Instances are virtual machines that run inside the cloud. Before you can launch an instance, gather the following parameters: The instance source can be an image, snapshot, or block storage volume that contains an image or snapshot. A name for your instance. The flavor for your instance, which defines the compute, memory, and storage capacity of nova computing instances. A flavor is an available hardware configuration for a server. It defines the size of a virtual server that can be launched. Any user data files. A user data file is a special key in the metadata service that holds a file that cloud-aware applications in the guest instance can access. For example, one application that uses user data is the cloud-init system, which is an open-source package from Ubuntu that is available on various Linux distributions and that handles early initialization of a cloud instance. Access and security credentials, which include one or both of the following credentials: A key pair for your instance, which are SSH credentials that are injected into images when they are launched. For the key pair to be successfully injected, the image must contain the cloud-init package. Create at least one key pair for each project. If you already have generated a key pair with an external tool, you can import it into OpenStack. You can use the key pair for multiple instances that belong to that project. A security group that defines which incoming network traffic is forwarded to instances. Security groups hold a set of firewall policies, known as security group rules. If needed, you can assign a floating (public) IP address to a running instance. You can also attach a block storage device, or volume, for persistent storage. Instances that use the default security group cannot, by default, be accessed from any IP address outside of the cloud. If you want those IP addresses to access the instances, you must modify the rules for the default security group. You can also assign a floating IP address to a running instance to make it accessible from outside the cloud. See . After you gather the parameters that you need to launch an instance, you can launch it from an image or a volume. You can launch an instance directly from one of the available OpenStack images or from an image that you have copied to a persistent volume. The OpenStack Image Service provides a pool of images that are accessible to members of different projects.

Before you begin, source the OpenStack RC file. List the available flavors: $ nova flavor-list Note the ID of the flavor that you want to use for your instance: +-----+-----------+-----------+------+-----------+------+-------+-------------+-----------+ | ID | Name | Memory_MB | Disk | Ephemeral | Swap | VCPUs | RXTX_Factor | Is_Public | +-----+-----------+-----------+------+-----------+------+-------+-------------+-----------+ | 1 | m1.tiny | 512 | 1 | 0 | | 1 | 1.0 | True | | 2 | m1.small | 2048 | 20 | 0 | | 1 | 1.0 | True | | 3 | m1.medium | 4096 | 40 | 0 | | 2 | 1.0 | True | | 4 | m1.large | 8192 | 80 | 0 | | 4 | 1.0 | True | | 5 | m1.xlarge | 16384 | 160 | 0 | | 8 | 1.0 | True | +-----+-----------+-----------+------+-----------+------+-------+-------------+-----------+ List the available images: $ nova image-list Note the ID of the image from which you want to boot your instance: +--------------------------------------+---------------------------------+--------+--------+ | ID | Name | Status | Server | +--------------------------------------+---------------------------------+--------+--------+ | 397e713c-b95b-4186-ad46-6126863ea0a9 | cirros-0.3.2-x86_64-uec | ACTIVE | | | df430cc2-3406-4061-b635-a51c16e488ac | cirros-0.3.2-x86_64-uec-kernel | ACTIVE | | | 3cf852bd-2332-48f4-9ae4-7d926d50945e | cirros-0.3.2-x86_64-uec-ramdisk | ACTIVE | | +--------------------------------------+---------------------------------+--------+--------+ You can also filter the image list by using grep to find a specific image, as follows: $ nova image-list | grep 'kernel' | df430cc2-3406-4061-b635-a51c16e488ac | cirros-0.3.2-x86_64-uec-kernel | ACTIVE | | List the available security groups: If you are an admin user, specify the --all-tenants parameter to list groups for all tenants. $ nova secgroup-list --all-tenants Note the ID of the security group that you want to use for your instance:+----+---------+-------------+----------------------------------+ | Id | Name | Description | Tenant_ID | +----+---------+-------------+----------------------------------+ | 2 | default | default | 66265572db174a7aa66eba661f58eb9e | | 1 | default | default | b70d90d65e464582b6b2161cf3603ced | +----+---------+-------------+----------------------------------+ If you have not created any security groups, you can assign the instance to only the default security group. You can view rules for a specified security group: $ nova secgroup-list-rules default List the available key pairs and note the name of the key pair that you use for SSH access. $ nova keypair-list

After you gather required parameters, run the following command to launch an instance. Specify the server name, flavor ID, and image ID. Optionally, you can provide a key name for access control and a security group for security. You can also include metadata key and value pairs. For example, you can add a description for your server by providing the --meta description="My Server" parameter. You can pass user data in a local file at instance launch by using the --user-data USER-DATA-FILE parameter. $ nova boot --flavor FLAVOR_ID --image IMAGE_ID --key-name KEY_NAME \ --user-data USER_DATA_FILE --security-groups SEC_GROUP_NAME --meta KEY=VALUE \ INSTANCE_NAME The following command launches the MyCirrosServer instance with the m1.small flavor (ID of 1), cirros-0.3.2-x86_64-uec image (ID of 397e713c-b95b-4186-ad46-6126863ea0a9), default security group, KeyPair01 key, and a user data file called cloudinit.file: $ nova boot --flavor 1 --image 397e713c-b95b-4186-ad46-6126863ea0a9 \ --security-groups default --key-name KeyPair01 --user-data cloudinit.file \ myCirrosServer Depending on the parameters that you provide, the command returns a list of server properties. A status of BUILD indicates that the instance has started, but is not yet online. A status of ACTIVE indicates that the instance is active. +-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | Property | Value | +-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | OS-EXT-STS:task_state | scheduling | | image | cirros-0.3.2-x86_64-uec | | OS-EXT-STS:vm_state | building | | OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:instance_name | instance-00000002 | | flavor | m1.small | | id | b3cdc6c0-85a7-4904-ae85-71918f734048 | | security_groups | [{u'name': u'default'}] | | user_id | 376744b5910b4b4da7d8e6cb483b06a8 | | OS-DCF:diskConfig | MANUAL | | accessIPv4 | | | accessIPv6 | | | progress | 0 | | OS-EXT-STS:power_state | 0 | | OS-EXT-AZ:availability_zone | nova | | config_drive | | | status | BUILD | | updated | 2013-07-16T16:25:34Z | | hostId | | | OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host | None | | key_name | KeyPair01 | | OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:hypervisor_hostname | None | | name | myCirrosServer | | adminPass | tVs5pL8HcPGw | | tenant_id | 66265572db174a7aa66eba661f58eb9e | | created | 2013-07-16T16:25:34Z | | metadata | {u'KEY': u'VALUE'} | +-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ Copy the server ID value from the id field in the output. You use this ID to get details for or delete your server. Copy the administrative password value from the adminPass field. You use this value to log in to your server. You can also place arbitrary local files into the instance file system at creation time by using the --file <dst-path=src-path> option. You can store up to five files. For example, if you have a special authorized keys file named special_authorized_keysfile that you want to put on the instance rather than using the regular SSH key injection, you can use the --file option as shown in the following example: $ nova boot --image ubuntu-cloudimage --flavor 1 vm-name \ --file /root/.ssh/authorized_keys=special_authorized_keysfile Check if the instance is online: $ nova list The list shows the ID, name, status, and private (and if assigned, public) IP addresses for all instances in the project to which you belong: +--------------------------------------+----------------------+--------+------------+-------------+------------------+ | ID | Name | Status | Task State | Power State | Networks | +--------------------------------------+----------------------+--------+------------+-------------+------------------+ | 84c6e57d-a6b1-44b6-81eb-fcb36afd31b5 | myCirrosServer | ACTIVE | None | Running | private=10.0.0.3 | | 8a99547e-7385-4ad1-ae50-4ecfaaad5f42 | myInstanceFromVolume | ACTIVE | None | Running | private=10.0.0.4 | +--------------------------------------+----------------------+--------+------------+-------------+------------------+ If the status for the instance is ACTIVE, the instance is online. To view the available options for the nova list command, run the following command: $ nova help list If you did not provide a key pair, security groups, or rules, you can access the instance only from inside the cloud through VNC. Even pinging the instance is not possible.