---
title: "Student guide to notebook labs"
slug: "notebooks-student-guide"
source: "https://app.cloudpe.com/help/notebooks-student-guide"
updated: "2026-11-01T09:37:08.236Z"
---

# Student guide to notebook labs

## Overview

If your instructor added you to a CloudPe notebook lab, you receive an email invitation. Accepting links your CloudPe account to that lab only. You are not joining the institution's organisation — you will not see their billing, team, or projects.

After you accept, open the lab hub URL, sign in with CloudPe, and start a notebook server from JupyterHub. Your work is saved on a personal volume that stays when the server stops.

## Before you start

- You need the invitation email (check spam if it is missing). Ask your instructor to use Resend invite on your roster row.
- CloudPe sign-up for new accounts is limited to supported countries (India in the current release).
- Your institution may apply country rules and IP allow-lists; those apply to lab sign-in the same as to org members.

## Steps

### Accept the invitation

1. Open the link in the invitation email.
2. Create a CloudPe account if prompted, or sign in with your existing account.
3. Accept the lab invitation.

When acceptance succeeds, you are an active lab member.

### Open the lab

1. Open **Notebooks** in the CloudPe dashboard (students with no organisation see this as their main entry).
2. Select your lab, or use the hub link from the invitation (same address as **Open Hub** on the lab row).
3. Sign in with CloudPe when the hub asks you to, and approve the one-time consent step.
4. In JupyterHub, choose Start (or equivalent) to launch your server, then open JupyterLab.

### Use your notebook server

1. Storage — You have a personal 10 GiB volume. Files remain when the server stops.
2. Idle shutdown — By default, servers stop after 30 minutes without activity and after 12 hours total runtime. Open the lab again and start a new server when you return.
3. Network — Notebooks can reach the public internet on ports 80, 443 and 22. They cannot reach private networks or other students' servers.

### Open in CloudPe (public repository)

Open in CloudPe pulls a public repository into your lab and opens JupyterLab.

1. Use a link that points to the CloudPe open flow with a repository URL (for example `/dashboard/notebooks/open?repo=<https-url>&branch=<branch>&path=<notebook-path>`). Course materials may give you this link ready-made.
2. Sign in if asked and pick your lab if you belong to more than one.
3. Only https repositories on GitHub, GitLab or Hugging Face are accepted; other hosts are rejected.

The page title is Open in CloudPe.

### Share a notebook read-only

Read-only sharing publishes a static HTML copy of one of your own `.ipynb` files. There is no share button in the dashboard yet; use the CloudPe notebooks API if your course requires it. Shared links last 7 days and do not update when you edit the notebook.

## Troubleshooting

- `This lab is not available for your account right now.` — You are not an active member, the lab is suspended, or billing blocked spawns. Contact your instructor.
- You cannot sign in — Confirm your roster status is active, not merely invited. Country or IP restrictions may block you.
- Empty dashboard except **Notebooks** — Expected for lab-only students; open **Notebooks** to reach your labs.

- [Notebook labs overview](/help/notebook-labs)
- [Manage a lab roster](/help/notebooks-manage-roster)
- [Notebook labs troubleshooting](/help/notebooks-troubleshooting)