[NFBCS] USING LINODE CLOUD SERVERS

[Brian Buhrow]

	hello.  A while ago, someone asked about the accessibility of cloud based services on this
list.  This is something I've been thinking about for a while, but haven't been talking about
very much.  However, after doing a bit of reading and learning about some of the cloud based
service providers, I decided to take the plunge and set up an account with Linode.  While not
as big as the big 3 cloud providers: Amazon, Google and Microsoft, Linode has a world wide
footprint and all of the nfbnet.org services run off of a Linode server, which as far as I can
tell, has been quite reliable for a number of years.  Add to that Linode's rich offering of
add-on services, think: backups, managed databases, professional services, etc. and Linode
seemed like a good choice to start with.

	My goal:
To set up a NetBSD based cloud server using, as much as possible, the service provider's
command line tools.  
Without boring everyone with the gorey details, I'm happy to say that I was quite successful
and I can strongly recommend Linode as a cloud service provider for those who  want to manage
their cloud services nonvisually.  Below are the highlights.

O  The web site for setting up the account is very  accessible and quite straightforward.  I
used iOS and Safari with VoiceOver as my browser for accomplishing this task.  

O  Linode accepts Paypal as a payment method for their services, which is good for me as I
don't like giving my credit card number to every provider in town.

O  To get the command line working, one must create what's called a personal access token.
This must be done through the browser, but, once again, this is a very accessible process and I
was able to transfer my token from iOS to a usable physical server without a problem.

O  The command line documentation is very good.  Since the command line program is a very thin
layer on top of their restful API, reading the API documentation is very helpful in terms of
learning how to use the command line, with respect to which parameters to put where and  what
options are available for various tasks.

What can you do with the command line?

With the command line, you can:

O  Build a virtual server.

O  Build virtual disks

O  Assign disks to servers.

O  Clone servers.

O  Access your virtual server's console (via text based ssh)

O  Configure networking, i.e. firewalls, virtual lans, etc.

O  Set up alerts and notifications regarding the health and status of your virtual environment.

O  check the status of your virtual server

O  Check the status of your Linode account, including monitroring usage and charges statistics.

Linode claims you can do everything through the command line that can be done through the
browser.  In my experience, this is a true statement.  the only caveat I'd add to that is that
the command line, including the details of their API, has a learning curve, so it may take a
while pouring through different documents to figure out how to do what you want.  Having said
that, just knowing that you can do a thing, however, is huge, since it just becomes a matter of
learning how to do it.  In my case, I used the browser to set up an account and to create a
personal access token.  After that, I repaired to the command line to set up and configure the
cloud services I needed.

	One final note. I don't know if it's a permanent feature, but Linode is offering a 60- day
$100 credit if you sign up for their services.  We'll see how it works in practice, but I think
it means you get to use their service for free for 60 days, assuming you don't use more than
$100 of their services.



	Feel free to write me with further questions if this is something that interests you.

-thanks
-Brian