Install python-novaclient on Windows

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This article describes how to remotely manage a Rackspace Cloud Server by using the python-novaclient package running on Microsoft® Windows®.

Remote management

The Cloud Control Panel isn’t the only way to manage Cloud Servers. If you’re running a script or program, you can use the Cloud Servers API, but that involves some coding effort.

If you want to manage your servers from the command line and not deal directly with the API, you can use an open-source client application called python-novaclient.

Note: Rackspace does not maintain the nova client, so you should consider the software as in development.

Prerequisites

To run python-novaclient, you need to install python® 2.6 or later on your system. You can run the client from either a desktop computer or a remote system, such as a Cloud Server.

Make sure you install the setuptools package when you install python. A python distribution such as ActiveState ActivePython, discussed in the next section, includes setuptools.

To run the nova client, you need to have access to your Rackspace Cloud account username and password.

Install ActiveState ActivePython on Windows

If you don’t have a python installation on your Windows system, download and install the free community version of ActiveState ActivePython.

Download and run the installer.

Install the python-novaclient package

After you install ActiveState Python, use the python package installer pip to download and install novaclient automatically. Perform the following steps:

1. To open a command window, go to the Start menu and type cmd in the Search box.

2. In the command window, enter the following command to install the pbr package and avoid a package bug:

   pip install pbr==0.5.21

3. Enter the following command to install a metapackage that includes the latest version of python-novaclient and the Rackspace extensions:

   pip install rackspace-novaclient python-novaclient==3.3.0

4. When the installations finish, close the command window.

The rackspace-novaclient package is a metapackage that uses pip to install the client and all Rackspace extensions for the client. If you have any problems with the metapackage, use pip to install the python-novaclient and rackspace-auth-openstack packages individually.

Install with other python distributions

Some python distributions might not include setuptools. If you’re using another python distribution, such as the official python distribution, you can install the python setuptools package from pypi and use easy_install to install pip:

easy_install pip

Then, follow the installation instructions in the preceding section.

Environment variables

Now that you have installed the nova client, set up the environment variables that allow it to connect to your Rackspace Cloud account.

Find the environment variables editor

For most Windows versions, set your environment variables through the System Control Panel, by performing the following steps:

1. From the Start menu, select Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel, navigate to the System and Security section and select System.
3. In the System Properties window, click the Advanced tab in the top navigation.
4. In the Startup and Recovery section, click Environment Variables.

If you have any trouble finding the System Control Panel, type environment in the Start menu Search box. This action provides a link that lets you edit your environment variables. If given a choice between editing values for your user account or the system, choose the selection for your user account.

Set the environment variables

Now set your environment variables. In the User variables for Administrator section, click an environment variable and then click New.

The following table describes the required variable names and values:

Variable name	Value type	Description
OS_USERNAME	username	Set this value to your Rackspace Cloud account username.
OS_TENANT_NAME	account number	Set this value to your Rackspace Cloud account number, visible in the upper-right corner in the Cloud Control Panel.
OS_AUTH_SYSTEM	rackspace	Set this value to rackspace to connect to the Rackspace Cloud.
OS_PASSWORD	password or API key	Set this value to your Rackspace Cloud API key. You can retrieve your API key in the Cloud Control Panel. For information about how to find your API key, see View and reset your API key. With a non-Rackspace Openstack cloud, you usually put the account password in this variable.
OS_AUTH_URL	identity endpoint	Set this value to the endpoint for the identity service the client uses to authenticate for API operations. For the US and AUS Rackspace Cloud that is https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/, and for the UK Rackspace Cloud, it is https://lon.identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/.
OS_REGION_NAME	data center region	The code for the data center region containing the servers you want to manipulate. You can check your server's data center by checking its details screen in the Cloud Control Panel. The data center code is just the first three letters of the data center's identifier, such as DFW or ORD. You can override the region setting with the --os-region-name command-line option.

After you’ve set all seven environment variables, click OK when prompted to complete the process until all the windows close.

Note Any command windows you already have open do not reflect the changes to your environment variables until you close and reopen them.

Test the client

To make sure the nova client is ready to go, open a new command window by going to the Start Menu and entering the following text in the search box.

cmd

To see if you can talk to the API server, run the following command at the command prompt:

nova image-list

If the command is successful, the system provides a list of the images available to create a server.

View the command list

To get a full list of commands, enter the following command:

nova help

Note: You won’t be able to use every command listed. The nova client was written for use with recent development versions of OpenStack, so it might include support for some features that Rackspace has not yet implemented in the Rackspace Cloud.

You can get more help for a specific command by running the following command:

nova help <command>

For example, to learn about the create command, run the following command:

nova help create

Troubleshooting

The client doesn’t provide detailed errors. Because many people enter the username, tenant name, or password incorrectly, be sure to double-check those settings.

Remember that if you change any environment variables, you need to close your command window and open a new one to work with the new values.

You can also use the options listed at the end of the nova help output to override some environment variable settings. If you’re unsure about the region, for example, you can substitute it with the --os-region-name option as follows:

nova --os-region-name ORD image-list

Next steps

By following the instructions in this article, you can set up the nova client so that you can access it and it can talk to your Rackspace Cloud account. To look at some common operations, you can perform with the client, such as creating servers and taking snapshots, see Useful python-novaclient commands.