Interacting with the cloud

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One benefit of having a cloud based on open standards, designed for consistency and ease of use, is that there are multiple ways to interact with and manage your cloud resources.

The Rackspace cloud provides Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) based on OpenStack for all of its management functionality. The APIs provide direct programmatic access to cloud services, and they also power the Cloud Control Panel (GUI) and the command-line interfaces (CLIs).

Depending on your needs, you might want to interact with the cloud through a web-based control panel, shell scripting, or software integration with your current applications and workflows. The APIs provide full functionality, with a large set of widely-used functions also provided in the Cloud Control Panel and in CLIs. You can choose an interface based on personal preference or business needs.

To send requests via a GUI such as the Cloud Control Panel, you use a web browser installed on your computer to interact with a web server operated by Rackspace. The web server interacts with the API endpoint on your behalf.
To send requests via a CLI, you download and install appropriate client software on your computer, and then use that software within a terminal emulator to interact with an API endpoint operated by Rackspace.
To send requests via an API, you write your own software to interact with an API endpoint operated by Rackspace.

GUI: Rackspace Cloud Control Panel

The Rackspace Cloud Control Panel is the easiest way to start provisioning cloud resources.

The Cloud Control Panel provides a simple, unified web-based interface that works in all major browsers. After you sign up for a Cloud account at www.rackspace.com, visit the Cloud Control panel to get an overview of the available products and services, create your first servers and resources, and view information about your Rackspace account.

You can also use the Cloud Control Panel to complete some important first tasks:

Obtain your API key for use with CLIs, SDKs, and APIs
Create additional account users and give them permissions if needed
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Note: Users who do not have permission to use a feature do not see that feature in the Cloud Control Panel. Cloud Control Panel screenshots in technical documentation might show features that are not available to some users.
View and change resource limits

You can use the Control Panel to see your current limits and to ask to change them.¶
If you click the Request Limit Increase link, the system generates a support ticket with the details of your current limits. To make a change, describe what you want and submit the ticket for processing. Update the ticket to describe the change you want; then click Submit Ticket.

In the generated ticket, fill in the details you want to change.¶

The Cloud Control Panel might be the only interface that you need to use, especially if you don’t need to heavily automate the management of your cloud resources.

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Note: Occassionally, high-priority messages are displayed in a banner at the top of the Cloud Control Panel window. If you see such a message, follow its instructions as soon as you can.

Preparing to use the Cloud Control Panel

To use the Rackspace Cloud Control Panel, you need the following items:

A Web browser
A Rackspace account
Credentials (username and password) giving you access to that account

The account’s credentials are those that were chosen when you, or someone else on your account, created a Rackspace cloud account.

If you do not have a Rackspace cloud account, or if you have forgotten the account’s credentials, you can use the Need help logging in? or Join the Cloud Now links from the Cloud Control Panel’s login page to get what you need.

Cloud Servers and the Cloud Control Panel

The Cloud Control Panel groups the core infrastructure services as described in Touring the Rackspace cloud, service by service, with Cloud Servers (labeled Cloud Servers) and Cloud Images (labeled Saved Images) both available under Servers.

The Servers group includes Cloud Servers and Cloud Images.¶

You can use the Cloud Control Panel to help you observe and manage your Cloud Servers configuration. For ideas about what to do first, visit the Rackspace Cloud Servers introduction page.

Cloud Networks and the Cloud Control Panel

The Cloud Control Panel groups the core infrastructure services as described in Touring the Rackspace cloud, service by service, with Cloud Networks (labeled Networks) available under Networking.

The Networking group includes Cloud Networks.¶

You can use the Cloud Control Panel to help you observe and manage your Cloud Networks configuration. For ideas about what to do first, visit the Cloud Networks introduction page.

Cloud Images and the Cloud Control Panel

The Servers group includes Cloud Servers and Cloud Images.¶

You can use the Cloud Control Panel to help you observe and manage your Cloud Images configuration. For ideas about what to do first, visit the Rackspace Cloud Images introduction page.

Cloud Block Storage and the Cloud Control Panel

The Cloud Control Panel groups the core infrastructure services as described in Touring the Rackspace cloud, service by service, with Cloud Block Storage (labeled Block Storage Volumes) available under Storage.

The Storage group includes Cloud Block Storage.¶

You can use the Cloud Control Panel to help you observe and manage your Cloud Block Storage configuration. For ideas about what to do first, visit the Cloud Block Storage introduction page.

Cloud Files and the Cloud Control Panel

The Cloud Control Panel groups the core infrastructure services as described in Touring the Rackspace cloud, service by service, with Cloud Files (labeled Files) available under Storage.

The Storage group includes Cloud Files.¶

You can use the Cloud Control Panel to help you observe and manage your Cloud Files configuration. For ideas about what to do first, visit Cloud Files overview.

Create a Container¶

To create a new container, log in to the Cloud Control Panel. In the top navigation bar, select Storage > Files and click Create Container.

To create a container, enter a name, choose a region, and select the type: Private, Public (Enabled CDN), or Static Website.¶

Private containers enable you to securely store data on the cloud and access it through the Cloud Control Panel or API.
Public (Enabled CDN) containers automatically store files on servers close to your users, which speeds up the delivery of your data.
A container can also host a static website. Upload an html file named index.html to set up as your index page. Add a domain name by going to your domain hose and setting up a CNAME to your CDN URL. For more information on hosting static websites, try Serve Static Content for Websites by Using Cloud Files.

Upload Files to the Container¶

To upload files to one of your containers, first log in to the Cloud Control Panel. In the top navigation bar, select Storage > Files and click on the name of the container to which you want to upload files.

If you have no Cloud Files objects, the Cloud Control Panel shows you how to upload one.¶

Learning more about the Cloud Control Panel

Every cloud account comes with access to the Cloud Control Panel. Depending on how you use your Rackspace account, you might not be interested in changes to specific Rackspace cloud products and services. However, the Cloud Control Panel is common ground, available to all Rackspace cloud customers, and we recommend that all Rackspace customers pay attention to ongoing development there.

Making yourself familiar with the following sites and keeping up with new information there will help you become a skillful user of the Cloud Control Panel:

Technical documentation focused on the Cloud Control Panel, including short tutorials and demonstrations, is published in Rackspace How-To.
Announcements of major changes are published in the Release Notes.
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Note: We continuously improve the Cloud Control Panel, so you might see minor changes between visits. Only major changes are announced in the Release Notes.

CLI: Command-line interfaces and tools

If you want to manage your cloud configuration by typing commands or executing shell scripts, you can use command-line interfaces (CLIs) provided by OpenStack and, in some cases, supported by Rackspace. You can also use Rackspace’s dedicated CLI client, Rackspace CLI.

Preparing to use a CLI

To interact with the Rackspace cloud at the command line, you must have some of the same things you would need to interact by choosing options on a web page (the Cloud Control Panel) or by writing software (SDK or API):

A Rackspace cloud account
Credentials enabling access to that account
- Your user name and password allow you to log in to the Cloud Control Panel.
- After you log in, you can obtain your API key and your tenant ID (also called account number).

You also need to know something that you would need to work with an API:

The endpoint for the cloud service with which you want to interact

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Note: Preparing to use APIs provides more detail about these prerequisites.

You must also have the following tools to enable you to interact with the cloud by typing commands:

A terminal emulator such as iTerm2 or PuTTY
A locally installed client capable of interacting with the cloud service that you have chosen
- You can use cURL to send commands to any API endpoint
- You can use OpenStack CLIs to send commands to specific cloud services.

In your terminal emulator, you can type commands to the client and, if you are properly authenticated, the client forwards your requests to the cloud service and forwards the service’s responses to you.

To preserve a series of commands so that they can be easily re-executed, you can place them within a script. To schedule automated execution of your script, you can invoke it from a cron job.

Beyond this general process, the details vary depending on the service. For product-specific introductions to the CLIs relevant to specific core infrastructure products, see the following sections:

Cloud Servers and CLIs: rack, nova, and supernova

To interact with Cloud Servers at the command line, you can use Rackspace CLI (rack), tools created specifically for the purpose of interacting with OpenStack based clouds (nova and supernova) or general-purpose tools (cURL).

Before you can use one of these tools, you must install a local (client) copy. The installation procedure varies for each tool and is documented with the tool.

The commands that you can send are the the same as the requests you can send to the API endpoint, but they are wrapped in the syntax of the client. The Cloud Servers API Reference lists those requests for Cloud Servers.

nova CLI

The OpenStack tool primarily used to manage Cloud Servers is written in Python and is called nova. It is also known as novaclient or python-novaclient.

Rackspace adds some additional functionality to the base OpenStack environment through OpenStack extensions. To have the best experience when using the novaclient with Rackspace, you should install the rackspace-novaclient package. It installs the required novaclient components and any necessary or useful extensions and plugins that are applicable to the Rackspace cloud.

We recommend that you use the Python Package Index (PyPI) to install novaclient because it installs dependencies and required packages for you.

Alternatively, you can download the rackspace-novaclient package from the GitHub repository for rackspace-novaclient.

The following OpenStack documents can help you install novaclient and learn to use it:

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Note: You can use OpenStack documentation to help you learn to use OpenStack CLIs in the Rackspace Cloud. OpenStack documents describe general practice; you should expect to supply some Rackspace-specific details. Use your Rackspace credentials where the OpenStack examples ask for OpenStack credentials.

For example, where you are asked for OS_USERNAME, supply your Rackspace username.

Rackspace publishes the following detailed instructions about novaclient, including how to install the client on most popular operating systems:

In the Cloud Servers API documentation at Install the nova Client with the Cloud Networks Extension
In Python-novaclient and the Rackspace Cloud

After you have novaclient installed, you must set up your environment so that you can authenticate to Rackspace and use the tools.

supernova CLI

If you work with multiple Rackspace regions, you might find supernova to be particularly useful. It simplifies the process of providing credentials and connection information for multiple Rackspace regions, so you can quickly interact with multiple regions without changing environment variables or configurations as you might need to do with novaclient.

Although supernova is not officially supported by Rackspace, it is heavily used and generally found to be stable and useful. You can install supernova via PyPi, or download it as described in supernova’s documentation.

cURL CLI

cURL is a general-purpose command-line tool for interacting with REST APIs. Using cURL to submit a single request at the command line is a common method of experimenting with an API before deciding whether to write software to automate that request. The Rackspace API documentation includes many cURL-based examples.

The following Rackspace publications provide basic information about cURL:

In the Developer Center, you can see examples of using cURL to send requests to the API endpoints for many Rackspace cloud services. Select a service, and then click SHELL as your preferred language to see samples formatted for use at the command line with cURL.

To see samples usable with cURL, click “Shell”.¶

You can use any tool that enables you to type a command, send it as a request to a REST API’s endpoint, and then examine the API’s response.

Cloud Networks and CLIs: neutron

To interact with Cloud Networks at the command line, you can use Rackspace CLI (rack), tools created specifically for the purpose of interacting with OpenStack based clouds (nova and neutron), or general-purpose tools (cURL).

Because Cloud Servers and Cloud Networks work so closely together, the command-line tools that work well with Cloud Servers also work well with Cloud Networks.

You can read about these as a group at Cloud Servers and CLIs: rack, nova, and supernova or you can go directly to the tool that interests you:

If you choose to use tools created specifically for interacting with Openstack based clouds, use neutron CLI, focused on Cloud Networks.

In working with Cloud Networks, you might find that you need to use nova for some functions and neutron for others. You should install them both. You can see an example of using nova and neutron together in the multistep Configure host routes with neutron example:

neutron net-create establishes a new network
neutron subnet-create establishes a new subnet
nova boot initializes a new server with the new subnet
nova list verifies the new server’s IP address

Alternatively, Rackspace CLI works with most functions without having to switch clients.

Before you can use one of these tools, you must install a local (client) copy. The installation procedure varies for each tool and is documented with the tool.

The commands that you can send are the the same as the requests you can send to the API endpoint, but they are wrapped in the syntax of the client. The Cloud Networks API Reference lists those requests for Cloud Networks.

The Getting Started Guide for the Cloud Networks API includes detailed, parallel examples that show how you to use either cURL or neutron to perform the same functions. If you compare the matching cURL and neutron examples, you can see how these tools differ and why you might prefer to work with one or the other. For example, if you compare Create a network (neutron client), and Create a network (cURL), you can see that:

neutron users send a short command, reusing details provided when the neutron client was configured:
neutron net-create Rackernet
cURL users send a long command or series of commands, specifying details required to perform the API request:
curl -s https://dfw.networks.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/networks
-X POST
-H "Content-Type: application/json"
-H "User-Agent: python-novaclient"
-H "Accept: application/json"
-H "X-Auth-Token: $token"
-d '{"network": {"name": "Rackernet"}}' | python -m json.tool

neutron CLI

The OpenStack tool primarily used for managing Cloud Networks is written in Python and called neutron. It is also known as python-neutronclient.

We recommend that you use the Python Package Index (PyPI) to install neutronclient, because it installs dependencies and required packages for you.

Alternatively, you can download the rackspace-neutronclient package from the GitHub repository for rackspace-neutronclient.

The following OpenStack documents can help you install neutronclient and learn to use it:

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Note: You can use OpenStack documentation to help you learn to use OpenStack CLIs in the Rackspace Cloud. OpenStack documents describe general practice; you should expect to supply some Rackspace-specific details. Use your Rackspace credentials where the OpenStack examples ask for OpenStack credentials.

For example, where you are asked for OS_USERNAME, supply your Rackspace username.

Cloud Images and CLIs: glance

To interact with Cloud Images at the command line, you can use tools created specifically for the purpose of interacting with OpenStack based clouds (nova and glance) or general-purpose tools (cURL).

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Note: Rackspace CLI does not currently support Cloud Images. Support for Cloud Images will be added as development for Rackspace CLI continues.

Because Cloud Servers and Cloud Images work so closely together, the command-line tools that work well with Cloud Servers also work well with Cloud Images.

You can read about these as a group at Cloud Servers and CLIs: rack, nova, and supernova or you can go directly to the tool that interests you:

If you choose to use tools created specifically for interacting with Openstack based clouds, use glance CLI, focused on Cloud Images.

In working with Cloud Images, you might find that you need to use nova for some functions and glance for others. You should install them both. You can see an example of using nova and glance together at OpenStack CLI Basics where, in the “Creating a Modified Image” section, glance image-create establishes a new image and nova boot initializes a new server from that image.

Before you can use one of these tools, you must install a local (client) copy. The installation procedure varies for each tool and is documented with the tool.

The commands that you can send are the the same as the requests you can send to the API endpoint, but they are wrapped in the syntax of the client. The Cloud Images API Reference lists those requests for Cloud Images.

The Getting Started Guide for the Cloud Images API includes many examples of using cURL commands to send requests to the API’s endpoint, especially at Using images.

The Developers Guide for the Cloud Images API also demonstrates using cURL to interact with the API, such as at How cURL commands work.

glance CLI

The OpenStack tool primarily used for managing Cloud Images is written in Python and called glance. It is also known as python-glanceclient.

We recommend that you use the Python Package Index (PyPI) to install glanceclient because it installs dependencies and required packages for you.

The following OpenStack documents can help you install glanceclient and learn to use it:

📘
Note: You can use OpenStack documentation to help you learn to use OpenStack CLIs in the Rackspace Cloud. OpenStack documents describe general practice; you should expect to supply some Rackspace-specific details. Use your Rackspace credentials where the OpenStack examples ask for OpenStack credentials.

For example, where you are asked for OS_USERNAME, supply your Rackspace username.

Cloud Block Storage and CLIs: cinder

To interact with Cloud Block Storage at the command line, you can use Rackspace CLI (rack), tools created specifically for the purpose of interacting with OpenStack based clouds (nova and cinder) or general-purpose tools (cURL).

Because Cloud Servers and Cloud Block Storage work so closely together, the command-line tools that work well with Cloud Servers also work well with Cloud Block Storage.

You can read about these as a group at Cloud Servers and CLIs: rack, nova, and supernova or you can go directly to the tool that interests you:

You can also use the cinder CLI, focused on Cloud Block Storage.

Before you can use one of these tools, you must install a local (client) copy. The installation procedure varies for each tool and is documented with the tool.

The commands that you can send are the the same as the requests you can send to the API endpoint, but they are wrapped in the syntax of the client. The Cloud Block Storage API Reference lists those requests for Cloud Block Storage.

The Getting Started Guide for the Cloud Block Storage API includes many examples of using cURL, especially at Using the API directly by using cURL.

If you have both the cinder client and a cURL client installed on your local computer, you can choose to issue commands either through your local copy of the cinder client or by using a general-purpose client such as cURL, by sending a request to the instance of the python-cinderclient that is active at the API endpoint for Cloud Block Storage. You can see both methods demonstrated in the Cloud Block Storage API documentation, under Cloud Block Storage quotas.

cinder users send a short command, reusing details provided when the cinder client was configured:
cinder quota-usage yourAccountID
cURL users send a long command or series of commands, specifying details required to perform the API request:
curl -i -X GET https://dfw.blockstorage.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1/yourAccountID/os-quota-sets/yourAccountID?usage=True
-H "X-Auth-Project-Id: yourAccountID"
-H "User-Agent: python-cinderclient"
-H "Accept: application/json"
-H "X-Auth-Token: yourAuthToken"

cinder CLI

The OpenStack tool primarily used for managing Cloud Block Storage is written in Python and called cinder. It is also known as python-cinderclient.

The following OpenStack documents can help you install cinderclient and learn to use it:

You can use cinder to back up your volumes to swift CLI, the OpenStack tool used to interact with Cloud Files. For more information about how to back up your cinder volumes, see Backing up cinder volumes to swift.

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Note: You can use OpenStack documentation to help you learn to use OpenStack CLIs in the Rackspace Cloud. OpenStack documents describe general practice; you should expect to supply some Rackspace-specific details. Use your Rackspace credentials where the OpenStack examples ask for OpenStack credentials.

For example, where you are asked for OS_USERNAME, supply your Rackspace username.

Cloud Files and CLIs: swift and swiftly

To interact with Cloud Files at the command line, you can use tools created specifically for the purpose of interacting with OpenStack-based clouds, such as Rackspace CLI (rack), swift, and swiftly, or general-purpose tools (cURL).

For more information about these tools, see the following resources:

Before you can use one of these tools, you must install a local (client) copy. The installation procedure varies for each tool and is documented with with the tool.

The commands you can send are the same as the requests you can send to the API endpoint, but are wrapped in the syntax of the client. The Cloud Files API Reference lists those requests for Cloud Files.

The Getting Started Guide for the Cloud Files API includes many examples of using cURL, especially at Using the API directly by using cURL.

swift CLI

The OpenStack tool primarily used for managing Cloud Files is written in Python and called swift. It is also known as python-swiftclient.

The following OpenStack documents can help you install swiftclient and learn to use it:

📘
Note: You can use OpenStack documentation to help you learn to use OpenStack CLIs in the Rackspace Cloud. OpenStack documents describe general practice; you should expect to supply some Rackspace-specific details. Use your Rackspace credentials where the OpenStack examples ask for OpenStack credentials.
For example, where you are asked for OS_USERNAME, supply your Rackspace username.

swiftly CLI

Another tool for managing Cloud Files is swiftly, a client tool for uploading and downloading objects to your Cloud Files account. If you have a very large object (such as a virtual disk image file), swiftly will take care of splitting the file into smaller “segments” and then creating the large object “manifest” for you.

Install the Swiftly Client for Cloud Files walks through the installation process for swiftly.

The following resources can help you install and use swiftly:

Learning more about CLIs¶

CLIs that you can use to interact with the Rackspace cloud are, or are consistent with, the CLIs provided by OpenStack.

Useful information about these CLIs exists in sources published by Rackspace and in sources published by OpenStack:

OpenStack Command-Line Interface Reference documents all OpenStack CLIs.

API: Developer and DevOps tools

If you write applications that are tightly integrated with the Rackspace cloud, you might find that clicking to choose options in the Cloud Control Panel and typing to issue commands with CLIs are not ideal for your purposes.

If you develop or distribute applications for your customers, or if you want to automate the operation of your cloud infrastructure, you might need to interact with cloud services by using API operations.

If you are responsible for administering systems that are used for cloud software development, you can investigate DevOps tools designed for this purpose.

DevOps tools

If you already use a DevOps tool, you might be interested in plugins (official or unofficial) that improve the abilities of these automation frameworks to support cloud-based operations.

Sources of Rackspace-focused information about these plugins include:

Direct API access

Each of our cloud services exposes an API that can be leveraged for low-level integration with the service. Rackspace APIs, like OpenStack APIs, are Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs, meaning that they are logically structured, stateless, and scalable (among other properties).

In the Developer Center, you can learn about the API structure and being able to make direct, manual calls to the API is a powerful tool for understanding and managing the Rackspace cloud infrastructure.

The API Developer Guide for each service is published in our technical documentation collection.

Some of the most common ways to directly interact with APIs are:

Command line tools, such as cURL
Browser extensions, such as Postman for Chrome
Utilities for specific operating systems, such as those listed in your app store or directory under REST client

For each service that offers a public API, Rackspace publishes at least two technical documents:

API developer guide: reference material describing API requests and sample responses
API getting started guide: tutorial material demonstrating simple interactions with the API

For most APIs, we also publish API release notes, announcing changes to the API.

These API documents primarily support readers who are already experienced with RESTful APIs in other contexts and are seeking details specifically about the Rackspace APIs. We don’t provide a beginner-level API tutorial, however, REST is widely used and introductory material is readily available. If you want to work with our APIs and this is your first experience with RESTful APIs, begin with Preparing to use APIs.

Preparing to use APIs

If you have a Rackspace cloud account, you can use Rackspace APIs to interact with the cloud services you subscribe to.

The basic process is the same for all Rackspace APIs:

Collect the parts that you need for the request:
- Obtain your account credentials (API key and account number, also called tenant ID) from the Cloud Control Panel.
- Use your credentials to authenticate, receiving a token and a service catalog as proof of success
- In the service catalog, find the endpoint for the API to which you want to send a request.
- Look up the API reference section of your product found in API documentation.
Assemble the request from its parts. Plug in the values that you collected for your credentials, the API’s endpoint, and any details (such as the ID of a server) specific to your configuration and your API request.
Send a well-formed request to the service’s API endpoint.
Process the service’s response.

Beyond this general process, the details vary depending on which service you are working with. For product-specific introductions to the APIs relevant to specific core infrastructure products, see:

Cloud Servers and APIs

When you begin writing your own software to interact with Cloud Servers, you might want to learn about how Cloud Servers works in the Cloud Control Panel and how SDKs and APIs are documented at Rackspace.

Cloud Servers API investigation

Using an API, you can write software to automate functions that could otherwise be performed manually by a person logged in to the Cloud Control Panel. You can accelerate your understanding of how the API works by using the Cloud Control Panel to demonstrate the manual process before you begin to automate it; to interact with the Cloud Servers service, the Cloud Control Panel sends requests via the same API that you interact with when you write your own software.

Sometimes, especially for new features that are not yet available in the Cloud Control Panel, you can write software to perform functions using the API that could not be performed in any other way. Product announcements for Limited Availability and Early Access releases point out this limitation when it applies. In that case, experimenting in the Cloud Control Panel can show you only part of the process of working with a new feature; other details are described in the API documentation.

Just as you can use the Cloud Control Panel to help you understand a manual process that you intend to automate, you can use the API documentation to help you understand how to use API operations to automate cloud functions.

The API documentation describes what you can accomplish, how to structure an API operation, and what responses to expect.

After you understand what the Cloud Servers API is capable of, investigate whether the automation you require is already available from another Rackspace product or from a Rackspace partner.

For example:

Auto Scale responds to workload peaks by increasing server capacity.
Cloud Orchestration installs a complete application stack on a server.
Cloud Backup automates a server’s backup schedule.

Good places to investigate relevant capabilities available within the broader Rackspace portfolio include:

Rackspace product summaries such as Rackspace Cloud Servers powered by OpenStack
Rackspace technical documentation

Cloud Servers API demonstration

Using the process suggested at Cloud Servers API investigation, this section provides an example of how you can plan and then write your own software to perform one simple task: list all your cloud servers.

Learn about Cloud Servers in the Cloud Control Panel¶

When you login to the Cloud Control Panel, your session begins with a list of all your servers. By default, the list is unfiltered, showing every server; you can narrow the list by clicking on filters for tag, status, image, flavor, and type.

The Cloud Control Panel lists all of your Cloud Servers.¶

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Note: Because the Cloud Control Panel uses APIs, watching the Cloud Control Panel work can help you learn how to work with APIs.
To see how the Cloud Control Panel gets its information:

Launch the Chrome browser.

In Chrome, log in to your Cloud Control Panel account.

For Mac, from the Chrome menu, select View > Developer > Developer Tools. For Windows, from the Chrome menu, select More tools > Developer Tools.

Experiment in the Cloud Control Panel and observe the actions in Chrome’s developer view.

You can use Chrome’s developer tools to observe the Cloud Control Panel’s API interactions.¶

Learn about Cloud Servers in API documentation¶

In the API documentation, you can see all available API operations for all cloud services. The operations are grouped according to the service they interact with (for example, Cloud Servers or Cloud Files) and the scope they act on (for example, flavors or images).

You can see all Cloud Servers operations in the Cloud Servers API Reference. In the group of Server operations, you can see that:

Sending a GET request to the /v2/{tenant_id}/servers URI requests a basic list of information about servers
Sending a POST request to the same URI requests the creation of a new server
Sending a GET request to the same URI and appending /detail requests an expanded list of information about servers

The request parameters and sample response shown here can help you formulate a basic list servers request to the API and understand the API’s response.

You can use request parameters to construct a request that returns a list of only the Cloud Servers that meet specific criteria. In the sample response, the request parameters named status, image, and flavor correspond to the filters available on the Cloud Control Panel.

In the Getting Started Guide for Cloud Servers - Create your first server, you can follow a 3-step tutorial to perform an essential task: create a cloud server. The Getting Started Guide begins with instructions on creating a Rackspace account and walks you through basic server and network operations. An intermediate step shows an example with the cURL command-line interface (CLI) for Listing servers (cURL).

Cloud Networks and APIs¶

When you begin writing your own software to interact with Cloud Networks, you might want to learn about how Cloud Networks works in the Cloud Control Panel and how SDKs and APIs are documented at Rackspace.

Cloud Networks API investigation¶

Using an API, you can write software to automate functions that could otherwise be performed manually by a person logged in to the Cloud Control Panel. You can accelerate your understanding of how the API works by using the Cloud Control Panel to demonstrate the manual process before you begin to automate it; to interact with the Cloud Networks service, the Cloud Control Panel sends requests via the same API that you interact with when you write your own software.

The API documentation describes what you can accomplish, how to structure an API operation, and what responses to expect.

Cloud Networks API demonstration¶

Using the process suggested at Cloud Networks API investigation, this section provides an example of how you can plan and then write your own software to perform one simple task: list all your cloud networks.

Learn about Cloud Networks in the Cloud Control Panel¶

When you login to the Cloud Control Panel, your session begins with information about your servers. To see your Cloud Networks information, click Networking and then click Networks.

To move from Cloud Servers to Cloud Networks details, click “Networking” and then click “Networks”.¶

By default, the list is focused on your account’s home region, showing all networks in that region; you can select a different region and you can search for a specific network.

If your list of networks is not empty, then for each network you can see

Its name
Its IP address in CIDR format
The region in which it is located

The Cloud Control Panel lists all of your Cloud Networks networks.¶

📘
Note: Because the Cloud Control Panel uses APIs, watching the Cloud Control Panel work can help you learn how to work with APIs.
To see how the Cloud Control Panel gets its information:

Launch the Chrome browser.

In Chrome, log in to your Cloud Control Panel account.

For Mac, from the Chrome menu, select View > Developer > Developer Tools. For Windows, from the Chrome menu, select More tools > Developer Tools.

Experiment in the Cloud Control Panel and observe the actions in Chrome’s developer view.

You can use Chrome’s developer tools to observe the Cloud Control Panel’s API interactions.¶

Learn about Cloud Networks in API documentation¶

In the API documentation, you can see all available API operations for all cloud services. The operations are grouped according to the service they interact with (for example, Cloud Networks or Cloud Files) and the scope they act on (for example, subnets or ports).

You can see all Cloud Networks operations in the Cloud Networks API Reference. In the group of Network operations, you can see that:

Sending a GET request to the v2.0/networks URI requests a basic list of information about networks
Sending a POST request to the same URI requests creation of a new network
Sending a GET request to the same URI and appending a network ID requests an expanded list of information about a single network

The request parameters and sample response shown here can help you formulate a basic List networks request to the API and understand the API’s response.

In the sample response, name and id correspond to the information available on the Cloud Control Panel.

In the Getting Started Guide for the Cloud Networks API, you can see an example with the cURL command-line interface (CLI) for Listing networks (cURL).

Cloud Images and APIs¶

When you begin writing your own software to interact with Cloud Images, you might want to learn about how Cloud Images works in the Cloud Control Panel and how APIs are documented at Rackspace.

Cloud Images API investigation¶

Using an API, you can write software to automate functions that could otherwise be performed manually by a person logged in to the Cloud Control Panel. You can accelerate your understanding of how the API works by using the Cloud Control Panel to demonstrate the manual process before you begin to automate it; to interact with the Cloud Images service, the Cloud Control Panel sends requests via the same API that you interact with when you write your own software.

The API documentation describes what you can accomplish, how to structure an API operation, and what responses to expect.

Cloud Images API demonstration¶

Using the process suggested at Cloud Images API investigation, this section provides an example of how you can plan and then write your own software to perform one simple task: list all your cloud images.

Learn about Cloud Images in the Cloud Control Panel¶

When you login to the Cloud Control Panel, your session begins with information about your servers. To see your Cloud Images information, click Servers and then click Saved Images.

To move from Cloud Servers to Cloud Images details, click “Servers” and then click “Saved Images”.¶

By default, the list is focused on your account’s home region, showing all images in that region; you can select a different region and you can search for a specific image.

If your list of images is not empty, then for each image you can see:

Its name
The server from which it was created
Its creation date
Its size

The Cloud Control Panel lists all of your Cloud Networks networks.¶

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Note: Because the Cloud Control Panel uses APIs, watching the Cloud Control Panel work can help you learn how to work with APIs.
To see how the Cloud Control Panel gets its information:

Launch the Chrome browser.

In Chrome, log in to your Cloud Control Panel account.

For Mac, from the Chrome menu, select View > Developer > Developer Tools. For Windows, from the Chrome menu, select More tools > Developer Tools.

Experiment in the Cloud Control Panel and observe the actions in Chrome’s developer view.

You can use Chrome’s developer tools to observe the Cloud Control Panel’s API interactions.¶

Learn about Cloud Images in API documentation¶

In the API documentation, you can see all available API operations for all cloud services. The operations are grouped according to the service they interact with (for example, Cloud Images or Cloud Files) and the scope they act on (for example, images or image schemas).

You can see all Cloud Images operations in the Cloud Images API Reference. In the group of Images operations, you can see that:

Sending a GET request to the images URI requests a basic list of information about public images
Sending a GET request to the same URI and appending an image ID requests an expanded list of information about a single image

The request parameters and sample response shown here can help you formulate a basic List images request to the API and understand the API’s response.

In the sample response, name, created_at, size, and id correspond to the information available on the Cloud Control Panel.

In the Getting Started Guide for the Cloud Images, you can see an example with the cURL command-line interface (CLI) for Listing images.

Cloud Block Storage and APIs¶

When you begin writing your own software to interact with Cloud Block Storage, you might want to learn about how Cloud Block Storage works in the Cloud Control Panel and how APIs are documented at Rackspace.

Cloud Block Storage API investigation¶

Using an API, you can write software to automate functions that could otherwise be performed manually by a person logged in to the Cloud Control Panel. You can accelerate your understanding of how the API works by using the Cloud Control Panel to demonstrate the manual process before you begin to automate it; to interact with the Cloud Block Storage service, the Cloud Control Panel sends requests via the same API that you interact with when you write your own software.

The API documentation describes what you can accomplish, how to structure an API operation, and what responses to expect.

Cloud Block Storage API demonstration¶

Using the process suggested at Cloud Block Storage API investigation, this section provides an example of how you can plan and then write your own software to perform one simple task: list all your Cloud Block Storage volumes.

Learn about Cloud Block Storage in the Cloud Control Panel¶

When you login to the Cloud Control Panel, your session begins with information about your Cloud Servers. To see your Cloud Block Storage information, click Storage and then click Block Storage Volumes.

To move from Cloud Servers to Cloud Block Storage details, click “Storage” and then click “Block Storage Volumes”.¶

By default, the list is focused on your account’s home region, showing all volumes in that region; you can select a different region and you can search for a specific volume.

If you have no Cloud Block Storage volumes, the Cloud Control Panel shows you how to create one.¶

If your list of volumes is not empty, then for each volume you can see:

Its ID
The name of the server to which it is attached
The region in which it is located
The type of disk it uses
Its size

The Cloud Control Panel lists all of your Cloud Block Storage volumes.¶

📘
Note: Because the Cloud Control Panel uses APIs, watching the Cloud Control Panel work can help you learn how to work with APIs.
To see how the Cloud Control Panel gets its information:

Launch the Chrome browser.

In Chrome, log in to your Cloud Control Panel account.

For Mac, from the Chrome menu, select View > Developer > Developer Tools. For Windows, from the Chrome menu, select More tools > Developer Tools.

Experiment in the Cloud Control Panel and observe the actions in Chrome’s developer view.

You can use Chrome’s developer tools to observe the Cloud Control Panel’s API interactions.¶

Learn about Cloud Block Storage in API documentation¶

In the API documentation, you can see all available API operations for all cloud services. The operations are grouped according to the service they interact with (for example, Cloud Block Storage or Cloud Files) and the scope they act on (for example, volumes or snapshots).

You can see all Cloud Block Storage operations in the Cloud Block Storage API Reference. In the group of Volumes operations, you can see that:

Sending a POST request to the v1/{tenant_id}/volumes URI requests creation of a new server
Sending a GET request to the same URI requests a basic list of information about volumes
Sending a GET request to the same URI and appending /detail requests an expanded list of information about volumes

On the first GET line, click detail to see more about how the API handles this request. The request parameters and sample response shown here can help you formulate a basic List volumes request to the API and understand the API’s response.

In the sample response, id, display_name, size, and volume_type correspond to the information available on the Cloud Control Panel.

In the Getting Started Guide for the Cloud Block Storage API, you can see an example with the cURL command-line interface (CLI) for Listing existing block storage volumes.

Cloud Files and APIs¶

When you begin writing your own software to interact with Cloud Files, you might want to learn about how Cloud Files works in the Cloud Control Panel and how APIs are documented at Rackspace.

Cloud Files API Investigation¶

Using an API, you can write software to automate function that could otherwise be performed manually by a person logged in to the Cloud Control Panel. You can accelerate your understanding of how the API works by using the Cloud Control Panel to demonstrate the manual process before you begin to automate it; to interact with the Cloud Files service, the Cloud Control Panel sense requests using the same API that you interact with when you write your own software.

Sometimes, especially for new features that are not yet available in the Cloud Control Panel, you can write software to perform functions using the API that could not be performed in any other way. Product announcements for Limited Availablility and Early Access releases point out this limitation when it applies. In that case, experimenting in the Cloud Control panel can show you only part of the process of working with a new feature; other details are described in the API documentation.

The API documentation describes what you can accomplish, how to structure an API operation, and what responses to expect.

Cloud Files API demonstration¶

Using the process suggested at Cloud Files API Investigation, this section provides an example of how you can plan and then write your own software to perform one simple task: list all your Cloud Files containers.

Learn about Cloud Files in the Cloud Control Panel¶

When you login to the Cloud Control Panel, your session begins with information about your Cloud Servers.

To see your Cloud Files information, click “Storage” and then click “Files”.¶

If your list of containers is not empty, then for each container you can see:

Its name
The region in which it is located
The number of files stored within
Its size

Note: Because the Cloud Control Panel uses APIs, watching the Cloud Control Panel work can help you learn how to work with APIs.

To see how the Cloud Control Panel gets its information:

Launch the Chrome browser.
In Chrome, log in to your Cloud Control Panel account.
For Mac, from the Chrome menu, select View > Developer > Developer Tools. For Windows, from the Chrome menu, select More tools > Developer Tools.
Experiment in the Cloud Control Panel and observe the actions in Chrome’s developer view.

You can use Chrome’s developer tools to observe the Cloud Control Panel’s API interactions.¶

Learn about Cloud Files in API documentation¶

In the API documentation, you can see all available API operations for all cloud services. The operations are grouped according to the service they interact with (for example, Cloud Block Storage or Cloud File) and the scope they act on, such as containers or objects.

You can see all Cloud Files operations in the Cloud Files API Reference. In the group of Containers operations, you can see that:

Sending a PUT request to the vi/{account}/{container} requests the creation of a new container
Sending a GET request to the same URI requests details for a specified container and lists the objects, sorted by name, within that container

The request parameters and sample response shown here can help you formulate a basic List containers request to the API and understand the API’s response.

In the sample response, bytes and name correspond to the information available in the Cloud Control Panel.

In the Getting Started Guide for the Cloud Files API, you can see an example with the cURL command-line interface (CLI) for Creating a storage container.

Learning more about APIs¶

Release notes announce new API features, bug fixes, and other changes.

For release notes that announce changes to the APIs, go to here. You can subscribe to an Atom feed for each API’s release notes so that you are notified when we update them.

The RSS symbol shows that you can subscribe to this feed.¶

You can also subscribe to a combined Atom feed for all API documents, including API release notes, here.

You can learn how to use new features and influence planned changes by talking with Rackers and customers.

If you need to do so, raise an issue with Rackspace support.

Updated 5 months ago