Create a Virtual Machine on Openstack using the Openstack Web interface

Scenario

This document describes how to create a virtual machine once a project environment has been setup for a user. It assumes that the user has a login to openstack, and has already added their SSH public key into the openstack system.

Procedure

Login to the openstack interface. Select your project at the top of the screen if you have access to multiple projects.

Open

Check your projects compute resource quota

Click on Compute, then Overview: This screen will show you the quota limits set up so far, and how much of those quota limits are consumed by your project. This is important as if you attempt to build a virtual machine that exceeds these limits, it will fail to build.

Open

If the quotas have enough resources, and you do not need them expanding (should you need this, you should contact cloud-support@stfc.ac.uk, but first check with the other users in the project that all the VMs currently running or shutdown are needed, if not please delete them). Click on the Instances option on the Left Hand Side. Click on the “Launch Instance” button.

Launch instance

Click on the “Launch Instance” button. You will see a pop-up window as follows, click on “Details” first.

Details menu

Some of the Left Hand Side menu options of the pop-up window have asterisks next to them (*). This means that there is mandatory information that needs to be filled in, in order for Openstack to create the virtual machine.

Some of the Left Hand Side menu options of the pop-up window have asterisks next to them (*). This means that there is mandatory information that needs to be filled in, in order for Openstack to create the virtual machine.

Detail fields

Now click on the “Source” option on the Left Hand Side:-

Source menu

In the Select Boot Source, the default should be “Image” and “Create new volume” should be set to “no” unless you require your VM to have resilient storage for it's boot drive. What you select in this field determines what you see as options in “Available” just below. (We will not explore the other options for boot source in this scenario).

The available section provides one of the standard template STFC Cloud ready images that we support. For a full detailed list please see: Image Types.

Select the image you wish by clicking on the up arrow on the option in the Available area. This will add it to the “Allocated” area and will be used for your VM.

Once an image is selected, click on the “Flavor” list in the Left Hand Side:-

Flavor menu

The Flavor determines the CPU, Memory and Disk combination.

A full detailed list of flavors that are currently available can be found here.

It is suggested that you aim for CPU and Memory types that fit your needs best – it is possible to “resize” your virtual machine to a larger size later on, and also possible to add additional “volumes” to a Virtual machine if you need more disk space on it.

Click on the up arrow for the Flavor you wish to select. Click on “Networks” on the Left Hand Side:-

Networks menu

For Projects that just have one network type (Private or Internal) this is selected by default. A Hybrid project will have both a private network and an Internal Network, so one must be selected by clicking on an up arrow.

That completes all of the mandatory Fields that you need to complete in order to create one or more virtual machines. At this point, the “Launch Instance” button should go dark blue, indicating that you can now create the VM.

Further options

You may wish to click on the ”Security Groups” menu, as different security groups are often needed depending on if the VM is on the Internal Network or a Private Network.

Key pair allows you to add an SSH key and have it automatically added into the Virtual machine when it starts.

The other options on the Left hand Side, you will probably not need for day to day use unless you have a specialist requirement.

Final stages

The system will then be seen in the instances screen at various stages of completeness:-

You may see “Scheduling” and “Building” in the Task column as well. Once it is ready to connect to, you should see something like:-

At this stage, you may not be able to SSH onto it quite yet, but you may be able to log into the console, or at least see how far it has got in the boot process.

Common Things to do After Creating your VM