GWDG Cloud Server

The “GWDG Cloud Server” is a service similar to known commercial cloud services. However, the GWDG pays special attention to the needs of the scientific community. By using the “GWDG Cloud Server” web-based interfaces, developed by the GWDG, the user is able to independently create and manage server instances. Hereby the user chooses among a broad range of widespread Linux distributions as the base installation as well as different server flavours in terms of available processors and memory. For the realization of the service “GWDG Cloud Server ” the GWDG consistently uses open source products such as OpenStack, KVM and Linux.

Access to the graphical interface of the server is given directly via the web browser of the user whereby the server can be configured and more services are installed and managed. In order to enable accessibility of the servers on the Internet, public ip addresses that can be assigned to the servers in a flexible way. Security settings allow the user also to define the rights (firewall) to make the server accessible from outside. All servers are running in the GWDG data centre on modern hardware in accordance with current data protection requirements.

In a first test phase, the IT officers of the Max Planck Institutes and the University of Göttingen evaluated the functions and made suggestions for optimization. The lessons learned were incorporated into the ongoing preparations for a public test phase in which the service “GWDG Cloud Server” was available to all members of the Max Planck Society and the University of Göttingen available. Since completion of the test phase of the service “GWDG Cloud Server” it is now transferred to a production facility.

cloud.gwdg.de Dashboard Manual

If you have a VM without a floating (public) IP but cannot access the public network/internet, it could be due to the router in your project being in an error state.

First, log in to cloud.gwdg.de and select your project (dropdown at the top left).

Now, go to the “Network” > “Routers” menu and open the router's detailed view by clicking on its name. Then, select the “Interfaces” tab and note down the two IPs (10.254.1.1 is the gateway, 10.254.1.X is the router).

You can now check the following in your VM:
ping 8.8.8.8 # should not work
ping 10.254.1.1 # ping to the gateway should work
ping <router ip> # should work

If the check fails as described above, you can resolve the issue by restarting the router.

1. Go to cloud.gwdg.de and open the “Network” > “Routers” menu.
2. Click on the dropdown menu in the router's row on the right side and select “Edit Router.”
3. Disable the “Enable Admin State” option and save the changes.
4. Wait for a few seconds.
5. Select “Edit Router” again to re-enable “Enable Admin State” and save these changes again.

After disabling and re-enabling “Enable Admin State,” the router will be restarted. After a short time, you can repeat the test described in the problem description. The command “ping 8.8.8.8” should now work successfully, and the problem should be resolved.

If you continue to experience network connection issues, please contact cloud-support@gwdg.de.

You are looking for information on how to increase the size of the root disk of virtual machines (VMs) running on a volume.

Please send an email to cloud-support@gwdg.de with the UUID of the server and the UUID of the volume, which you can find at https://cloud.gwdg.de. Additionally, provide the desired size to which the volume should be expanded.

Note: The server needs to be briefly stopped by us for this.