Creating a Virtual Machine

Creating a new virtual machine in Supercell is as easy as filling out a form to select your CPUs, RAM, disk space, and operating system.

Too Long, Didn’t Read Version

• Be sure you enable an ssh key for your account

• Create a VM

  • Instance Name: whatever.osuosl.test
  • DNS Name Check: Unchecked
  • Disk Template: Plain
  • Enter values for CPU, Memory, and Disk

• Connect via Console tab or via SSH

Detailed Instructions

Logging in

• Login to https://ganeti-supercell.osuosl.org
• Before you create a VM, you should be sure to add your ssh key to your Supercell account so that it will be automatically copied into VMs you create.
• Click Virtual Machines on the left-side navigation, then click on the Add Virtual Machine button.

Virtual Machine Settings

Owner:

Select the user or group which should have access to the VM here. They will be given full admin rights to control the VM. If you only belong to one group on Supercell, then that group will be selected and this option will be greyed out.

Cluster:

This defines which Ganeti cluster to create the VM on. You should not need to change this.

Instance Name:

This is the fully qualified hostname of the VM you are creating. This needs to be in the osuosl.test domain. Example: jeffqa1.osuosl.test

Start up After Creation:

If checked, the VM will start up automatically after it is created.

DNS Name Check:

This will do a DNS check on the hostname you enter. This should always be UNCHECKED on Supercell.

Automatic Allocation:

This will automatically allocate the VM on a physical server. In general, this should remain checked. If unchecked, you will be presented with an option to choose which physical server to create the VM on.

Disk Template:

Select plain

Operating System:

Choose the operating system you would like to install. Default Linux installs are 64-bit, 32-bit installs are noted in the name.

General Parameters

Virtual CPUs:

The number of CPUs to assign to the VM. Default is 2.

Memory:

RAM (in MB) to assign to the VM. Default is 512.

Disk Size:

size of the disk to allocate the the VM, in MB.

Note

by default a swap partition is created using the same size as RAM.

Disk Type:

How to present the disk to the VM, you likely don’t want to change this. Default: paravirtual

NIC Mode:

Networking setup. This should be set to bridged.

NIC Type:

Network driver. This should be set to paravirtual.

Hypervisor Parameters

Kernel Path:

Leave this blank.

Root Path:

Leave this as the default, /dev/vda3

Enable Serial Console:

Leave this unchecked.

Boot Device:

Which device to boot off of. You likely want the default of Hard Disk.

Next, click Create and your virtual machine will be created with the settings you entered.

Once created, you will be redirected to the VM Overview page describing your new VM. If you selected to start up after creation, your VM will be running and you can now connect to it by logging in as root (default password is: ‘FlyingManatees’, please change it!) under the Console tab or by connecting via ssh. See ssh connection information for details on how to connect via ssh.