The Technical Contact's Guide is targeted at the technical administrators at PlanetLab Europe sites. The Technical Contact is the primary point of contact for your site when PlanetLab Support requires physical access to the nodes. As a Technical Contact, you are responsible for hardware configuration, installation and maintenance. In general, you are not responsible for any sort of software installation or maintenance. However, due to the initial network configuration, it is helpful if you have a working understanding of UNIX and Internet protocols.

The Tech Contact's Guide contains a short primer on PlanetLab Europe terminology and account maintenance.

The following introductory steps need to be completed before the a new starts using PlanetLab Europe. Some of these steps are to be completed by the user, others by the principal investigator and others by the technical contact. All the tasks are identified in this list by who is responsible for completion. In the case of small sites, the User, the Principal Investigator (PI), and the Technical Contact (TC) may be the same person. The larger the institution, the more likely the tasks will be completed by different people.

1. Registering with PLE (User)
2. Creating Local Infrastructure (User)
3. Joining PLE (PI)
4. Registering with PLE (PI and TC)
5. Adding Nodes (TC)
6. Creating Slices (PI)
7. Enabling Users (PI)
8. Generating an SSH Key (User)
9. Deploying Slices (User)
10. Accessing Slivers (User)

The responsibilities for the User and the Principal Investigator are explained in the User's Guide and the Principal Investigator's Guide