Accessing Instances

After you create an instance and associate a floating IP address with it, you will want to log in to it. If your instance was created from one of the standard Jetstream2 images, it probably only has one default user account enabled. In some cases, that will be the "root" account. For other images, the default account for a CentOS system will be "centos" and for an Ubuntu system it will be "ubuntu". For most images, SSH logins with passwords have been disabled. As such, your only method of logging in for the first time is using the ssh command while providing your private security key:

ssh -i private_key_file.pem user_account@floating_IP_address

Once you are logged in through SSH, you can set a password for the default account and create other user accounts as you see fit. At this point, you will be able to use Horizon's "console" feature to access the instance. Under Project→Compute→Instances, click on the name of your instance. When the instance overview is visible, click the Console tab. Depending on whether your instance includes a graphical display, you will now see either a terminal window or the instance's graphical desktop. You can use the accounts and passwords you created to log in here.

The basic Jetstream2 topic has information on using SSH from a terminal, but you may need to adjust those instructions to reflect your instance's user account and the differences between Exosphere and Horizon. If your instance has a graphical display, you can also use the Virtual Network Computing (VNC) functionality to access the desktop.

Managing Instances

There are many actions you can perform on your instance, and they are all available from the dropdown menu at the right side of your instance's entry in the project's list of instances. The contents of this menu will change depending on the state of your instance. Once your instance is all set up, you are most likely to use the actions that are related to how your instance is running, which affect the charges it incurs. These actions are described below.

Shelve

In order to suspend all computational charges for the use of your instance, you need to "shelve" it when you are not using it. The "pause" and "suspend" options may sound like they do the same thing, but they do not and the instance will continue to incur charges when in those modes.

Unshelve

To retrieve a shelved instance, you must "unshelve" it. Doing so will bring it back online and start it (return it to the "Running" power state).

Delete

When you no longer need your instance, select the "Delete" action to destroy it. This action is not reversible. Deleting the instance should eliminate further storage-related charges for the instance, as long as the instance's volume was deleted along with the instance itself. If the image creation option that controls this did not specify that the volume should be deleted, you can go to Project→Volumes→Volumes to search for and delete an instance's former volume.

Resize

This action changes the "flavor" of your instance.