Cloud Quick Start: Difference between revisions

<i>Parent page: [[Cloud]]</i>

#<b>Have a cloud project</b> <br> <b>You cannot access a cloud without first having a cloud project.</b> If you don't already have a [[Managing_your_cloud_resources_with_OpenStack#Projects|cloud project]], see [[Cloud#Getting_a_cloud_project|Getting a cloud project]]. Once a cloud project is associated with your account, you will receive a confirmation email which will have important details you will need to access your project and get started with the cloud. Make sure you have this confirmation email ready.  

#<b>Have a compatible browser</b> <br> The web interface for accessing your cloud project works well with both the [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ Firefox] and [https://www.google.com/chrome/ Chrome] web browsers. Other browsers may also work, however some have shown the error message <code>Danger: There was an error submitting the form. Please try again.</code> which suggests that your browser is not supported by our system. This error message was noticed with certain versions of the Safari web browser on Macs; upgrading Safari may help, but we recommend that you use [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ Firefox] or [https://www.google.com/chrome/ Chrome]. If you are still having issues, email [[technical support]].

Your project will allow you to create virtual machines (also referred to as <i>instances</i> or <i>VMs</i>) stored on the cloud, which you can access from your personal computer using our web interface.

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[[File:Import key pair 3.png|500px|thumb|Importing an existing key pair (Click for larger image)]]

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To create a virtual machine, select <i>Compute->Instances</i> on the left menu, then click on the <i>Launch Instance</i> button.

Once you have reviewed all the options and defined your virtual machine, click on the <i>Launch Instance</i> button and your virtual machine will be created. The list of instances will be displayed and the <i>Task</i>' field will show the current task for the VM; it will likely be <i>Spawning</i> initially. Once the VM has spawned, it will have the power state of <i>Running</i>; this may take a few minutes.

[[File:Manage-Floating-IP-Associations-Form.png|400px|thumb| Manage Floating IP (Click for larger image)]]

[[File:Add-Rule-Form.png|400px|thumb| Add Rule (Click for larger image)]]

#*It can be helpful to add a description about what a security rule is for (e.g. home or office). That way you will know which rule is no longer needed if you want to add a new rule while connecting, for example, from home.

In the first step of this quick guide you saved a private key to your computer. Make sure you remember where you saved it because you will need it to connect to your VM. You will also need to remember which type of image you used (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.) and which public IP address is associated with your VM.

If the computer you are using to connect to your VM has a Linux or Mac operating system, use the following instructions to connect to your VM. Otherwise skip down to the next section to connect with a Windows computer.</br></br>

Open a terminal and input the following command:

These default users have full sudo privileges. Connecting directly to the root account via SSH is disabled.

[[File:MobaXterm basic.png|400px|thumb| Creating an SSH session (Click for larger image)]]

If you want to use a Windows computer to connect to your VM, you will need to have an interface application to handle the SSH connection. We recommend <b>MobaXTerm</b>, and will show the instructions for connecting with MobaXTerm below. If you want to connect using PuTTY instead, see [[Connecting with PuTTY]].

[[File:MobaXterm connected.png|400px|thumb| Connected to a remote host (Click for larger image)]] <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

* Learn about using the [[Linux_introduction|Linux command line]] in your VM

* Learn about [[security considerations when running a VM]]

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To create a Windows VM on one of our clouds you must first request access to a Windows image by emailing [[technical support]].

You will be provided access to a Windows Server 2012 Evaluation image and a username to use when connecting. The evaluation period is 180 days. It may be possible to apply a Windows license to a running VM created from this evaluation image, however we do not provide these licenses.

[[File:Create-Key-Pair-Form.png|400px|thumb| Create key pair (Click for larger image)]]

Windows VMs encrypt the administrative account password with a public key. The matching private key decrypts the password.  

If you would like to use an existing key pair with your Windows VM see the [[Creating a Windows VM#Comments on key pairs|comments on key pairs]] below.

[[File:Windows-launch-instance.png|400px|thumb| Launch Instance (Click for larger image)]]

To create a virtual machine, click on the ''Instances'' menu item on the left, then click on [[File:Launch-Instance-Button.png]]

Once you have reviewed all the tabs and defined your virtual machine, click on the Launch button and your virtual machine will be created. The Instances list will be displayed and the Task field will show the current task for the VM; it will likely be "Block Device Mapping" initially. Once the VM has spawned and beginning to boot, it will have the Power State of "Running". It will likely take 10+ minutes to finish creating the volume and coping the image to it before beginning to boot.

[[File:Windows-VM-Settings.png|400px|thumb| Locality Settings (Click for larger image)]]

At this point your VM will restart. Once it finishes restarting the ''Console'' will display a sign in screen with the current (UTC) time and date.

[[File:Manage-Floating-IP-Associations-Form.png|400px|thumb| Manage Floating IP (Click for larger image)]]

[[File:Add-Rule-Form-RDP.png|400px|thumb| Add RDP Rule (Click for larger image)]]

#Finally, click the ''Add'' button.

[[File:Retrieve-instance-password.png|400px|thumb| Retrieving Windows instance password (Click for larger image)]]

[[File:Remote-Desktop-Connection-windows.png|400px|thumb| Remote desktop client in Windows (Click for larger image)]]

'''TODO:''' Anyone with a Mac want to write up this section?

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* How to apply it to a new VM (if that is different than above bullet item)

There are a couple different formats for key files and you can also choose to protect your private keys with passphrases or not. In order to be able to decrypt the Windows VM password your private key must be in OpenSSH format and not have a passphrase. If you created your key pair with OpenStack and downloaded the <code>.pem</code> key file it will already be in the correct format. If you used the [[Using_SSH_keys_in_Linux|<code>ssh-keygen</code> command]] to create your key pair and didn't specify a passphrase it will also likely be in the correct format. For more general information about key pairs see the [[SSH Keys]] page.

   

  ---- END SSH2 ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY ----

* learn about [[security considerations when running a VM]]

* learn about [[Creating a Linux VM|creating a Linux VM]]