Getting Started
Most interaction with Brightbox Cloud is through our command line interface (which uses our API). This guide will take you from creating a Brightbox Account to logging into your first Cloud Server via SSH.
Create an Account and API Client
Firstly, sign up for a Brightbox Cloud Account using Brightbox Manager. You’ll need a phone number in the country you’re registering the account to, and a valid credit card.
Once you’ve signed up, you now need to create an API Client which you’ll use to configure the CLI below. An API Client is simply a pair of access credentials for accessing the API, consisting of a client identifier (like cli-xxxxx) and a secret.
Initial setup
Installation
Now that you have an account and an API Client, you’ll need to install the cli software. Go do that and come back here. I’ll wait for you.
Configuration
You can now configure the CLI with the credentials for the API client you created.
To configure the cli with these credentials, run the following command:
$ brightbox-config client_add cli-xxxxx thesecretstring
Using config file /home/john/.brightbox/config
Creating new api client config cli-xxxxxInitial test
You should be able to retrieve details of your user now. Note your id as you’ll need it in a moment:
$ brightbox-users list
id name email_address accounts
-------------------------------------------------------
usr-xxxxx John Doe john@example.com 1
-------------------------------------------------------Configuring your ssh key
You need to upload your public ssh key so that you can log into newly created servers:
$ brightbox-users update -f my-ssh-key.pub usr-xxxxx
id: usr-xxxxx
name: John Doe
email_address: john@example.com
accounts: acc-xxxxx
ssh_key: ssh-dss AAAAB3....Building your first server
Choose an image
First, let’s choose an operating system Image to use:
$ brightbox-images list
id owner type created_on status size name
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
img-3rb1e brightbox official 2011-04-19 public 0 Blank disk image (i686)
img-715uq brightbox official 2011-04-19 public 0 Blank disk image (x86_64)
img-adtke brightbox official 2011-07-20 public 0 Blank disk image (compat) (i686)
img-ztdma brightbox official 2011-07-20 public 0 Blank disk image (compat) (x86_64)
img-99q79 brightbox official 2010-10-02 public 10244 CentOS 5.5 server (i686)
img-pnqnc brightbox official 2010-10-03 public 10240 CentOS 5.5 server (x86_64)
img-qjuex brightbox official 2010-10-14 public 10244 Fedora 14 Beta Base (i686)
img-vyeeg brightbox official 2010-10-15 public 10244 Fedora 14 Beta Base (x86_64)
img-1okdf brightbox official 2010-11-19 public 20480 FreeBSD 8.1 minimal (i686)
img-aoubd brightbox official 2010-11-19 public 20480 FreeBSD 8.1 minimal (x86_64)
img-ofzk3 brightbox official 2012-01-18 public 769 Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS server (i686)
img-jrob7 brightbox official 2012-01-18 public 769 Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS server (x86_64)
img-hg05n brightbox official 2012-01-18 public 769 Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 server (i686)
img-n862a brightbox official 2012-01-18 public 769 Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 server (x86_64)
img-m7s1g brightbox official 2012-01-18 public 769 Ubuntu Natty 11.04 server (i686)
img-2dbi8 brightbox official 2012-01-18 public 1025 Ubuntu Natty 11.04 server (x86_64)
img-b0s21 brightbox official 2012-01-18 public 1025 Ubuntu Oneiric 11.10 server (i686)
img-ytx00 brightbox official 2012-01-18 public 1025 Ubuntu Oneiric 11.10 server (x86_64)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Let’s go with i686 Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 server, which is has an identifier of img-ofzk3. We’ll get the description of it, which should have some notes about how to access it once it’s booted. This username field shows that the default account is named ubuntu.
$ brightbox-images show img-ofzk3
id: img-ofzk3
type: official
owner: brightbox
created_at: 2012-01-18T06:48
status: public
arch: i686
name: Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS server (i686)
description: Standard server with cloud-init
username: ubuntu
virtual_size: 769
disk_size: 524
public: true
compatibility_mode: false
official: true
ancestor_id: Create the server
Now you can create a server using that image. Give it a name of my
first server so you can identify it easily later:
$ brightbox-servers create -n "my first server" img-ofzk3
Creating 1 'nano' (typ-4nssg) server with image Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 server (img-ofzk3)
id status type zone created_on image_id cloud_ips name
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
srv-zx1hd creating nano gb1-b 2011-03-15 img-ofzk3 my first server
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Note that the new server has been given the identifier srv-zx1hd.
If you wait a few moments and show the details of the new server, it should have changed status from creating to active, which means it has been built and has started up:
$ brightbox-servers show srv-zx1hd
id: srv-zx1hd
status: active
name: my first server
created_at: 2011-03-15T00:24
deleted_at:
zone: gb1-a
type: typ-4nssg
type_name: Brightbox Nano Instance
type_handle: nano
ram: 512
cores: 2
disk: 10240
image: img-ofzk3
image_name: Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS server
private_ips: 10.146.19.166
cloud_ips:
ipv6_address: 2a02:1348:14c:4f3:24:19ff:fef0:13ce
cloud_ip_ids:
hostname: srv-zk1hd.gb1.brightbox.com
public_hostname:
ipv6_hostname: ipv6.srv-zk1hd.gb1.brightbox.com
snapshots:
server_groups: grp-98v4nMapping a cloud IP
So now you have a server with a IPv6 address and a private IPv4 address. You can reach it straight away if you have an IPv6 Internet connection:
$ ping6 ipv6.srv-zx1hd.gb1.brightbox.com
PING ipv6.srv-zx1hd.gb1.brightbox.com(2a02:1348:14c:4f3:24:19ff:fef0:13ce) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 2a02:1348:14c:4f3:24:19ff:fef0:13ce: icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=13.8 ms
--- ipv6.srv-qdhro.gb1.brightbox.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 13.876/13.876/13.876/0.000 msTo give it a public IPv4 address, you need to map a Cloud IP to it. Firstly, create a Cloud IP on your account:
$ brightbox-cloudips create
id status public_ip server_id interface_id reverse_dns
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
cip-3b0ha unmapped 109.107.35.239 cip-109-107-35-239.gb1.brightbox.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Then map it to your server using the Cloud IP identifier and your server identifier:
$ brightbox-cloudips map cip-3b0ha srv-zx1hd
Mapping cip-3b0ha to interface int-x4kve on srv-zx1hd
id status public_ip server_id interface_id reverse_dns
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
cip-3b0ha mapped 109.107.35.239 srv-zx1hd int-x4kve cip-109-107-35-239.gb1.brightbox.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Now you can log in via ssh using your ssh key. Remember, this image uses the ubuntu account by default:
$ ssh ubuntu@109.107.35.239
Linux srv-zx1hd 2.6.32-24-generic-pae #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 20 15:37:22 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux
Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
ubuntu@srv-zx1hd:~$ uptime
13:02:07 up 0:01, 1 user, load average: 0.04, 0.01, 0.00For convenience, there is also a dns entry for the first Cloud IP mapped to a server:
$ host public.srv-zx1hd.gb1.brightbox.com
public.srv-zx1hd.gb1.brightbox.com has address 109.107.35.239Would you like to know more?
Here you installed and configured the Command Line Interface tool, created an Ubuntu server, mapped a Cloud IP to it and connected in using ssh.
You might want to learn more about Cloud IPs, discover zones or learn how to Create a snapshot.
You might also want to learn a bit about the default firewall policy, and how to change it.
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