystems IRIS Native SDKsOpens in a new tab are lightweight interfaces that let you directly access globalsOpens in a new tab, the tree-based sparse arrays that form the basis of the multimodel data access capabilities of InterSystems IRIS, from your .NET, Java, Python, or Node.js code. The Java and .NET Native SDKs also enable your Java or .NET application to work with InterSystems IRIS objectsOpens in a new tab as easily as if they were native Java or .NET objects.

The InterSystems API Manager (IAM)Opens in a new tab supports microservices-based applications by enabling you to monitor and direct traffic to and from your web-based APIs.