OpenStack: Create a VM and SSH into it

- 2 minutes read - 341 words

In March, I attempted to run DevStack on my newly bought mini PC, but something was wrong and I couldn’t get it started. Since then, I poured all my attention into AI‑related studies. During lunch today, OpenStack came up in conversation, and the idea popped into my head: “Why not use a coding agent to make it work, since I’ve already used one for several issues in my WSL environment?” This post is the result.

The Problem

I cleaned and reinstalled DevStack, but it returned errors like:

echo 'Didn'\''t find service registered by hostname after 60 seconds'
Didn't find service registered by hostname after 60 seconds devstack

The logs at /opt/stack/logs/worlddump-*.txt held the clues, but manually digging through them was tedious. That’s when I turned to opencode.

Letting the Agent Debug

I asked opencode to analyse the worlddump logs and resolve the issues. It quickly identified that a virtual machine created by crc (CodeReady Containers) was interfering with DevStack’s networking. The agent deleted that VM, fixed two other minor configuration glitches, and – just like that – my DevStack environment started successfully.

Creating a VM and SSH Access

With DevStack up and running, I followed the official guide at OpenStack Networking – SSH, supplemented by help from claude.

The steps were straightforward:

  1. Source the OpenStack credentials.

  2. Create a keypair and inject it into a new instance.

  3. Allocate a floating IP and associate it.

  4. Use ssh to connect to the VM.

Within minutes, I had a working VM and could log in:

$ ssh -i mykey.pem cirros@<floating-ip>

My screen recording is here.

Conclusion

It was a satisfying experience to combine a modern coding agent (opencode) with a classic infrastructure tool (OpenStack). The agent saved me hours of manual log analysis and allowed me to focus on actually using the cloud, not just fighting its setup.

If you’re struggling with DevStack or any complex deployment, don’t hesitate to let an AI assistant do the heavy lifting – it might just get you over the hump faster than you expect.

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