Create Your First Linux Server

Have you created a SkyAtlas Cloud Account and obtained access to the services? Then you are ready to create your first Linux server!

Create a Key Pair

A key pair is essentially an SSH key that allows you to log in to your server.

You can import your existing SSH key or create a new one. You can refer to this guide.

Create a Router and Network

A router and network essentially provide the network infrastructure for your server. They are cloud services that enable your server's internet access and connectivity with other servers.

Network selection is mandatory when creating a server. If your server requires internet access, there should be a router connected to your network. You can either choose an existing network or create a new one for server creation. For network operations and router operations, you can refer to the guides linked.

Create an Instance

Panel CLI

Go to the Instances Section

Go to the "Compute" section on the panel and navigate to the Instances section.

Launch an Instance

Click the "Launch Instance" button to start the instance creation process.

Fill in the Details

Gradually enter the required information for the instance:

Screenshot

Instance Name: Provide a meaningful name and description for your virtual machine. This will be assigned as the hostname. Avoid special characters.

Example Names

"web-server, mysql-server, db-instance, windows-sql-server-2017"

Availability Zone: Choose one of the availability zones if desired.
Count: It will ultimately create the specified number of instances with the configurations you determined. The instance name will have a number appended as the last suffix.

Example Usage

If Count is set to 3, instances with names like web-server-1, web-server-2, web-server-3 will be created.

Instance Source

Instance Source: Choose an Ubuntu image as a template to create a Linux instance. You can specify the root disk capacity of your server with volume size.

Flavor

With your flavor selection, you set the resource allocations such as vCPU, RAM, Network Bandwidth for the instance you will create. For detailed information, you can refer to the Flavor concept document.

Add one of the flavors from the "Available" list to the "Allocated" list by clicking the button.

Networks

From the Networks section, choose one of the subnets belonging to the networks you can review.

Tip

If you have only one subnet, it will be preselected. If you have more than one subnet, you will need to make a choice.

Add one of the subnets from the "Available" list to the "Allocated" list by clicking the button.

Security Groups

You can choose one of the security groups from the security groups you can review under the Networks section.

Tip

The default "default" security group will be preselected. You can customize it by adding rules or create a new Security Group.

Add one of the security groups from the "Available" list to the "Allocated" list by clicking the button.

Key Pair

You can choose one of the key pairs from the key pairs you can review under the Key Pairs section.

Tip

If you have only one key pair, it will be preselected. If you have more than one key pair, you will need to make a choice.

Add one of the key pairs from the "Available" list to the "Allocated" list by clicking the button.

Confirm and Create the Instance

Review the details of the instance and click the "Launch Instance" button to confirm the creation.

Connect to the Server

If your network has a router gateway, you can assign a Floating IP to the server for remote access. Remote access is also possible through console access on the panel.

To assign a Floating IP, go to the server's actions menu, click "Associate Floating IP," and assign the Floating IP address.

Check the "IP Address" column of the instance, and you will see the Floating IP address along with the local IP address.

For remote access to Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Fedora), SSH protocol is commonly used.
Default users: ubuntu: ubuntu, debian: debian, centos: centos, fedora: fedora

#For Ubuntu
ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa ubuntu@<Floating IP>

Choose a flavor

$ openstack flavor list -c Name -c VCPUs -c RAM
+------------+--------+-------+
|    Name    |  RAM   | VCPUs |
+------------+--------+-------+
| B1-Small   |   2048 |     1 |
| B1-Medium  |   4096 |     2 |
| B1-Large   |   8192 |     4 |
| B1-XLarge  |  16384 |     8 |
| B1-2XLarge |  32768 |    16 |
| E1-Small   |   4096 |     1 |
| E1-Medium  |   8192 |     2 |
| E1-Large   |  16384 |     4 |
| E1-XLarge  |  32768 |     8 |
| E1-2XLarge |  65536 |    16 |
| X1-Small   |   8192 |     1 |
| X1-Medium  |  16384 |     2 |
| X1-Large   |  32768 |     4 |
| X1-XLarge  |  65536 |     8 |
| X1-2XLarge | 131072 |    16 |
+------------+--------+-------+

Choose an image (Operating System)

$ openstack image list --community -c Name
+--------------------------------------+
|                 Name                 |
+--------------------------------------+
| Ubuntu-18.04 Bionic                  |
| Ubuntu-20.04 Focal                   |
| Ubuntu-22.04 Jammy                   |
| CentOS 8                             |
| Fedora 35                            |
| Debian 10                            |
| Debian 11                            |
| Windows_Server_2016_Standart         |
| Windows_Server_2019_Standart         |
| Microsoft_SQL_Server_2017            |
| Microsoft_SQL_Server_2019            |
+--------------------------------------+

Check your instance is active

$ openstack server create --flavor B1-Small --image "Ubuntu-20.04 Focal" --key-name user_keypair --boot-from-volume 10 --network default-net --wait test-instance
$ openstack server show test-instance

Security Group

By default, no incoming traffic is allowed to your instance, but outgoing traffic is allowed.

To allow SSH connection, you need to add a rule to the default security group:

$ openstack security group rule create --ingress --protocol tcp --dst-port 22 --ethertype IPv4 default

More information is available here

Access your instance

$ ssh ubuntu@XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX