Compute
Coming from another cloud?
▸AWS·Amazon EC2
This Quake AI feature maps to AWS’s Amazon EC2.
▸Azure·Virtual Machines
Virtual Machines
- Uses Azure Resource Manager (ARM) REST API at /providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines instead of OpenStack Nova API at /v2.1/servers.
- Tightly integrated with Azure services like Azure Active Directory for authentication, unlike OpenStack's Keystone.
- VM creation requires specifying size from predefined series with hardware-specific features (e.g., AMD/Intel/ARM), not custom flavor configs.
- Billed per second with complex pricing tiers based on series/reservation options, vs OpenStack's typically hourly or usage-based.
▸Google Cloud·Compute Engine
This Quake AI feature maps to Google Cloud’s Compute Engine.
Compute
Compute is the foundation of Quake AI: virtual machines you control, running on dedicated infrastructure. Create instances from a catalog of OS images, size them with predefined flavors, connect them to project networks, and manage the full lifecycle: start, stop, resize, snapshot, and destroy.
OpenStack Nova backs Compute. For details on how Quake AI implements OpenStack, see How Quake AI uses OpenStack.
What you can do#
Launch your first VM
Create a virtual machine instance by choosing an image, flavor, and network, ready to SSH into in minutes.
Deploy on a private network
Launch an instance on an isolated project network with controlled internet access through a router and floating IP.
Create an instance snapshot
Capture the current state of a running instance for backup, cloning, or creating a custom image.
Build a custom image
Create a reusable VM image with your OS, packages, and configuration pre-installed.
How it works#
Creating an instance ties together an image (the OS and pre-installed software), a flavor (CPU, memory, and ephemeral disk allocation), and network attachments (which project networks the instance joins). Optionally add security groups for traffic filtering, key pairs for SSH authentication, and user data scripts for first-boot automation.
The platform places your instance on a compute node with sufficient capacity, respecting any placement policies you set through server groups (affinity or anti-affinity rules). After boot, you manage the instance through the console, CLI, or API: stopping it to save resources, resizing to a larger flavor as load grows, snapshotting for point-in-time recovery, or deleting it when the workload completes.
Instances use ephemeral disk by default (tied to the instance lifecycle). For data that must survive instance deletion, attach a persistent block storage volume from Block storage.
Get started#
To create your first virtual machine, follow Create a virtual machine instance. If you need isolated networking, start with Create a VM on a private network instead.
Key concepts#
Concepts
- Apps: Apps is a deployment feature in the Compute section of the Console (Compute > Apps). You pick an app from the catalog, and the platform provisions an instance from a pre-built image with the...
- Cloud-init and First-boot Configuration: cloud-init is the industry-standard first-boot agent that runs inside Linux and BSD guests. When you launch an instance, Compute (OpenStack Nova) passes user data to the guest. cloud-init reads that...
- Flavors: Flavors define the resource shape of an instance: vCPU count, memory, root disk size, and optional ephemeral or swap storage. The Compute service (OpenStack Nova) exposes flavors as named resource...
- High Availability on Quake AI: A single instance running your application is a single point of failure. When that instance goes down (planned maintenance, hardware fault, or software crash), your users see an outage. High...
- Images: Images give each new instance the same starting point: operating system, tooling, and baseline configuration. The Images service (OpenStack Glance) lets you discover, register, and retrieve virtual...
- Instance Snapshots: Instance snapshots capture the full state of a running instance (root disk data, memory, and configuration) as an image you can store, clone from, or restore to. They are part of the Compute service...
- Instances: Instances are virtual machines (VMs) that run on Quake AI. They give you isolated compute (CPU, memory, disk, and network), so you deploy applications and services inside projects without sharing an...
- Key Pairs: Key pairs are the default way you prove you are allowed to log in to Linux instances without sending a password over the network. Quake AI stores the public half and injects it into the guest; you...
- Self-hosted AI on Cloud Infrastructure: Self-hosted AI means running language models on infrastructure you control. Your prompts and completions stay on your network. You pay a fixed compute cost (not per token), and you can run open-weight...
- Server Groups: Server groups apply placement policies (affinity or anti-affinity) that control whether your instances land on the same physical host or are spread across different hosts. The Compute service...
Security considerations#
Secure your instances with SSH key pairs (most images disable password authentication by default), security groups for port-level firewall rules, and regular patching of your OS and applications. For platform-wide security practices, see Security.
Guides and reference#
Console guides#
How-to guides#
- How to Back Up and Restore a Quake AI VM: Protect a VM with snapshots, copy backups off-project for disaster recovery, and run a restore drill that proves you can boot from the backup. Instance snapshots live in the same project as the source...
- How to Boot a Virtual Machine from an ISO Image: Install a custom operating system on Quake AI by booting from an ISO image. This process uses two volumes: a blank root drive and an ISO-backed drive. After the installation completes, you can...
- How to Build a Golden VM Image with Packer: Build a reusable golden VM image with Packer and its OpenStack builder, then publish the result to the Quake AI Images service (OpenStack Glance) so you can launch identical instances from it.
- How to Configure a VM with Cloud-init: Write cloud-init user data, pass it when you launch an instance, and confirm the guest applied your baseline on first boot.
- How to Create a Virtual Machine Image: Upload a custom OS image to your Quake AI project so you can use it to launch instances. Quake AI supports QCOW2, RAW, and ISO disk formats. Use QCOW2 for most use cases.
- How to Create a Virtual Machine Instance: Create a virtual machine (VM) instance with your choice of operating system, hardware flavor, and network configuration. This guide covers the common path: booting from a public image onto an existing...
- How to Create a VM on a Private Network: Create a virtual machine on an isolated private network with internet access via a router and floating IP. This is the recommended approach for production workloads.
- How to Create a VM on a Public Network: Create a virtual machine directly on the PublicEphemeral network for quick testing. The instance gets a public IP address automatically, so you can SSH in immediately.
- How to Create an Instance Snapshot: Create a point-in-time snapshot of a running instance. Snapshots are stored as images and can be used to launch new instances or create golden images for repeatable deployments.
- How to Deploy a Containerized Application with Docker Compose on a Quake AI VM: Run a multi-container application from a docker-compose.yml file on a Quake AI virtual machine. You install Docker and the Compose plugin on the VM, move your project onto it, supply environment...
- How to Harden a Quake AI Virtual Machine: Harden a freshly provisioned Linux virtual machine before it serves traffic. Restrict network access with security groups, reduce SSH exposure in the guest OS, add a host firewall, enable automatic...
- How to Launch a Windows Server VM: Important: You are responsible for meeting all licensing requirements.
- How to Maintain a Quake AI VM Over Its Lifetime: Keep a production VM healthy over months of use: change its flavor when load grows, expand attached storage, reboot safely, rotate logs, and decommission the instance without leaving orphaned...
- How to Operate a Running Quake AI VM: Use these procedures to connect over SSH, rotate access, attach storage, check resource usage, transfer files, and recover access to a running VM.
- How to Patch and Update a Quake AI VM: Patch the guest operating system manually or on a schedule. Plan reboots for kernel updates, and create a Quake AI snapshot as a rollback point before a major upgrade.
- How to Provision a Production-ready VM: Walk through the decisions and steps to launch a virtual machine you can run a workload on: pick sizing, attach SSH access, place the instance on the right network, pass first-boot configuration, and...
- How to Resize a Quake AI VM to a Dedicated-cpu Plan: Move a VM from a shared vCPU flavor (the Developer plan's starting point) to a dedicated vCPU flavor (Basic and custom dedicated packs). A flavor resize keeps the instance ID, boot volume, attached...
- How to Schedule Recurring Jobs on a Quake AI VM: Run a command or script on a fixed schedule inside a Quake AI instance, using either cron or systemd timers.
- How to Set a Password on a Virtual Machine Instance: Set a login password on an instance so you can access it via the web console. Passwords are an alternative to SSH key pairs for console-based access.
- How to Use the Virtual Machine Console: Access a running virtual machine through a browser-based VNC terminal. The console lets you interact with the instance without SSH, which is useful during OS installation, when network access is...
CLI reference#
API reference#
Related services#
Every instance needs a Network connection; even the simplest deployment attaches to at least one project network. For persistent disk beyond the instance lifecycle, attach block storage volumes. To deploy instances repeatably from templates, use Automation with Terraform or Heat.
Quick answers
- Why does `openstack image save` write a 0-byte file for my boot-from-volume instance?CLI
- Why does `openstack server create` fail with "Only volume-backed servers are allowed for flavors with zero disk"?CLIAPITerraform
- Why does my project still have a 10 GiB Cinder volume after I deleted my instance?CLIAPI