Cloud Quick Start Guide

Cloud Quick Start Guide

This guide serves to provide a easy path for creating a VM in the cloud and making it accessible outside of the cloud, starting from a blank project. It does not go deep into the multiple configuration options that are provided, but only provides the simplest path to getting a VM up, running, and accessible.

 

1. Login with the credentials provided.

Project tab-

 

2. Choose Access & Security -

Choose Create Key Pair in the KeyPairs section.

Give it a name and hit create. It will then prompt for you to download the key. This is for accessing the servers without a password. You can create as many keys as you like, but only 1 of the keys will be injected upon VM creation.

 

3. Choose Images & Snapshots -

Click the Launch button next to the type of OS you would like to create.

After inputting information, selecting the size, and selecting the key created in step 2, you will see that it starts to build and spawn this new instance.

At this point a new VM is now running in the cloud. Clicking “Instances & Volumes” you will see that your newly named VM is there with a private IP.

 

4. Choose Instances and Volumes -

Choose “Create Volume” in the Volumes section. Give it a name, description, and size.

 

5. Choose “Edit Attachments” on the newly created volume and assign it to your new instance.

The default is to attach it as /dev/vdc. You can change this to /dev/vdb because that is where it will show up to the OS.

This is your persistent data volume. You will need to reboot the instance in order for it to show up on the server, at which point you can format it and mount it. You will see the new unformatted drive in the output of ‘fdisk -l’. Volumes are to be used for needing space over the 10gig root partition allotment.

 

6. Choose Access & Security -

In Floating IP’s section choose “Allocate IP To Project”.

This will allocate a new IP but still not assign it to a server.

 

7. Next to the newly added IP choose “Associate to instance” and choose the newly created VM.

We now have an IP that points to the server’s internal IP address. We must open up the ACL to still allow access.

 

8. Choose Access & Security -

Under Security Groups you can choose “Edit Rules” next to the default security rule type.

In the Add rule section, put in the ports and hit Add rule. To allow SSH to all servers utilizing this security rule, put in 22 in both the source and destination and leave the CIDR at 0.0.0.0/0. If this is a webserver, the same will need to be repeated for port 80 and 443.

You can create more refined rules as you see fit. The default is for ports to be closed.

Now, the server is online, you can ssh to the floating IP that you associated to the instance. If you created a key pair and downloaded it you can:
use ‘cloud@floadingip’ to gain access without a password. The default password for cloud is ‘Thund3rSt0rm!’ so make sure to change it on new machines. You can use the VNC console with the username and password combo if you prefer to configure the machine before SSH is made available.

 

Snapshots

Another feature of the cloud is to use Snapshots. Snapshots can be looked at as ways to have a *almost* preconfigured server ready to use. Not to be used as backups! Once you have a configured server follow these steps:

Choose Instances and Volumes -

This creates a point in time snapshot of the instance. These snapshots can also be launched as new servers that take minimal configurations.