Create an Instance

Overview

Launching an instance creates a virtual machine on an Polystack Compute host. The Dashboard provides a 4-step wizard that walks you through base configuration, networking, system settings, and a confirmation review. Once active, the instance can be accessed via SSH, console, or RDP depending on the guest OS.

Windows VM from ISO

ISO boot with VirtIO driver injection, Sysprep, and image creation

Linux VM from ISO

Custom Linux installation from ISO with disk setup and image creation

Prerequisites

An active image in the Polystack Image Service (or an existing bootable volume)
A flavor appropriate for your workload
At least one network available in your project
An SSH key pair for Linux instances, or a configured password for Windows
A security group with the required inbound rules

Dashboard
CLI

The Instance Create wizard has 4 steps: Base Config, Network Config, System Config, and Confirm Config. An Instance Count input and real-time quota display are shown in the footer throughout all steps.

Open the Create Instance wizard

Navigate to Compute > Instances in the sidebar. Click Create Instance in the top-right corner.

Step 1 — Base Config

Configure the boot source, flavor, and storage.Available Zone (required) — Select the availability zone for host placement.

Administrators see an additional Pin to Host group that allows selecting a specific physical hypervisor (zone:hostname format). Regular users see only the zone names.

Specification (Flavor) (required) — Select the virtual hardware profile. The flavor table supports filtering by architecture and category:

Architecture	Categories
X86 Architecture	General Purpose, Compute Optimized, Memory Optimized, Big Data, Local SSD, High Clock Speed
Heterogeneous Computing	GPU Compute, Visualization Compute
Bare Metal	—
ARM Architecture	—

The table shows columns: Name, CPU, Memory, Internal Network Bandwidth, Ephemeral Disk (if applicable), and IOPS (if applicable). Filter by Name, CPU, or Memory.Start Source (required) — Select the boot source type:

Source	Description
Image	Boot from an OS image in the Polystack Image Service
Instance Snapshot	Restore from a previously captured instance snapshot
Bootable Volume	Boot from an existing persistent block storage volume (only shown if block storage is enabled)

When Image is selected, choose the operating system from tabs organized by distribution (CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Windows, Debian, CoreOS, Arch, FreeBSD, Others).Boot From Volume — When source is Image or Instance Snapshot:

Option	Description
Yes	Create a new system disk (persistent boot volume)
No	Boot directly from image (ephemeral root disk)

System Disk — Shown when Boot From Volume is Yes. Select:

Volume Type from available storage backends
Size (GiB) — minimum is determined by the flavor disk size, image minimum disk, and image size (whichever is largest)
Delete on Termination — whether to delete the boot volume when the instance is deleted

Data Disk (optional) — Add additional data disks. Click Add Data Disks to add one or more disks, each with Volume Type, Size, and Delete on Termination settings.

When source is Bootable Volume, the instance count is limited to 1 and the Data Disk section is shown for additional disks.

CD-ROM Source (optional) — Attach an ISO image or existing volume as a CD-ROM device:

Option	Description
None	No CD-ROM attached (default)
Image	Select an image to mount as CD-ROM
Volume	Select an existing volume to mount as CD-ROM

Step 2 — Network Config

Configure networking and security.Networks (required if no ports selected) — Select one or more networks from the available list. Networks without subnets are disabled.After selecting networks, a Virtual LAN section appears for each selected network with:

Field	Description
Network	Auto-populated from selection
Subnet	Dropdown of subnets in the selected network
IP Type	Automatically Assigned Address or Manually Assigned Address
IP Address	Manual IPv4 or IPv6 input (only when IP Type is manual)

If you specify a manual IP address AND set the instance count to more than 1, the wizard will block submission — manual IPs cannot be used with batch creation.

Ports (required if no networks selected) — Alternatively, select pre-created ports (only ports with status DOWN are shown). At least one network or port must be selected.Security Group (required when shown) — Select one or more security groups. This field is hidden if any selected network or port has port security disabled.

The security group rules apply to all virtual network interfaces of the instance, not just the primary interface.

Step 3 — System Config

Configure the instance name, login credentials, and advanced options.Name (required) — The instance display name. When launching multiple instances (count > 1), instances are named {name}-1, {name}-2, etc.Login Type (required) — Choose the authentication method:

Type	Description
Keypair	Select an existing SSH key pair or create a new one. Disabled for Windows images
Password	Set a login username and password. Required for Windows images

When Keypair is selected, choose from the key pair table or click Create Keypair to generate a new one.When Password is selected:

Login Name — Auto-populated from the image’s os_admin_user property if available, otherwise enter manually
Login Password — Must meet password complexity requirements
Confirm Password — Must match the login password

For Windows images, the Keypair option is automatically disabled. Password login is the only option for Windows instances.

Advanced Options — Click to expand additional settings:

Field	Visibility	Description
Physical Node	Admin only	Smart Scheduling (default) or Manually Specify a hypervisor
Server Group	All users	Select an existing server group for affinity/anti-affinity placement
User Data	All users	Cloud-init script (text area with file upload, ASCII only, max 1000 characters)
Virtual TPM	All users	Attach a virtual TPM device (requires Polystack KMS). See vTPM and Secure Boot
Secure Boot	All users	Require UEFI Secure Boot (requires Polystack KMS). See vTPM and Secure Boot

Virtual TPM and Secure Boot both require the Polystack Key Management service to be enabled on the cluster — both checkboxes are disabled otherwise. Full walkthrough: vTPM and Secure Boot.

Step 4 — Confirm Config

Review all settings before launching. The confirmation page shows a read-only summary organized into three sections:

Base Config — Source, system disk, data disks, availability zone, flavor, project
Network Config — Virtual LANs with subnet/IP assignments, selected ports, security groups
System Config — Instance name, login type, physical node, server group

Click any section heading to navigate back to that step for corrections.The footer shows the Instance Count and real-time quota usage:

Quota	Tracked
Instance	Count against instance limit
CPU	vCPUs x count against cores limit
Memory (GiB)	RAM x count against RAM limit
Volume	New volumes against volume limit
Volume Capacity (GiB)	Total new volume size against storage limit
Server Group Member	Members against group limit (when server group selected)

If any quota would be exceeded, a red badge is displayed and the Confirm button is disabled. Free up resources or contact your administrator to increase quotas.

Click Confirm to launch the instance.

The instance appears in the list with status Build, transitioning to Active within seconds to minutes depending on image size and host availability.

Authenticate

Load credentials

source openrc.sh

Gather required identifiers

openstack image list --status active

openstack flavor list

openstack network list

openstack keypair list

openstack security group list

Launch the instance

Create an instance from image

openstack server create \
  --image <IMAGE_ID> \
  --flavor <FLAVOR_NAME> \
  --network <NETWORK_ID> \
  --key-name <KEYPAIR_NAME> \
  --security-group <SECURITY_GROUP> \
  --availability-zone <ZONE_NAME> \
  my-instance

openstack server create \
  --volume <VOLUME_ID> \
  --flavor <FLAVOR_NAME> \
  --network <NETWORK_ID> \
  --key-name <KEYPAIR_NAME> \
  my-instance

openstack server create \
  --image <IMAGE_ID> \
  --boot-from-volume 50 \
  --flavor <FLAVOR_NAME> \
  --network <NETWORK_ID> \
  --key-name <KEYPAIR_NAME> \
  my-instance

openstack server create \
  --image <IMAGE_ID> \
  --flavor <FLAVOR_NAME> \
  --network <NETWORK_ID> \
  --key-name <KEYPAIR_NAME> \
  --user-data /path/to/init.sh \
  my-instance

openstack server create \
  --image <IMAGE_ID> \
  --flavor <FLAVOR_NAME> \
  --network <NETWORK_ID> \
  --key-name <KEYPAIR_NAME> \
  --hint group=<SERVER_GROUP_ID> \
  my-instance

openstack server create \
  --image <IMAGE_ID> \
  --flavor <FLAVOR_NAME> \
  --network <NETWORK_ID> \
  --key-name <KEYPAIR_NAME> \
  --min 3 --max 3 \
  my-instance

Verify the instance is active

Check instance status

openstack server show my-instance -c status -c addresses

status shows ACTIVE and addresses lists the assigned IP. The instance is ready to accept connections.

Post-Launch Verification

After the instance reaches ACTIVE status, confirm it is fully operational:

Dashboard
CLI

Open the instance detail

Navigate to Compute > Instances and click the instance name. The detail page shows 8 tabs: Detail, Volumes, Instance Snapshots, Interfaces, Floating IPs, Security Groups, Action Logs, and Logs.

Check console output

Click the Logs tab to view the serial console output. A successful boot shows login prompts or cloud-init completion messages.

Open the console

Click the Console action (the first row action) to open a VNC console in a new browser tab.

Check instance details

openstack server show my-instance \
  -c status -c addresses -c "OS-EXT-AZ:availability_zone"

View console log

openstack console log show my-instance | tail -30

Get VNC console URL

openstack console url show my-instance

Console log shows OS boot completion. Status is ACTIVE. IP address is present.

Next Steps

Security Groups

Create and manage firewall rules to control traffic to your instances

Manage IP Addresses

Allocate and associate floating IPs for external instance access

Resize an Instance

Change the flavor of a running instance to adjust vCPU and RAM

Server Groups

Control instance placement with affinity and anti-affinity policies

Core Services

Other Services

Create an Instance

Overview

Windows VM from ISO

Linux VM from ISO