Quick Start: Create and Access a Virtual Machine

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Estimated Time: < 5 Minutes

While Rackspace OpenStack Flex provides users the flexibility to tailor and fine-tune their architecture, sometimes you just want to get a Compute Instance (VM) up and running as quickly and easily as possible. This guide will take you through a streamlined process for handling this using the Skyline UI.

Prerequisites

• A Rackspace Cloud Account with OpenStack Flex Access
• Access to Skyline

Create a Network

A network is the foundation for your OpenStack Flex project. QuickNet will allow you to build all required network components in less than sixty seconds.

1. Once you're logged into Skyline, click the QuickNet button shown below.

2. A new window will appear > Check the box next to Create and attach Router
3. Check the box next to Open External Gateway
4. Click the radial dot next to PUBLICNET
5. Click OK and allow a moment for QuickNet to build the network. When it finishes the window will close itself.

Congratulations! You've just set up the network.

Create a Security Group Rule (SSH or RDP)

Security Groups are essentially collections of centrally managed firewall rules that you apply to devices.

1. From the left-hand navigation pane click Network > Security Group
2. Click the Create Security Group button.
3. Fill in a name and click OK
4. Your new Security Group will appear in the list. To the right-hand side click More > Create Rule
5. Enter the following:
   1. Protocol - Custom TCP Rule
   2. Direction - Ingress
   3. Ether Type - IPv4
   4. Port Type - Custom
   5. Port or Port Range - 22 for Linux or 3389 for Windows
   6. Description - Remote Access
   7. Remote Type - CIDR
   8. Remote IP Prefix - 0.0.0.0/0
6. Click OK

Congratulations! We've now got our new Security Group set up with a rule that will allow us to remotely access it from anywhere since we used the Remote IP Prefix of 0.0.0.0/0 - however, best practice would be to restrict this to something more specific rather than using 0.0.0.0/0 when possible.

Create a Virtual Machine

Now we can create our actual Virtual Machine, which OpenStack calls 'Compute Instances'. Note that during this process there are a lot of optional and advanced selections that a user can make - but since this article is covering the simplest quickest way to get a VM going, we'll skip over that.

1. From the left-hand navigation pane choose Compute > Instances
2. Click the Create Instance button
3. In the Operating System section choose the server operating system type and version you want to use.
4. In the Boot From Volume section click 'No - Do not create a new system disk' This tells OpenStack we just want our VM to live directly on the hypervisor rather than use an external volume as the data source.
5. Under Specification you'll choose the hardware specifications of your VM. You can sort by cost, memory, or other metrics to identify what works best for you.
6. Click the Next: Network Config button in the bottom right.
7. Check the box next to network-1
8. Scroll down to Security Group and check the box next to the name of the security group you created.
9. Click Next: System Config in the lower right.
10. In the Name field give your VM a name.
11. For Login Type click Password (Ideally we'd use SSH Keys, but the goal of this article is the quickest simplest setup)
12. Take note of the Login Name - you can't change this but it is what you'll use to log in > fill in the Login Password and Confirm Password fields with your desired password.
13. Click Next: Confirm Config > Click the Confirm button in the lower right.

Congratulations, you've built your compute instance! You'll now be returned to the list of Compute Instances on the account and you'll see your server listed.

Assign a Floating IP

At a high level a Floating IP acts as Public Facing IPv4 address of your VM. We need to add this to the new VM so that it can be accessed remotely.

1. From the left-hand navigation pane click Network > Floating IPs
2. Click Allocate IP > Click OK
3. You'll see a new IP in the list, on the right-hand side click More > Associate
4. In the new pane click the dot next to your VM > then click the dot next to the IP address that shows up in the Instance IP section.
5. Click OK

Congratulations! You've assigned the Floating IP to your VM.

Connect to the Virtual Machine

Everything necessary to get a VM running and accessible has been created and configured. Now you just need to connect to your VM. Depending on your server's operating system and your own preferences there are multiple ways to do this using things like a terminal to SSH, RDP client for Windows RDP, etc. Just be sure to use the login name, password, and floating IP address.