Add Server Assistant
Table of Contents
Overview
To make it easier to define new servers in the dashboard using ServerTemplates RightScale provides a simple wizard that will walk you through the appropriate steps to create a server based on the chosen cloud. Since each cloud infrastructure is unique, the selections in the wizard may differ depending on the cloud's server requirements. For example, you must select an EC2 SSH Key and Security Group to launch a server in one of the AWS EC2 clouds/regions. However, other clouds might use IP tables instead of security groups.
Be sure to take advantage of the information offered in the tooltips throughout the wizard. Just hover over a tooltip icon to view additional information about that specific component.
Steps
Add a New Server or Array
There are several different ways to get to the Add Server Assistant wizard in the dashboard.
- Manage > Deployments > Deployment Name > Add Server or Add Array button
- Manage > Servers > New Server button
- Design > ServerTemplates > ServerTemplate Name > Add Server or Add Array button. (Note: After successfully importing a ServerTemplate from the MultiCloud Marketplace you are left here.)
Choose a Cloud
When you click the Add Server or Add Array buttons you will be prompted to make a cloud selection. Select the cloud where you will eventually launch the server. (Servers are cloud-specific.)
If you are adding a server or server array through the Design > ServerTemplate route or through the Manage > Servers > New Server/Array route as shown above, you will need to specify a cloud and deployment.
If you are adding the server or array directly from a deployment, the "Deployment" row will be hidden and you will only need to specify a cloud.
Note: You will only be able to create a server in the chosen cloud if one of the ServerTemplate's MultiCloud Images supports that cloud.
Make your selections and click Continue.
ServerTemplate
Note: You will only see this tab if you are adding the server from a deployment or from the Manage > Servers section. If you already selected the ServerTemplate, proceed to the "Server Details" tab.
Select the ServerTemplate in your RightScale account that you are going to use to create a server. Only ServerTemplates that support the selected cloud (from the previous step) will be displayed. Enter the name of the ServerTemplate or sort the list by using one or several of the Filter Options including Publisher, Tags, Category, and Name or Date. After choosing a ServerTemplate, select which revision you would like to use (if multiple revisions are available) and click the Server Details button to proceed to the next step.
Other Buttons
- Finish - Save and go to the show page of your server where you can edit settings and launch your server if you have the minimum of required components.
- Launch - Launch your server and skip the Confirm tab if you have all of the required components.
- Cancel - Cancel your selections and take you back to the Server index page or the Servers tab of your deployment.
Server Details
The Server Details tab allows you to select configuration details about the server. Some of the options are cloud-specific and will vary depending on the selected cloud. Go to the section that applies to the selected cloud.
AWS
- Server Name - Provide a name for the server.
- MultiCloud Image - Select the MultiCloud Image to be used for the server or keep the "Inherited from the ServerTemplate" option to use the ServerTemplate's default MCI selection.
- Instance Type - Specify the type (size) of instance to launch or keep the "Inherit from MultiCloud Image" option to use the MCI's default instance type selection.
- Pricing - Choose either Spot or On-Demand for your instances. See the "AWS Pricing" section below.
- EBS Optimized - Select this option if you would like to use an EBS Optimized instance. If you're using a Provisioned IOPS volume with an EBS Optimized instance, performance benefits can be seen if you're using high amounts of network bandwidth and disk bandwidth at the same time. Additionally, Amazon guarantees that when a Provisioned IOPS volume is attached to an Optimized Instance, the volume will perform within 10% of their provisioned performance 99.9% of the time.
Warning: Only certain instance types support EBS Optimized Instances. For information on which AWS Instance Types support EBS Optimized Instances, see EC2 Instance Types.
- IAM Instance Profile or ARN - Enter the Identity and Access Management (IAM) Instance Profile name. If you prefer, you can enter the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) in the ARN format (arn:aws:service:region:account:resource). IAM roles contained in the Instance Profile will be assigned to the server instance at launch time. For additional information on AWS IAM see What is IAM?
- Automatic instance store mapping - Select this option to create and attach the maximum number of ephemeral disks to your EC2 instance at boot time as permitted by the instance type you launch. Note that you can add more ephemeral space to an existing server by editing that server, enabling Automatic instance store mapping, then relaunching the server.
The Networking section will have some or all of the following fields, depending on the selected AWS region:
- Datacenter / Zone - Specify the Availability Zone where your new server will be launched.
- Subnets - If applicable, specify a subnet of your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).
- SSH Key - The SSH key that will be used by the server.
- Security Group(s) - Security group that will be used by the server.
- Associate Ephemeral Public IP Address - Select this option to assign a non-static public IP address to the server at launch. Certain subnet selections preclude this option, in which case this checkbox will be disabled. For example, EC2-Classic subnets require an ephemeral public IP address.
- IP Forwarding Enabled - Allow this server to send and receive traffic to act like a NAT instance when the source or destination is not itself.
- Private IP Address - Enter an IP address within the selected subnet CIDR range to specify a static private IP address for this server's primary network interface.
- Elastic IP Address - Select or create a new EIP for your sever.
- Placement Group - Placement Groups are logical groupings or clusters of instances in the selected AWS region. Placement groups are exclusively used for launching cluster compute instance types. Ignore this field for all other instance types.
- Machine Image - The AMI that will be used to build the machine. RightScale will only support instances launched with one of our RightImages. We recommend using ServerTemplates with RightImages.
- Ramdisk Image - Select a Ramdisk image of your choice. (optional)
- Kernel Image - Select a kernel image of your choice. (optional)
- Ec2 user data - This information is passed to the instance using the EC2 user launch data mechanism which is limited to 16KB of data. The best way to pass configuration data into instances is with RightScripts, but this user data field is sometimes useful for testing purposes.
AWS Pricing
With an AWS server, you have the option to choose the type of pricing for your instance. The default is On-Demand, with the current On-Demand price listed right below. If you select Spot from the Pricing dropdown, the current spot prices will be viewable for each Availability Zone.
Azure
- Server Name - Provide a name for the server.
- MultiCloud Image - Select the MultiCloud Image to be used for the server. The default MultiCloud Image is inherited from the ServerTemplate.
- Instance Type - Specify the type (size) of instance to launch.
- Machine Image - The image that will be used to build the machine. RightScale will only support instances launched with one of our RightImages. We recommend using ServerTemplates with RightImages.
- Availability Set - Availability sets are used to indicate to Windows Azure that VMs in the availability sets are to be protected against single points of failure. When you assign multiple virtual machines to an availability set, Windows Azure ensures that the machines are assigned to different update and fault domains.
- User data - This information is passed to the instance. The best way to pass configuration data into instances is with RightScripts, but this user data field is sometimes useful for testing purposes.
CloudStack
- Server Name - Provide a name for the server.
- MultiCloud Image - Select the MultiCloud Image to be used for the server. The default MultiCloud Image is inherited from the ServerTemplate.
- Instance Type - Specify the type (size) of instance to launch. For a CloudStack cloud, you must manually select the instance type if using a RightScale-created MultiCloud Image; RightScale MCIs do not specify a default instance type for CloudStack clouds.
- Security Group - Security group that will be used by the server.
- Datacenter / Zone - The regional datacenter in the cloud (Datacenter and Zone are synonymous). A cloud will often have multiple Datacenters which can help when architecting a highly available Deployment.
- Subnets - Subnet of the network in which the instance is deployed.
- Machine Image - The image that will be used to build the machine. RightScale will only support instances launched with one of our RightImages. We recommend using ServerTemplates with RightImages.
- User data - This information is passed to the instance. The best way to pass configuration data into instances is with RightScripts, but this user data field is sometimes useful for testing purposes.
Datapipe
- Server Name - Provide a name for the server.
- MultiCloud Image - Select the MultiCloud Image to be used for the server. The default MultiCloud Image is inherited from the ServerTemplate.
- Instance Type - Specify the type (size) of instance to launch. For a CloudStack cloud, you must manually select the instance type if using a RightScale-created MultiCloud Image; RightScale MCIs do not specify a default instance type for CloudStack clouds.
- Security Group - Security group that will be used by the server.
- Datacenter / Zone - The regional datacenter in the cloud (Datacenter and Zone are synonymous). A cloud will often have multiple Datacenters which can help when architecting a highly available Deployment.
- Subnets - Subnet of the network in which the instance is deployed.
- Machine Image - The image that will be used to build the machine. RightScale will only support instances launched with one of our RightImages. We recommend using ServerTemplates with RightImages.
- Server Name - Provide a name for the server.
- MultiCloud Image - Select the MultiCloud Image to be used for the server. The default MultiCloud Image is inherited from the ServerTemplate.
- Instance Type - Specify the type (size) of instance to launch.
- Security Group - Security group that will be used by the server.
- Datacenter / Zone - The regional datacenter in the cloud (Datacenter and Zone are synonymous). A cloud will often have multiple Datacenters which can help when architecting a highly available Deployment.
- Machine Image - The image that will be used to build the machine. RightScale will only support instances launched with one of our RightImages. We recommend using ServerTemplates with RightImages.
- User data - This information is passed to the instance. The best way to pass configuration data into instances is with RightScripts, but this user data field is sometimes useful for testing purposes.
Rackspace
- Server Name - Provide a name for the server.
- MultiCloud Image - Select the MultiCloud Image to be used for the server. The default MultiCloud Image is inherited from the ServerTemplate.
- Instance Type - Specify the type (size) of instance to launch. For RightImages, you must use a 512MB instance type or larger for Linux and a 1GB or larger for Windows. Only advanced users should change the default instance type.
- Machine Image - The image that will be used to build the machine. RightScale will only support instances launched with one of our RightImages. We recommend using ServerTemplates with RightImages.
SoftLayer
- Server Name - Provide a name for the server.
- MultiCloud Image - Select the MultiCloud Image to be used for the server. The default MultiCloud Image is inherited from the ServerTemplate.
- Instance Type - Specify the type (size) of instance to launch.
- Datacenter / Zone - The regional datacenter in the cloud (Datacenter and Zone are synonymous). A cloud will often have multiple Datacenters which can help when architecting a highly available Deployment.
- Machine Image - The image that will be used to build the machine. RightScale will only support instances launched with one of our RightImages. We recommend using ServerTemplates with RightImages.
Confirm
The Confirm tab provides a detailed summary of the server you're about to create. If the ServerTemplate contains any predefined alerts, they will also be displayed in this view. If you are satisfied with your selections, click Finish to create the server/array.
Note: You should only use the Launch option if you know all of the server's boot script inputs are defined.
(Optional) You also have the option to save these settings as "default settings" for future servers used in that deployment. For more information, see Server Defaults.
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