Manage your VMs

Creating a new VM

CLI
UI
Terraform

Use the compute vms create command to create a VM of your choice. As an example, you can create a VM that uses a single Nvidia A40 GPU:

crusoe compute vms create \
  --name my-vm \
  --type a40.1x \
  --location us-northcentral1-a \
  --image ubuntu22.04:latest \
  --keyfile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

You can find possible values for type and location by running crusoe compute vms types and crusoe locations list respectively.

If you don't specify an image, the VM will default to the latest version of ubuntu 22.04. Run crusoe compute images list for more options.

Creating and accessing VMs is the first step to getting started on Crusoe Cloud. The following is intended to help get you started using Terraform to provision a VM in Crusoe Cloud.

Copy and paste the code below in a text-editor of your choice and name the file main.tf. The example below creates a VM that uses a single Nvidia A40 GPU called “my-vm”:

// Crusoe Provider
terraform {
  required_providers {
    crusoe = {
      source  = "registry.terraform.io/crusoecloud/crusoe"
    }
  }
}

// local files
locals {
  ssh_key = file("~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub") # replace with path to your public SSH key if different
}

// new VM
resource "crusoe_compute_instance" "my_vm" {
  name     = "my-vm"
  type     = "a40.1x"
  location = "us-northcentral1-a"
  image    = "ubuntu22.04:latest" # use the 'latest' flag to get the most up to date image available from Crusoe

  ssh_key = local.ssh_key
}

name, type, location and ssh_key are required arguments. default_project is also required, but is typically specified in the config file, which is why it's omitted in the crusoe_compute_instance resource (see step 4 above). image is not required and for this example, we will use an ubuntu22.04:latest image.

After saving the code to a main.tf file, the following commands serve as the process to create a resource in Crusoe Cloud using Terraform:

terraform init - Initializes a working directory containing Terraform configuration files.

terraform plan - the output of this command will show the resources Terraform plans on creating.

terraform apply - this command will create the resources.

You can confirm that terraform successfully created the resources through the console, but if you prefer CLI, you can also run: crusoe compute vms list

Which will show you the VMs you have created in your account.

Viewing all existing VMs

CLI
UI
Terraform

Use the compute vms list command to list all existing VMs.

crusoe compute vms list

To list existing instances using Terraform, the following code snippet can be used to populate a Terraform data source using the Crusoe Terraform provider.

# get instance with the specified ID
data "crusoe_compute_instance" "instance" {
  id = "<uuid of my instance>"
}

output "crusoe_instances" {
  value = data.crusoe_compute_instance.instance
}

Update an existing VM

Currently, you can start or stop an existing VM. You can also update properties like VM type, IP address type, and Infiniband partition.

A stopped VM retains all data stored on that VM. An on-demand stopped VM is not billed, but a VM currently in an instance commitment is billed regardless of its state. Learn more about VM billing.

CLI
UI
Terraform

Use the compute vms <stop|start|reset> command to change the state of an already existing VM.

Use the compute vms update <name> command to make updates to the Infiniband partition, VM type, or public IP type via the --ib-partition-id, --type, or --public-ip-type flags, respectively.

To update an existing instance using the Crusoe Terraform provider, you can change the fields of an existing instance resource and run terraform apply. The Crusoe Terraform provider will apply the changes to the instance.

terraform {
  required_providers {
    crusoe = {
      source = "registry.terraform.io/crusoecloud/crusoe"
    }
  }
}

// new VM
resource "crusoe_compute_instance" "my_vm" {
  name     = "my-vm"
  type     = "a40.1x"
  location = "us-northcentral1-a"
  image    = "ubuntu22.04:latest" # use the 'latest' flag to get the most up to date image available from Crusoe

  ssh_key = local.ssh_key

  + disks = [
  +    {
  +      id = crusoe_storage_disk.data_disk.id
  +      mode = "read-only"
  +      attachment_type = "data"
  +    }
  +  ]
}

Currently, only the "network_interfaces" and "disks" of the instance can be changed. Changes to other fields of the instance will force a re-creation of the instance (deletion and then creation of a new instance).

Updating state from within the VM

You can use standard unix commands like shutdown and reboot to change the state of a running VM. If you run shutdown, the VM will shut down and transition to the Stopped state. If you run reboot, the VM will reboot and will remain unreachable until it has fully restarted; however, the state will still be shown as Running throughout the restart.

Deleting a VM

info

Warning: deleting a VM will also delete all data stored on the VM. Do not delete a VM unless you also wish to delete any downloaded or derived data.

CLI
UI
Terraform

Use the compute vms delete command to delete a VM of your choice. As an example, you can delete a VM by replacing VM_NAME with the name of the VM you wish to delete:

crusoe compute vms delete --name VM_NAME

A VM can be deleted by using the terraform destroy command provided by the Terraform CLI tool.

If you are having issues creating or deleting VMs, please contact support.

Manage your VMs

Creating a new VM​

Viewing all existing VMs​

Update an existing VM​

Updating state from within the VM​

Deleting a VM​

Creating a new VM

Viewing all existing VMs

Update an existing VM

Updating state from within the VM

Deleting a VM