You can now order RimuHosting VMs running CoreOS!

CoreOS lets you provide startup ‘recipies’ (via cloud init files) to automatically install and provision container based micro services and applications.  You can use tools like fleet and kubernetes to manage clusters of CoreOS servers.

Setting up a CoreOS server is easy.  You just use our regular ordering or install pages.  When you select the CoreOS option you will be prompted to provide a block of (standard) cloud init data.  If you are using your API, then provide a /var/lib/coreos-install/user_data file via our file_injection_data parameter.

About our setup:

We substitute $public_ipv4 and $private_ipv4 with your public or private IPs (or 0.0.0.0 if you do not have one or the other).

We create the systemd networking files (no need to put networking setup in the cloud init block).

We set the RimuHosting SSH key on the core and root user as well as adding your own SSH keys.  You can override this if you do not wish us to have access via the cloud init users ssh-authorized-keys setting or the write_files setting.

The CoreOS image we deploy is the stable release (currently 723, we will likely update that over time).

We are using the PXE kernel and initrd (stored on your VM at /boot).  We boot up the VM via pv-grub (so kernel used is provided by CoreOS, not the VM host).

Gotchas:

Note you will need to either have an ssh key in our control panel or to set the password or key in the cloud init file in order to be able to log in.

The cloud init file is placed at /var/lib/coreos-install/user_data .  It runs on each server start.  If you do not wish the actions to be repeated at each server start, remove the file as part of the cloud init process.

A minimal cloud init would look something like the following.

#cloud-config
---
coreos:
  units:
  - name: nameservers.network
    content: |
      [Network]
      DNS=8.8.4.4
      DNS=8.8.8.8
  - name: swapon.service
    command: start
    enable: true
    content: |
      [Unit]
      Description=Turn on swap

      [Service]
      Type=oneshot
      ExecStart=/sbin/swapon /dev/xvda9

      [Install]
      WantedBy=local.target

hostname: coreos1.example.com

Cloud init not working for you?  Create a minimal one then use journalctl to output a debug log of what happened.  You can edit the /var/lib/coreos-install/user_data file and reboot to have that file re-run.

Go have a play!

The CoreOS offering is new as of 2015 September.  Please do email us with any suggestions, feedback or problems you hit!  And we would love to hear your stories of how you’re using it!

We have a $40 coupon code which you can claim at https://rimuhosting.com/cp/coupons.jsp?coupon=15NEWORD  Details: This deal is a new order special.  When applied, it will add a 40.00 USD credit on your account.  To qualify you need to order a server between 2015-05-10 and 2015-11-07, have the server running for a month and be up to date on your billing.  It is one credit per customer (not per server order).  And the credit must be applied before 2016-02-14.