Creating a VM from a public Linux image

This section provides guidelines for creating a VM with a Linux OS. To create a Windows-based VM, follow the instructions Creating a VM from a Windows public image.

To create a VM:

Management console

CLI

API

To create a VM:

In the management console, select a folder to create a VM in.
In the list of services, select Compute Cloud.
Click Create VM.
Under Basic parameters:
- Enter a name and description for the VM. Naming requirements:
  - The name must be unique within the folder.
  - The name may contain lowercase Latin letters, numbers, and hyphens.
  - The first character must be a letter. The last character can't be a hyphen.
  - The maximum length of the name is 63 characters.
  Note
  
  The VM name is used one time only when creating a VM, to generate the FQDN. If the FQDN is important to you, choose an appropriate name for the virtual machine at the creation stage. For more information about generating the FQDN, see Hostname and FQDN.
- (optional) Select or create a service account. By using a service account, you can flexibly configure access rights for your resources.
- Select the availability zone to host the VM in.
Select an image and a Linux-based OS version under Public images.
(optional) Configure the boot disk under Disks:
- Specify the necessary disk size.
- Select a disk type.
If you want to create an instance from an existing disk, go to Disks to add a disk.
Under Computing resources:
- Choose the platform.
- Specify the guaranteed share and number of vCPUs and RAM you need.
- If necessary, make your VM preemptible.
Under Network settings:
- Specify the subnet ID or select a cloud network from the list. If you don't have a network, click Create a new network to create one:
  - In the window that opens, enter a name for the new network and choose a subnet to connect the virtual machine to. Each network must have at least one subnet (if there's no subnet, create one). Then click Create.
- In the Public IP field, choose a method for assigning an IP address:
  - Auto: Assign a random IP address from the Yandex.Cloud IP pool.
  - List: Select a public IP address from the list of previously reserved static addresses. For more information, see Making a dynamic public IP address static.
  - No address: Don't assign a public IP address.
- (optional) Enable DDoS protection.
Under Access, specify the data required to access the VM:
- Enter the username in the Login field.
  
  Alert
  
  Don't use the username root or other names reserved by the operating system. To perform operations that require superuser permissions, use the command sudo.
- In the SSH key field, paste the contents of the public key file.
Click Create VM.

The virtual machine appears in the list. When a VM is being created, it is assigned an IP address and hostname (FQDN).

If you don't have the Yandex.Cloud command line interface yet, install it.

The folder specified in the CLI profile is used by default. You can specify a different folder using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

View the description of the CLI command for creating a VM:
```
$ yc compute instance create --help
```
Prepare the key pair (public and private keys) for SSH access to the VM.

Select a public image based on a Linux OS (for example, CentOS 7).

To get a list of available images, run the following command:

$ yc compute image list --folder-id standard-images
+----------------------+-------------------------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+--------+
|          ID          |                NAME                 |          FAMILY          |     PRODUCT IDS      | STATUS |
+----------------------+-------------------------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+--------+
...
| fdvk34al8k5nltb58shr | centos-7-1549279494                 | centos-7                 | dqni65lfhvv2den5gtv9 | READY  |
| fdv7ooobjfl3ts9gqp0q | windows-2016-gvlk-1548913814        | windows-2016-gvlk        | dqnnc72gj2ist3ktjj1p | READY  |
| fdv4f5kv5cvf3ohu4flt | ubuntu-1604-lts-1549457823          | ubuntu-1604-lts          | dqnnb6dc7640c5i968ro | READY  |
...
+----------------------+-------------------------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+--------+

Select a subnet:

$ yc vpc subnet list
+----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+----------------+---------------+-----------------+
|          ID          |         NAME          |      NETWORK ID      | ROUTE TABLE ID |     ZONE      |      RANGE      |
+----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+----------------+---------------+-----------------+
| b0c6n43f9lgh3695v2k2 | default-ru-central1-c | enpe3m3fa00udao8g5lg |                | ru-central1-c | [10.130.0.0/24] |
| e2l2da8a20b33g7o73bv | default-ru-central1-b | enpe3m3fa00udao8g5lg |                | ru-central1-b | [10.129.0.0/24] |
| e9bnlm18l70ao30pvfaa | default-ru-central1-a | enpe3m3fa00udao8g5lg |                | ru-central1-a | [10.128.0.0/24] |
+----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+----------------+---------------+-----------------+

Create a VM in the default folder. Specify the following parameters:
- name: VM name.
  
  Note
  
  The VM name is used one time only when creating a VM, to generate the FQDN. If the FQDN is important to you, choose an appropriate name for the virtual machine at the creation stage. For more information about generating the FQDN, see Hostname and FQDN.
- zone: Availability zone that corresponds to the selected subnet.
- subnet-name: Name of the selected subnet.
- image-family: Family of images, such as centos-7. This option lets you install the latest version of the operating system from the specified family.
- Public IP. To create a VM without a public IP address, disable the nat-ip-version=ipv4 option.
```
$ yc compute instance create \
    --name first-instance \
    --zone ru-central1-a \
    --network-interface subnet-name=default-ru-central1-a,nat-ip-version=ipv4 \
    --create-boot-disk image-folder-id=standard-images,image-family=centos-7 \
    --ssh-key ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
```
This creates a VM named first-instance.

Create a VM using the method Create for the resource Instance:

Prepare the key pair (public and private keys) for SSH access to the VM.
Get an IAM token for authenticating in the examples:
- Instructions for users with a Yandex account.
- Instructions for a service account.
Get the ID of the folder.
Get information about the image to create your virtual machine from (image ID and minimum disk size):
- If you know the image family, get information about the latest image in this family:
```
$ export IAM_TOKEN=CggaATEVAgA...
$ export FAMILY=ubuntu-1804
$ curl -H "Authorization: Bearer ${IAM_TOKEN}" \
  "https://compute.api.cloud.yandex.net/compute/v1/images:latestByFamily?folderId=standard-images&family=${FAMILY}"
```
- You can get information about the image from the list of public images.

Get the subnet ID and availability zone ID. Specify the ID of the folder where the subnet was created in your request:

$ export IAM_TOKEN=CggaATEVAgA...
$ export FOLDER_ID=b1gvmob95yysaplct532
$ curl -H "Authorization: Bearer ${IAM_TOKEN}" \
  "https://vpc.api.cloud.yandex.net/vpc/v1/subnets?folderId=${FOLDER_ID}"
{
 "subnets": [
  {
   "v4CidrBlocks": [
    "10.130.0.0/24"
   ],
   "id": "b0c6n43ftldh30l0vfg2",
   "folderId": "b1gvmob95yysaplct532",
   "createdAt": "2018-09-23T12:15:00Z",
   "name": "default-ru-central1-c",
   "description": "Auto-created default subnet for zone ru-central1-c",
   "networkId": "enpe3m3fagludao8aslg",
   "zoneId": "ru-central1-c"
  },
  ...
 ]
}

Create a file where the body contains your request for VM creation (for example, body.json). Specify the following parameters:

folderId: ID of the folder.
name: Name to be assigned to the VM when it's created.
zoneId: Availability zone that corresponds to the selected subnet.
platformId: The platform.
resourceSpec: Resources available to the VM. The values must match the selected platform.
metadata: In the metadata, pass the public key for accessing the VM via SSH. For more information, see VM instance metadata.
bootDiskSpec: Boot disk settings. Specify the ID of the selected image and disk size. The disk size must not be below the minimum value specified in the image details.
networkInterfaceSpecs: Network settings.
- subnetId: ID of the selected subnet.
- primaryV4AddressSpec: IP address to be assigned to the VM. To add a public IP address to your virtual machine, specify:
```
"primaryV4AddressSpec": {
    "oneToOneNatSpec": {
      "ipVersion": "IPV4"
    }
  }
```

Read more about the request body format in the API reference.

Example body.json file:

{
  "folderId": "b1gvmob95yysaplct532",
  "name": "instance-demo-no-pwauth",
  "zoneId": "ru-central1-c",
  "platformId": "standard-v1",
  "resourcesSpec": {
    "memory": "2147483648",
    "cores": "2",
  },
  "metadata": {
    "user-data": "#cloud-config\nusers:\n  - name: user\n    groups: sudo\n    shell: /bin/bash\n    sudo: ['ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL']\n    ssh-authorized-keys:\n      - ssh-rsa AAAAB3N... user@example.com"
  },
  "bootDiskSpec": {
    "diskSpec": {
      "size": "2621440000",
      "imageId": "fd8rc75pn12fe3u2dnmb"
    }
  },
  "networkInterfaceSpecs": [
    {
      "subnetId": "b0c6n43ftldh30l0vfg2",
      "primaryV4AddressSpec": {
        "oneToOneNatSpec": {
          "ipVersion": "IPV4"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Create a virtual machine:

$ export IAM_TOKEN=CggaATEVAgA...
$ curl -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${IAM_TOKEN}" \
  -d '@body.json' \
  https://compute.api.cloud.yandex.net/compute/v1/instances

When a VM is created, it is assigned an IP address and hostname (FQDN). This data can be used for SSH access.

You can make a public IP address static. For more information, see Making a VM's public IP address static.

Creating a VM from a public Linux image

See also