Talk:Creating a Windows VM

In the long run, it is probably better to integrate this more completely with the quick start guide. Noting differences as we go along.

This google doc might contain some guidance on licenses https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pOcLVPM_0lk_HjpOyK2J8KhmvRtOl93rxcLmI8zQ5Fs/edit#heading=h.hpbfomqvsx2u

The procedure

To create a Windows VM the basic steps are as follows:

• Click Launch Instance
• Select the Instance Boot Source as Boot from image (creates a new volume). The windows image requires at least 30GB of disk space. If booting from an image an ephimeral root drive is created which is only 20GB which is too small and VM creation will fail.
• Select the Windows image you have been given access to. Note there maybe other Windows images available on the clouds which were not provided by CC staff, use with caution.
• Choose a Device size of 30 GB or more
• Select a public key to use for encrypting the password (see notes about key pairs to ensure your key pair will work)
• Select a p-flavor as we are booting from a volume. There maybe some minimum memory requirements, for example a 1.5GB flavor seemed to have difficulty (rebooting/shutting down), while a 12 GB flavor worked.
• Ensure that VM is part of a security group and take note of which one.
• Click Launch
• Associate a floating IP with the VM
• Wait for the volume creation to finish and the VM to start running. This can take some time 10+ minutes. You can tell that volume creation is still in progress by noting the status of the VM as "Block Device Mapping" or by looking at the status of the volume and seeing a status of downloading indicating that the image is being transferred to the volume.
• Once the VM has finished transferring the image to the volume it will begin booting.
• During the initial boot there are additional localization settings and a license agreement that need to be set and agreed to through the Console tab before the VM will complete the process of booting up. The console tab can be found by clicking on the name of the instance under the "Instances" page, and then selecting the Console tab on the Instance Details page.
• Wait for the reboot to complete, will see a line containing INFO cloudbaseinit.init [-] Stopping Cloudbase-Init service on the log tab once reboot has completed
• Retrieve the password form the VM using your private key. Go to Instances then to the Actions menu and select Retrieve Password. Then on the newly presented window select your private key and click Decrypt Password. The password will be displayed in the Password text box. This is the password together with the provided user name that you will use to connect to the VM using Remote Desktop Connection.
• Open the port for Remote Desktop Connection (RDC, port 3389) allowing only the IP of the machine your connecting from
• Connect to the VM using Remote Desktop Connection with the provided username, and your decrypted password