Compute Instances (Nova)

Okustera Compute provides high-performance, enterprise-grade virtual machines powered by OpenStack Nova and KVM hypervisors with hardware virtualization acceleration (/dev/kvm).

Whether running monolithic services, container hosts, or database servers, Okustera Compute delivers bare-metal performance, automated cloud-init provisioning, and integrated browser-based management tools.

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Key Capabilities

• Hardware-Accelerated KVM: Full CPU hardware virtualization with near-zero hypervisor overhead.
• Standard Flavors: Pre-configured instance sizes optimized for general-purpose, compute-intensive, and high-memory workloads.
• Automated Cloud-Init: Inject SSH keys, execute custom bootstrap scripts, install packages, and configure static networking during first boot.
• Persistent Boot-from-Volume: Fast ephemeral root disks or persistent Ceph-backed bootable volumes with live snapshotting.
• Interactive VNC/SPICE Web Console: Direct browser access to instance graphical or text consoles for out-of-band troubleshooting if SSH or networking is disconnected.
• Live Serial Boot Logs: View and tail kernel boot logs (console-log) directly from the Cloud Portal for fast diagnosis of cloud-init or boot failures.
• Instance Lifecycle Controls: Instant Start, Stop, Soft Reboot, Hard Reboot, Pause, Unpause, and Rebuild directly from the Cloud Console or REST API.

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Instance Flavors

Flavor Name	vCPU	RAM	Root Disk	Recommended Workloads
m1.tiny	1	512 MB	1 GB	Lightweight test agents, DNS forwarders
m1.small	1	2 GB	20 GB	Microservices, bastion hosts, dev servers
m1.medium	2	4 GB	40 GB	Web apps, CI/CD runners, small databases
m1.large	4	8 GB	80 GB	Production web services, medium databases
m1.xlarge	8	16 GB	160 GB	Enterprise backend clusters, analytics nodes

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Managing Instances in the Cloud Portal

The Okustera Cloud Portal (/compute) provides full lifecycle control over your virtual servers:

1. Launching an Instance

1. Navigate to Compute $\to$ Instances in the left sidebar.
2. Click Launch Instance:
   • Name: Enter a hostname (e.g. web-server-01).
   • Image: Select an official image from the Image Catalog (e.g. Ubuntu-24.04-LTS) or your custom image.
   • Flavor: Choose a resource size (e.g. m1.medium).
   • Network: Select your private VPC Subnet.
   • Security Groups: Attach one or more firewall security groups (e.g. default, web-sg).
   • SSH Keypair: Select an existing keypair or import a new public key.
   • User Data (Cloud-Init): Optionally paste a bash bootstrap script or cloud-config YAML.
3. Click Launch Instance. The server will boot in under 15 seconds.

2. Accessing the Out-of-Band VNC Web Console

If your instance becomes unreachable over SSH (e.g. firewall misconfiguration or network interface error):

1. In the Instances list, click on the instance name.
2. Click Web Console.
3. An interactive graphical VNC/SPICE terminal will open directly in your browser, granting out-of-band console access as if you were physically sitting in front of the machine.

3. Viewing Live Serial Boot Logs

To diagnose cloud-init provisioning errors or kernel panic states:

1. In the instance details panel, click Console Log.
2. The portal displays the serial console stream emitted by the operating system kernel and cloud-init during boot.

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Provisioning via Terraform

You can manage compute instances declaratively using the official Okustera Terraform provider:

# 1. SSH Keypair
resource "openstack_compute_keypair_v2" "deployer" {
  name       = "deployer-key"
  public_key = file("~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub")
}

# 2. Compute Instance
resource "okustera_compute_instance" "web_server" {
  name        = "web-server-01"
  image_name  = "Ubuntu-24.04-LTS"
  flavor_name = "m1.medium"
  key_name    = openstack_compute_keypair_v2.deployer.name
  network_id  = okustera_network.tenant_vpc.id
  security_groups = [
    okustera_security_group.web_sg.name
  ]

  user_data = <<-EOF
              #!/bin/bash
              apt-get update && apt-get install -y nginx
              systemctl enable --now nginx
              EOF
}

# 3. Associate Public Floating IP
resource "okustera_floating_ip" "web_fip" {
  pool = "public_external"
}

resource "okustera_floating_ip_associate" "web_fip_assoc" {
  floating_ip = okustera_floating_ip.web_fip.address
  instance_id = okustera_compute_instance.web_server.id
}

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Managing Instances via CLI

# List instances in current project
openstack server list

# Launch an instance with keypair and private network
openstack server create --image "Ubuntu-24.04-LTS" \
  --flavor m1.medium \
  --key-name deployer-key \
  --network tenant-vpc \
  web-server-01

# Trigger a soft reboot
openstack server reboot web-server-01

# View serial console boot logs
openstack console log show web-server-01

# Get interactive VNC console URL
openstack console url show web-server-01

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REST API Reference

• GET /api/v1/compute/instances — List all instances in current tenant project.
• POST /api/v1/compute/instances — Launch a new VM instance.
• GET /api/v1/compute/instances/{id} — Inspect instance state, IP addresses, and flavor.
• DELETE /api/v1/compute/instances/{id} — Terminate and delete an instance.
• POST /api/v1/compute/instances/{id}/action — Execute lifecycle action (reboot, start, stop, pause, unpause, rebuild).
• GET /api/v1/compute/instances/{id}/console — Retrieve interactive VNC/SPICE console URL.
• GET /api/v1/compute/instances/{id}/console-log — Retrieve live serial kernel logs.
• GET /api/v1/compute/flavors — List available compute resource flavors.