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Gather details to launch an Instance

Note

The openstack CLI will need to be setup to interact with the FlexiHPC system. Please read Setting up your CLI environment to interact with FlexiHPC to get started.

Before you can launch an instance via the CLI, gather the following parameters:

  • The instance source can be an image, snapshot, or block storage volume that contains an image or snapshot.

  • A name for your instance.

  • The flavor for your instance, which defines the compute, memory, and storage capacity of nova computing instances. A flavor is an available hardware configuration for a server. It defines the size of a virtual server that can be launched.

  • Access and security credentials, which include one or both of the following credentials:

    • A key pair for your instance, which are SSH credentials that are injected into images when they are launched. Create at least one key pair for each project. If you already have generated a key pair with an external tool, you can import it into OpenStack. You can use the key pair for multiple instances that belong to that project. Reading Creating and Importing Key Pairs if you would like to know more.

    • A security group that defines which incoming network traffic is forwarded to instances. Security groups hold a set of firewall policies, known as security group rules.

  • The network to attach the instance too.

  • If needed, you can assign a floating (public) IP address to a running instance to make it accessible from outside the cloud.

  • You can also attach a block storage device, or volume, for persistent storage.

Note

Instances that use the default security group cannot, by default, be accessed from any IP address outside of the cloud. If you want those IP addresses to access the instances, you must modify the rules for the security group. Read How to add/update and remove security groups for more information.

After you gather the parameters that you need to launch an instance, you can launch it from an image or a volume.

Gather parameters to launch an instance

List the available flavors.

openstack flavor list

Note the ID of the flavor that you want to use for your instance:

+--------------------------------------+-------------------------+--------+------+-----------+-------+-----------+
| ID                                   | Name                    |    RAM | Disk | Ephemeral | VCPUs | Is Public |
+--------------------------------------+-------------------------+--------+------+-----------+-------+-----------+
| 0f71f1e2-d327-41f9-87e3-0f6c29f51af1 | gb.bm.gpu               | 524288 |  240 |         0 |    48 | True      |
| 1281555c-6bcb-42e4-a48e-98352dcd0fd0 | compute1.2cpu4ram       |   4096 |   30 |         0 |     2 | True      |
| 14505c86-765f-4971-a36f-1e867216dccf | memory1.4cpu16ram       |  16384 |   30 |         0 |     4 | True      |
| 1dbac08-d9a9-4c27-8534-57293785433e  | balanced1.32cpu64ram    |  65536 |   30 |         0 |    32 | True      |
| 2d02e6a4-3937-4ed3-951a-8e27867ff53e | balanced1.8cpu16ram     |  16384 |   30 |         0 |     8 | True      |
| 2e7b7cc7-9e29-4ff2-98dd-03dbb99dbb5c | compute1.16cpu32ram     |  32768 |   30 |         0 |    16 | True      |
| 3276cd5f-c96a-4e05-960f-f4f197142c98 | memory1.1cpu4ram        |   4096 |   30 |         0 |     1 | True      |
| 3b5a6e01-d3ad-49e3-a4f8-183c04444330 | balanced1.1cpu2ram      |   2048 |   30 |         0 |     1 | True      |
| 4a0425c8-7494-473e-a5bb-acc91c378615 | c1.cpu128.ram448.disk30 | 458752 |   30 |         0 |   128 | True      |
| 4e8af724-f66d-4072-a692-114126de25a0 | compute1.1cpu2ram       |   2048 |   30 |         0 |     1 | True      |
| 4ec785be-a422-4207-9daa-cbb71c61f9ed | devtest1.4cpu4ram       |   4096 |   30 |         0 |     4 | True      |
| 674fa81a-69c7-4bf7-b3a9-59989fb63618 | balanced1.16cpu32ram    |  32768 |   30 |         0 |    16 | True      |
| 6b2e76a8-cce0-4175-8160-76e2525d3d3d | balanced1.2cpu4ram      |   4096 |   30 |         0 |     2 | True      |
| 7af5c672-43e7-4296-9608-5974394851b8 | memory1.2cpu8ram        |   8192 |   30 |         0 |     2 | True      |
| 7ffa092c-e75a-4cb5-be9f-db8c749e8801 | compute1.4cpu8ram       |   8192 |   30 |         0 |     4 | True      |
| 8aef7f54-1ed6-4275-a38c-3f1e61afabd9 | memory1.16cpu64ram      |  65536 |   30 |         0 |    16 | True      |
| 94ba9177-cb98-4b04-870c-9a696e1c5327 | memory1.32cpu128ram     | 131072 |   30 |         0 |    32 | True      |
| 9d536959-dd7a-4532-b0b7-db8bb8a72ddb | compute1.8cpu16ram      |  16384 |   30 |         0 |     8 | True      |
| b46e184c-0dcb-44b2-a53f-c2b8eff676c9 | compute1.32cpu64ram     |  65536 |   30 |         0 |    32 | True      |
| d6c2e93a-d430-44ca-822b-79a4b882c0c3 | piotr-gpu               | 131072 |  100 |         0 |     8 | True      |
| d6e3a25a-4f9e-4c87-9342-77f807ead537 | memory1.8cpu32ram       |  32768 |   30 |         0 |     8 | True      |
| e07cfee1-43af-4bf6-baac-3bdf7c1b88f8 | balanced1.4cpu8ram      |   8192 |   30 |         0 |     4 | True      |
| e3a1ec6d-9513-4b9f-9580-671c4eee1c21 | devtest1.2cpu2ram       |   2048 |   30 |         0 |     2 | True      |
| ee55c523-9803-4296-91be-1c34e986baaa | devtest1.1cpu1ram       |   1024 |   30 |         0 |     1 | True      |
+--------------------------------------+-------------------------+--------+------+-----------+-------+-----------+

List the available images.

openstack image list

Note the ID of the image from which you want to boot your instance:

+--------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------+--------+
| ID                                   | Name                                                     | Status |
+--------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------+--------+
| 701e29ac-8963-4cf9-b90a-e1b14095866d | CentOS-Stream-8                                          | active |
| 42ebfb1b-f136-4947-ae1a-025ad57b369c | CentOS-stream8-baremetal                                 | active |
| f94a4d02-661f-4df7-bb50-ad08ad89f816 | Centos-8.4-AGR                                           | active |
| 386c661a-4c30-4f09-b536-511a862102b4 | FedoraCoreOS35                                           | active |
| fe8c98d3-7a87-4b5b-9f9e-0f967c53f9bd | FedoraCoreOS37                                           | active |
| 622c4f3f-8e62-4c81-8809-69b0a34a28e0 | PostgreSQL-Ubuntu-20.04.4                                | active |
| 3936d736-e5bb-4024-a361-512fd40413bc | RockyLinux-8.5                                           | active |
| eb40dbb5-7da6-4784-b47c-f417c9d3b126 | RockyLinux-8.6                                           | active |
| 2b00f364-1bd0-432c-91f9-8d1adda6fc9f | RockyLinux-8.6-OFED-5.7                                  | active |
| f366dd3a-5353-47dd-9e92-662055125174 | RockyLinux-8.7                                           | active |
| b443a9a2-32d1-48c1-8d84-bcc10adbb0c3 | RockyLinux-8.7-OFED-5.8                                  | active |
| 9933eb25-b0c1-4ef2-b199-25e916c79906 | Ubuntu-20-AGR                                            | active |
| ab67f1b1-44f9-4465-9a68-82cc35ed69c0 | Ubuntu-Bionic-18.04                                      | active |
| d73ef17b-6b0a-4148-b3b2-f4edcf2e480e | Ubuntu-Focal-20.04                                       | active |
| ce869c9d-35bb-46be-9b6d-d74d4035e2f8 | Ubuntu-Focal-20.04-baremetal                             | active |
| 885d01da-777b-4e67-a1ec-e114e4c2786e | Ubuntu-Focal-20.04-mark-testing-dib-2022-06-30T12:47:00Z | active |
| a5c9b7b2-e77b-4094-99ac-db0cf5181da5 | Ubuntu-Jammy-22.04                                       | active |
| 05f13645-2ac7-44ce-aa1c-64f31ca42761 | Ubuntu-Jammy-22.04-DEMOCREDS                             | active |
| c7e208cb-6521-422b-8d00-1b8f003c4646 | Ubuntu20.04                                              | active |
| 728719c2-0a75-4411-a8fa-3230fa5d50e5 | Ubuntu22.04                                              | active |
| a13f3659-eed9-411c-9a33-f1584fd00328 | Windows-Server-2012-R2-Eval                              | active |
| 8814f28f-1dbd-4253-84e8-8e45032855c6 | Windows-Server-2019                                      | active |
| 15f3eebe-4c15-4565-a4f8-7369f072b50d | cirros-0.4                                               | active |
| 534b8b78-f455-4f85-bd21-13c2b1b14e3e | cirros-0.5                                               | active |
| 04e1a31a-adee-4af2-935e-0e6e7c4b3193 | test-break                                               | active |
+--------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------+--------+

List the available security groups.

openstack security group list

Note the ID of the security group you want to attach to the instance:

+--------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------+
| ID                                   | Name                                                           | Description                                             | Project                          | Tags |
+--------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------+
| 7200b28f-9089-4797-a094-39f1995e6f0c | SSH Allow All                                                  | This is an open SSH that allows anyone to connect to 22 | 4f07cc254d6c4471805d49bae1f739b9 | []   |
| b24e8bef-969a-4938-8b18-0a33769b181d | kubeapi_whitelist                                              |                                                         | 4f07cc254d6c4471805d49bae1f739b9 | []   |
| b5d30ed4-13b3-4f7a-bc5a-c48175566ea3 | My-Security-Group                                              | This is my security group                               | 4f07cc254d6c4471805d49bae1f739b9 | []   |
| f2f15d6f-2a04-4196-8102-a058042694b3 | default                                                        | Default security group                                  | 4f07cc254d6c4471805d49bae1f739b9 | []   |
+--------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------+

If you have not created any security groups, you can read How to add/update and remove security groups

You can view rules for a specified security group:

openstack security group rule list b5d30ed4-13b3-4f7a-bc5a-c48175566ea3

List the available key pairs, and note the key pair name that you use for SSH access.

openstack keypair list

List the available networks.

openstack network list

Note the ID for the network

+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| ID                                   | Name                           | Subnets                              |
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| 33d0c11b-b659-4b77-9afc-5676fe965839 | external                       | 5c2644ad-7253-42f5-ad69-40970b84dea6 |
| d3a7ddb5-6582-42cf-978a-c99b4ed25ad4 | NeSI-Training-Test             | f5715775-270c-4230-bfa7-fdbdf51352dc |
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------+

Note

The recommend Network ID to take note of is the network that has the same name as your project. If external access is required then after creating the compute instance a floating ip is the recommend way to gain this external access.

Launch an instance

You can launch an instance from various sources.