If you manage lots of ElasticHosts servers, or just like to create and manage servers quickly and easily, you may already know about our cloud server API.
This gives you an easy way to to create drives, upload and download drive images, and create and control virtual servers on our infrastructure. We also offer ready-made download tools to make life even simpler.
We’ve just made a couple of minor updates to the ElasticHosts API, in order to separate policy keys from value keys.
The changes are documented on our API page, but here’s a quick rundown.
VNC
When creating a server, you can specify the IP address for overlay VNC access on port 5900 using the vnc key. Specify auto to reuse nic:0:dhcp if available, or otherwise allocate a temporary IP at boot.
Previously, the API had a single key, vnc:ip. When the server started, this key changed value to the VNC IP address allocated.
Now, the API has a policy key, vnc. When the server starts this key stays unchanged, but an extra key vnc:ip appears with the VNC IP that has been allocated.
DHCP
When creating a server, you can specify the IP address offered by DHCP to network interface 0 using the nic:0:dhcp key. If unset, no address is offered. Specify an IP, or set to auto to allocate a temporary IP at boot.
Previously, the API had a single key, nic:0:dhcp. If auto was specified, then when the server started, this key changed to the dynamic IP allocated.
Now, the API has a policy key nic:0:dhcp, which you can set to auto or a static IP. When the server starts, this key stays unchanged, but an extra key nic:0:dhcp:ip appears with the dynamic or static IP allocated.
SMP
When creating a server, you can specify the number of virtual processors using the smp key. Set this to auto to calculate based on CPU.
Previously, the API had a single key, smp. If this was auto, then when the server started, this key changed to the number of cores allocated.
The new API has a policy key, smp, which you can set to auto or a number of cores. When the server starts, this key stays unchanged, but two extra keys smp:cores and smp:sockets appear with the number of cores allocated and the number of sockets (virtual CPUs) that these appear in.
