Getting Started with the Rackspace Nova Client

You will need to export some environment variables used by the Nova client.

$ vim ~/.bash.profile

If you have a UK-based Rackspace cloud account, you will need to enter something like this:

OS_USERNAME=username
OS_TENANT_NAME=accountnumber
OS_AUTH_SYSTEM=rackspace
OS_PASSWORD=apikey
OS_AUTH_URL=https://lon.identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/
OS_REGION_NAME=LON
OS_NO_CACHE=1
export OS_USERNAME OS_TENANT_NAME OS_AUTH_SYSTEM OS_PASSWORD OS_AUTH_URL OS_REGION_NAME OS_NO_CACHE

…And if you have a US, Hong Kong and Sydney (based) account:

OS_USERNAME=username
OS_TENANT_NAME=accountnumber
OS_AUTH_SYSTEM=rackspace
OS_PASSWORD=apikey
OS_AUTH_URL=https://lon.identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/
OS_REGION_NAME=LON
OS_NO_CACHE=1
export OS_USERNAME OS_TENANT_NAME OS_AUTH_SYSTEM OS_PASSWORD OS_AUTH_URL OS_REGION_NAME OS_NO_CACHE

Because we have our password in a plain text file, it is recommended that we at least lock down the permissions so no other system users can see it:

$ chmod 600 ~/.bash_profile

Don’t forget that whenever you make changes to your bash profile that you need to run the below command first for the changes to take affect on your current users (without logging out/in of course).

$ source ~/.bash_profile

Check the command works by running something like:

$ nova image-list

Related Documents

Installing python-novaclient on Linux and Mac OS

Step 2. Install the nova Client with the Cloud Networks Extension