Delete Unused Rackspace Cloud Servers

To avoid any unnecessarily high Rackspace bills, make sure you delete any unused cloud servers or products.

Here I have three servers. One is in production, another is occasionally used for testing and development. I am half-way through setting the last one up but it is not yet in production.

You might think that you can just power-off the server to stop being billed for it….but you’d be wrong! If you simply shut down the server, you will still be billed per hour for it’s use.

If like me, you have any servers that are not currently in use, either by you or your customers, it makes sense to take an image of the device and then delete it. You can always spin up a new server from the image you create.

Take an Image

To take an image, click the cog icon next to the server. That will create a drop-down menu. Within there, you will see “Create Image” – select that.

You will then be asked to give the saved image a name. If you hover over the small pound sign symbol, you will also see the associated costs.

Delete Server

Before I delete a server I might come to rely on later, I like to first make sure the image was created successfully. To do that, navigate to the “Saved Images” section/tab.

Once imaged, simply select the servers you wish to delete and click on the “Delete” button.

Rebuild Server from an Image

When you next require the deleted server, we can spin up a new server from the image we took.

One downside to this is that the newly created server will have a different public IP address than it did previously. If this is an issue for you, I would recommend creating a load-balancer to sit in front of the device. It is possible to have a load-balancer with one node behind it. Load-balancers IP addresses do not change.

To spin up a new server from an existing image, simply navigate to the “Saved Images” section of the server tab. Click on the cog next to the image you wish to use and select “Create Server with Image...“.

Then simply give the server a name, select a flavour and/or alter any other details. Then click on “Create Server“.

You will be given a new password for the server. Make a note of this and “Dismiss Password” when ready.

You can monitor the progress from the cloud servers tab.

Job done!