Skip to content

Guide: My first server

First access

Go to https://cloud.rlnc.eu, follow the authentication flow you've been provided during onboarding.

If this is the very first time you've logged in, you may get an error message Login failed: You are not authorized for any projects or domains. This is because your user is created on first login, and access can't be assigned before your user is created. A periodic task will fix this for you after a 30-60 minute wait.

After successful login, you will get an overview of what resources and quotas you have available.

Network

First step is to make a network. Network > Networks. You will have one predefined, Internet. Click + Create Network. You'll get a popup.

  • In first tab, Network, you don't need to change anything, but a name can be nice, like "internal".
  • In the second tab, Subnet set a name (optional) and select "Allocate Network Address from a pool" along with Address pool "ipv4-rfc1918."

IP version should stay at IPv4 and Gateway IP will be automatically set.

Router

Next you need a router. Network > Routers. Click + Create Router, and you will get another popup.

Router Name can be left empty, but "router" is nice. Select Internet as External Network. Availability Zone Hints is best left alone with all three sites so the network will work in all our data centres.

Now you need to add a connection between the router you created and the subnet. Click on the router, and click + Add Interface. Select your Subnet, "internal".

Security group

In order to access the VM you will be creating, you need to add some firewall rules to allow SSH from your workstation. Network > Security Groups. Click + Create Security Group to get the popup.

This creates a "folder" for your rules. You can make several of these, to group the rules logically. Let's call this one "remote administration".

You will get a new view with two predefined rules in this security group ("SG"): All egress traffic, ie. connections coming from your VM, will be allowed to the world. Feel free to delete these if you are paranoid.

Click + Add Rule. We want a Rule for "SSH" (this is just a shorthand for writing 22 in the Port field). Direction Ingress is correct - inbound traffic. We only allow a small section of the Internet by changing CIDR to, e.g. your public IP as returned by https://ipify.org. It is recommended to add another rule to allow All ICMP (i.e., ping, path mtu discovery etc.) from the whole world (0.0.0.0/0).

Server

Finally we are ready to create an actual server. Compute > Instances. Click Launch Instance.

This popup has many steps in a column on the left. Steps which need more attention are marked with an *.

  • Details - Fill in an Instance Name. I like to make this a fully qualified name so that logs across projects make more sense, e.g., "alice.mydomain.com". The project has its own name space, so you don't have to worry about name collisions, though. Leave Availability Zone as it is, you want the VM to be able to run anywhere. Also you probably don't want to make more than 1 VM.
  • Source - For your first VM, you will want Select Boot Source "Image" and Delete Volume on Instance Delete "Yes". The available images are listed under, well, Available. Choose a distro by pressing the Up arrow next to it. This will adjust Volume Size to the minimal working volume size. You can increase this if you want more room, but keep in mind that you can create a separate volume for data and attach that later, which is convenient if you wish to re-establish your VM without losing data.
  • Flavor - Pick the size of the VM you want, e.g., "g4b.medium".
  • Network - This will pre-select the network you made earlier, "internal".
  • Network Ports - This can be skipped.
  • Security Groups - Add your "remote administration" security group by clicking the Up arrow to move it from Available to Allocated.
  • Key Pair - This is where you add your SSH key so that you can log into your VM when it has been installed. Click Import Key Pair and choose Key Type "SSH Key". Give it a Key Pair Name which identifies you - I once picked the name "myself" which looks embarrassing and confusing when used in projects other than my own... Finally paste your preferred public key into the Public Key text area. Now click Launch Instance to kick off creation.

Floating IP

Your VM will have been assigned a random IP address in your subnet, but this subnet is not accessible from the outside. Go to Network > Floating IPs, and click Allocate IP To Project.

For now, there is only one Pool, and you will not have set up OpenStack Designate to manage your DNS Zone, so click Allocate IP.

Now you can Associate the allocated IP. Port to be associated will only have one alternative, the internal IP address which was given to your VM earlier.

Logging in

You should now be able to log into your new VM. (Replace IP address below with the Floating IP you were allocated.)

  • Alma Linux: ssh almalinux@87.238.54.115
  • Ubuntu: ssh ubuntu@87.238.54.115
  • Debian: ssh debian@87.238.54.115