Using Colab with Google Drive and GitHub

This tutorial shows how to use Colab with Google Drive (G-Drive) for storage and GitHub for version control. Follow the example in setup.ipynb [link].

Summary of Steps

1. Mount Google Drive and create a symbolic link.
2. Copy the SSH key to access your GitHub repository.
3. Install the required packages.

Mount Google Drive

Since Colab doesn't have its own persistent storage, you need to use external storage like Google Drive.

1. Create a working directory on Google Drive. In this example, we'll use colab.

2. Create a Git directory (e.g., colab_setup) locally on your computer.

3. Upload the entire Git directory to Google Drive at colab/colab_setup.

4. In the Colab notebook, run the following code to mount Google Drive:

   from google.colab import drive
   drive.mount('/content/drive')

5. Create a symbolic link for quick access to the directory:

!ln -s drive/MyDrive/colab/colab_setup/ colab_setup

Set up GitHub Access

Colab initializes a new virtual machine each time you launch a notebook. To maintain persistent access to your GitHub repository, store the .ssh folder on Google Drive (colab).

1. Copy the access keys to the virtual machine:

!cp -r drive/MyDrive/colab/.ssh /root/.ssh

2. Copy git config to the virual machine:

!cp drive/MyDrive/colab/.gitconfig /root/.gitconfig

Install Required Packages

1. Change the working directory:

%cd colab_setup

2. Install the dependencies listed in requirements.txt:

!pip install -r requirements.txt