- Region selection
- Choosing a system image
- Choosing the configuration
- Volume selection
- Configuring the network interface
- Firewall configuration
- Adding SSH key
- Additional features (tags and user data)
- Finishing the creation (choice the amount and name for Instance)
- Actions with single Instance
- Actions with multiple Instances (Power off, power on, reboot, delete)
- Search by Instance
Creating the instance
Instances are created inside the projects. You can use the default project or create a new one (for more information, see the How to create and delete a project article).
1. Open a project and click on the Create Instance button.
The price is calculated automatically during the configuration.
2. Choose the region that is more suitable for you: Luxembourg, Moscow, or Manassas.
3. Select an operating system image: our template, volume, snapshot, custom image, or a template from the marketplace.
After choosing an image, pay attention to the information below. "For login to OS" prompt will help you to connect to the instance with Linux OS via SSH from a device on Linux OS. More details in the How to connect to the virtual machine via SSH article.
Important! If you want to connect to an instance with Linux OS from a device on Windows OS, use a special application, for example, PuTTY.
4. Choose the necessary configuration depending on your goals and budget (on the chosen type will depend your tariff plan). Please, keep in mind that if you choose the Windows server, the cost of the Windows license will be added to the configuration cost.
There are four types of instance configuration:
- The Shared type is best for workloads that do not require high performance. The main peculiarity of such a type is that instances with Shared type use core partially. With this type, only Ultra volume type can be used.
- The Standard type is best suited for a wide range of workloads that require predictable computing performance.
- The vCPU type is a CPU-optimized virtual machine. They are best suited for tasks and projects that intensively use the central processing unit (CPU) and require predictable computing performance. For example, batch processing of large data sets and video encoding.
- The memory type is a virtual machine with optimized memory that is best suited for tasks and projects that use memory intensively, as a rule, these are databases.
- The GPU type is a virtual machine with a graphics card that is suitable for working with graphic information, deep and machine learning applications, and high-performance computing.
5. Select the volume type and size. If it is necessary, add more volumes. Their number and total capacity are limited by the allocated quota, which you can increase on request. Read more about the provided quotas in this article.
There are four types of Volumes:
- High IOPS SSD - high IOPS network SSD disk - highest performance network SSD block storage designed for latency-sensitive transactional workloads (30 IOPS per 1 GB).
- Standard - standard network SSD disk - high-performance network SSD block storage with stable and high random I/O performance, and high data reliability (f3 IOPS per 1GB).
- Cold - network HDD disk - lowest cost HDD block storage for less frequently accessed workloads (this Volume type is not available in the Manassas region).
- Ultra - Network Block Storage. Can be used for non-critical data and less frequently accessed workloads. This volume type is available only with the Shared instance type.
6. Add interfaces: you can add as public as private interfaces.
If you have early created networks, select the created network from the drop-down list. To create a new network, click on the Add a new network button, and enter the network name.
After creating a network, you should configure a subnet (address range for machines in the cloud). If you have early created subnets, select the created subnet from the drop-down list.
To create a new subnet, click on the Add a new subnetwork button, enter the subnet name, and set the CIDR range for the subnet (the valid range for the subnet mask is: 16-24):
- 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255
- 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255
- 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255
Only private IPv4 addresses can be used in subnets.
If the Non-routable network toggle switch is turned off, the interface will be created with a default gateway.
Important! Enabling this feature makes it possible to get a non-routable subnet, which allows you to bind many private interfaces to the machine and use the virtual machine in several private networks.
Also, you can specify your own Gateway IP in the "Gateway IP" field, if it's necessary.
Then select one of the public IP address binding options:
- Create a new floating IP
- Use existing floating IP
- Without floating IP
For more information about network configuration and floating IP addresses, see the article Networks, subnets, floating IP, firewalls.
7. Add a firewall. If you have an early configured firewall before, select the created firewall from the drop-down list. To create a new one, click on the Add firewall button, or use the default firewall, which allows incoming traffic over ICMP, TCP (SSH) and RDP protocols.
8. Add an SSH key or generate a new one for a remote connection to the virtual machine. For more information about adding a key, see the SSH Keys article.
If you select Windows Server, you should set a password for the Admin user. It can contain Latin letters (a-zA-Z), numbers (0-9) and special characters (!#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[]^_{|}~). Valid length is from 8 to 16 characters.
9. In Additional options, you can add metadata for processing by a cloud-init agent running on a virtual machine, to do it insert your script in the User data field.
Also, you can tag your instance. To to do it, activate the Tags option, and set the necessary ones.
Tags are key-value pairs that form the metadata of the virtual machine description.
10. If you want to create multiple virtual machines with the same configuration, specify the number you want (the maximum is limited by your quotas) and add names (only Latin characters, underscores, spaces, and dots are allowed).
To complete the configuration, click on the Create virtual machine button after that the server will be deployed in the cloud.
In the first few minutes, during the activation process, the server will be in the Building status. Resources for the virtual machine will be in the process of allocation.
After that, the server will automatically switch to the Power on the status. It means that the machine works.
Managing the Instances
The list of virtual machines is located inside the project, in the "Instances" section
Actions with single Instances
To open the Instance settings menu, click the selector on the right from the selected machine, and select the "Overview" option
To delete an Instance, click the selector on the right from the selected machine and select the "Delete" option
The "Delete" section in the Instance settings menu
In the window that opens, select the volumes and floating IP addresses attached to the machine that you want to delete and click "Delete instance".
Actions with multiple Instances
You can perform identical operations for multiple Instances at once. The available options:
- Power off
- Power on
- Reboot
- Delete
Select the virtual machines you want to perform the operation by checking the box to the left from the selected virtual machines
Or mark all Instances at once by checking the box in the upper left corner from the list
Next, select the desired action in the "Actions" selector in the upper-right corner of the screen.
Please, note! When deleting Instance in this way, the associated volumes and floating IP addresses are deleted without pre-confirmation, as in the case of a single deletion.
Search by Instance
For a quick search of a virtual machine please use the search box above the list
