Create your first instance

Once your Luna Node Dynamic account has been provisioned, you can login to your account via My Services → Dynamic hosting account → Authenticate into panel. You can also login directly from https://dynamic.lunanode.com/, although this login is disabled by default; open a support ticket if you would like to be able to login without having to go through the billing pnel.

Luna Node Dynamic templates are cloud images, which get an SSH public key from a metadata server on boot and configure that in the authorized_keys file. This means that you need to upload your SSH key to lndynamic in order to access VMs provisioned from a template. This can be done from Account tab → Manage SSH keypairs; on this page, give a label for your key and paste the public key (beginning with ssh-rsa and ending with your computer's hostname).

Now, we can provision a VM instance. Virtual machines are managed via the Virtual Machines tab; after selecting this tab, press the "Create a new virtual machine" button. On the new VM page, you will first be asked to select a region; currently Luna Node Dynamic is only in Toronto, so pick Toronto. Then, enter any hostname for your VM, along with a plan selection (use 512 MB if you are just trying out a new VM). Pick an image to start with, for example "Ubuntu 12.04 32-bit (template)" (ISO images require manual installation of the operating system, while templates are setup automatically). For storage type, local image storage is usually the best option as it offers higher disk I/O; if you need automatic failover in case a node goes down, pick cloud volume storage (the price is the same). Finally, select your keypair that you uploaded earlier so that it will be inserted into the template on boot, and hit "Create virtual machine".

You will now be returned to the Virtual Machines tab. The VM will initially show up with "Unknown" for the details, because it has not finished provisioning yet; you can meanwhile still click on the VM ID to view your VM details. Once it finishes building (this should be pretty quick for installation from a template), you should see a primary and private IP address; if you don't see a primary IP, try clicking on "Associate floating IP". After another minute or so, your VM should finish the first boot process (it'll need to resize partitions and such, so the first boot takes a while). Once booted, you can SSH into your VM through the public IP address.

Congratulations, you have your first instance up! We hope you find our services useful :)