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How to Provision a Virtual Machine#

Learn how to provision a virtual machine in your project.

Emma, a developer at ACME Corp, needs a Linux virtual machine for her development environment. She can provision a VM with a chosen OS, instance size, and network connectivity in minutes.

Prerequisites#

  • A Project already created
  • The virtualmachine.compute.cloud.stakater.com API available
  • kubectl configured with your project kubeconfig
  • An SSH public key for VM access

Cloud VM#

Step 1: Prepare Your SSH Key#

Encode your SSH public key as base64:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub | base64 -w 0

Copy the output — you will use it in the sshPublicKey.data field.

Step 2: Define a Minimal VM Claim#

Create a file named vm.yaml with the required parameters:

apiVersion: compute.cloud.stakater.com/v1
kind: VirtualMachine
metadata:
  name: my-dev-vm
spec:
  parameters:
    flavour: rhel9
    instanceType: o1.small

Required Parameters#

Parameter Description
parameters.flavour OS image to use (see Supported Flavours)
parameters.instanceType VM size (see Instance Types)

Optional Parameters#

Parameter Default Description
parameters.storageSize medium (30 Gi) Storage size: small (10 Gi), medium (30 Gi), large (50 Gi), xlarge (100 Gi)
parameters.connection private Network access: private (no external IP) or public (LoadBalancer Service)
parameters.sshPublicKey.data — Base64-encoded SSH public key for VM access
parameters.cloudInit.userData — Cloud-init userData script injected into the VM

Step 3: Add SSH Key and Network Options#

A more complete example with SSH access and private networking:

apiVersion: compute.cloud.stakater.com/v1
kind: VirtualMachine
metadata:
  name: my-dev-vm
spec:
  parameters:
    flavour: rhel9
    instanceType: o1.small
    storageSize: medium
    connection: private
    sshPublicKey:
      data: <base64-encoded-ssh-public-key>

To make the VM publicly accessible via a LoadBalancer:

spec:
  parameters:
    flavour: rhel10
    instanceType: o1.small
    storageSize: medium
    connection: public
    sshPublicKey:
      data: <base64-encoded-ssh-public-key>

Step 4: Cloud-Init Customisation (Optional)#

Use cloudInit.userData to run scripts on first boot:

apiVersion: compute.cloud.stakater.com/v1
kind: VirtualMachine
metadata:
  name: my-dev-vm
spec:
  parameters:
    flavour: rhel9
    instanceType: o1.medium
    connection: private
    sshPublicKey:
      data: <base64-encoded-ssh-public-key>
    cloudInit:
      userData: |
        #cloud-config
        packages:
          - git
          - curl
          - vim
        runcmd:
          - systemctl enable --now sshd

Step 5: Apply the Claim#

kubectl apply -f vm.yaml

Step 6: Monitor the VM#

Check the VM status:

kubectl get virtualmachine my-dev-vm

Wait for the VM to reach Running status:

NAME         READY   SYNCED   PRINTABLE-STATUS   AGE
my-dev-vm    True    True     Running            3m

Retrieve the VM's connection details (for public VMs):

kubectl get virtualmachine my-dev-vm \
  -o jsonpath='{.status.vm.serviceHostname}'

SSH into the VM:

ssh cloud-user@<vm-hostname-or-ip>

Supported Flavours#

Flavour Description
rhel7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
rhel8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
rhel9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
rhel10 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
fedora Fedora
centos-stream9 CentOS Stream 9
centos-stream10 CentOS Stream 10

Instance Types#

Common instance types (contact your administrator for the full list):

Instance Type Profile
o1.nano Minimal resources
o1.micro Very small
o1.small Small general purpose
o1.medium Medium general purpose
o1.large Large general purpose
o1.xlarge Extra large general purpose
cx1.medium Compute optimised medium
m1.medium Memory optimised medium

What's Next?#