ISO virtual servers are created from the ISOs uploaded to the Control Panel and saved as specific ISO templates. The ISOs are uploaded at the Control Panel > Templates menu. For more information, refer to the ISO section of this guide.
To create a virtual server from the ISO:
- Go to your Control Panel's Virtual Servers menu and click the "+" button, or click the Create Virtual Server button at the bottom of the screen. This will start a VS creation wizard.
- Fill in the wizard step by step. Each of these steps is described in the corresponding sections below.
- Click the Create Virtual Server button to start the creation process. You will be taken to the virtual server details screen.
It is required that you perform additional network configuration during ISO installation. For more information refer to Confirmation step below.
Step 1 of 4. Templates
To choose a template:
- Click the ISO template group.
- Select the template.
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Click Next.
Proceed to the following step of the wizard and specify the virtual server properties.
Step 2 of 4. Virtual Server Properties
At this step you need to indicate your virtual server's properties.
Specify the following virtual server properties:
- Label - the label of the virtual server. The required parameter.
Click Next to proceed to the following step of the wizard to specify the virtual server resources.
Step 3 of 4. Resources
At this step, you can choose to create the virtual server either by selecting a predefined instance package or by setting your virtual server's resources, such as disk size, network configuration and other manually.
- A VS created using instance packages is called a instance package VS.
- A VS created by setting resources manually is called a custom virtual server.
Resources
Instance packages
Note that instance package VSs can only be created on compute resources within compute zones where all compute resources are assigned the same amount of CPU units. If there are compute resources with different amount of CPU units set in a zone, it will not be possible to create instance package VSs in such zones. The reason is that CPU priority for instance package VSs in this configuration cannot be set to 100%, which is the default value for such virtual servers.
If there are no available IP addresses during VS creation, all instance packages will be grayed out in the wizard.
From this tab, you can choose one of the predefined instance packages for your virtual server. If you select a compute zone that does not have enough resources during virtual server creation, you will see all instance packages available to you, but those that have resources incompatible with the chosen compute zone will be grayed out. Grayed out instance packages cannot be selected.
For each of the instance packages the following details are displayed:
- Memory - the RAM size (GB) available in the instance package
- CPUs - the number of CPU cores available in this instance package
- Disk Size - the disk size available in this instance package
- Bandwidth - the bandwidth available in this instance package
- Price per Hour:
- Mode ON - hourly instance package price for the VS powered on
- Mode OFF - hourly instance package price for the VS powered off
- Price per Month:
- Mode ON - monthly instance package price for the VS powered on
- Mode OFF - monthly instance package price for the VS powered on
Click the instance package to select it. After that, the instance package you have chosen will be highlighted in green.
Virtual servers created using instance packages do not support autoscaling.
Create Your Own
Using this tab you can define the resources for your virtual server manually:
Compute Resources
- Compute Zone - the Compute zone to build the VS on
- Compute Resource - the specific Compute resource to build the VS on. Compute resource may be selected automatically according to the set provisioning type.
Resources
- RAM - set the amount of virtual server's RAM. The maximum RAM depends on your billing plan's settings. The maximum RAM that can be assigned to a VS is 168 GB regardless of the Max RAM value set in the billing plan. The maximum RAM that can be assigned to a VS built on a XEN 32bit (x86) template is 16 GB.
- CPU Cores - set the amount of virtual server's CPU cores. For KVM Compute resources, this parameter sets CPU sockets by default, unless CPU topology is enabled.
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CPU Priority (or CPU Units) - set virtual server's CPU priority. If the CPU units are switched on in the billing plan for this user, then CPU priority is replaced with CPU units. Refer to Billing Calculation section for details on CPU units and CPU priority.
Do not use CPU Units for KVM Compute resources running on CentOS5.
The following options are available for VSs based on KVM Compute resources only, providing the Enable CPU topology permission is switched on for the user.
- Use CPU Topology - move the slider to the right, to set the following parameters:
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CPU Sockets - set the amount of sockets.
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CPU Threads - set the amount of threads per core.
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CPU topology (CPU sockets and CPU threads) is the Labs feature preview. Pay attention that setting CPU sockets and CPU threads are at your own risk only!
You may face the following problems when setting CPU topology:
- Currently you cannot set CPU sockets and threads parameters for existing VSs.
- After setting, the new parameters won't be shown at the VS details screen.
- Some Linux VSs fail to boot up.
- When sockets and threads are set incorrectly, you may face huge load on Compute resource's under CentOS 5.x.
Primary Disk
- Data Store Zone - choose a data store zone for VS's primary disk.
- Primary disk size - set the primary disk size.
Swap Disk
- Data Store Zone - choose a data store zone for VS's swap disk.
- Swap disk size - set the swap disk size. There is no swap disk for Windows-based VSs. In all other cases, swap disk size must be greater than zero.
Network Configuration
- Network Zone - choose a network zone from the drop-down box.
- Show only my IP address - tick this checkbox to view only own IP addresses in the IP addresses dropbox.
- Show IP address selection for new VS - if the option is available, you can also assign an IP address for the VS from the drop-down menu. Indicate Compute resource and network to have the list of available IPs.
- Port Speed - set the port speed for this VS
- Show IP address selection for new VS option is enabled via the "Specify a network address on new VS page" checkbox on the Settings > Configuration settings screen (under the System tab).
- You can't select unlimited port speed if the Network Zone is not selected. In this case the port speed will be 1 by default.
It's possible to create virtual server with unlimited network speed without selecting a network zone only if you have only one Network Zone assigned to your billing plan.
Click Next to proceed to the last step of the wizard.
Step 4 of 4. Confirmation
- Move the Boot Virtual Server slider to the right if you want the virtual server to be started up automatically.
After you set up these parameters, click the Create Virtual Server button to start the creation process.
At the Confirmation step you can find the configuration summary of VS, which will be created. You can view template's name, RAM size, number of networks, primary disk and swap disk size, number of cores.
When virtual server is created, you will be redirected to VS details page. Take the following steps to finish ISO installation process:
- Go to VS Networking tab > IP Addresses.
- Copy the following data: IP Address, netmask, gateway, resolver (DNS).
- Go to console, where ISO installation process is running and enter copied IP Address, netmask, gateway and resolver (DNS).
