Server Groups

Server Groups let you logically organise your Cloud Servers. They’re the foundation of other Brightbox services, such as the Cloud Firewall.

You manage Server Groups with the brightbox groups command

$ brightbox groups list

 id         server_count  name                    
---------------------------------------------------
 grp-98v4n  4             default                 
---------------------------------------------------

All accounts have a group named default that all new servers are added to unless you specify otherwise as you create them.

Creating new groups

Let’s create two new groups, one for some web servers and one for some database servers.

$ brightbox groups create -n "web servers"
Creating a new server group

 id         server_count  name       
--------------------------------------
 grp-f4rpy  0             web servers
--------------------------------------

$ brightbox groups create -n "db servers"
Creating a new server group

 id         server_count  name      
-------------------------------------
 grp-ncapg  0             db servers
-------------------------------------

$ brightbox groups list

 id         server_count  name                    
---------------------------------------------------
 grp-98v4n  4             default                 
 grp-f4rpy  0             web servers             
 grp-ncapg  0             db servers              
---------------------------------------------------

Adding servers to a group

Then we’ll add the servers to the appropriate group. Adding them leaves them in the default group too:

$ brightbox servers list

 id         status    type    zone   created_on  image_id   cloud_ip_ids  name       
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 srv-13y2j  active    mini    gb1-a  2011-09-25  img-4gqhs                web1       
 srv-25adm  active    mini    gb1-b  2011-09-26  img-4gqhs                web2       
 srv-uj1wm  active    large   gb1-a  2011-10-10  img-4gqhs                db-a       
 srv-5x0ct  active    large   gb1-b  2011-10-11  img-4gqhs                db-b
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

$ brightbox groups add_servers grp-f4rpy srv-13y2j srv-25adm
Adding 2 servers to server group grp-f4rpy

$ brightbox groups add_servers grp-ncapg srv-uj1wm srv-5x0ct
Adding 2 servers to server group grp-ncapg

$ brightbox groups list

 id         server_count  name                    
---------------------------------------------------
 grp-98v4n  4             default                 
 grp-f4rpy  2             web servers             
 grp-ncapg  2             db servers              
---------------------------------------------------

Specifying a group when creating a server

So now we have the two web servers in the web servers group, and the two database servers in the db servers group. All four servers are also in the default group. Let’s create a new web server and put it straight into the web servers group:

$ brightbox servers create -t mini -n "web3" -g grp-f4rpy img-4gqhs

Creating a mini (typ-iqisj) server with image Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 server (img-4gqhs) in groups grp-f4rpy

 id         status    type  zone   created_on  image_id   cloud_ip_ids  name
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 srv-abxcu  creating  mini  gb1-a  2011-10-31  img-4gqhs                web3
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

$ brightbox groups list

 id         server_count  name                    
---------------------------------------------------
 grp-98v4n  4             default                 
 grp-f4rpy  3             web servers             
 grp-ncapg  2             db servers              
---------------------------------------------------

Notice that the new server did not go into the default group - it was added only to the web servers group.

Removing servers from a group

Let’s now remove all the servers from the default group. We can get all the ids of the servers in a group using the brightbox groups show command.

$ brightbox groups show grp-98v4n

             id: grp-98v4n
           name: default
        servers: srv-13y2j srv-25adm srv-uj1wm srv-5x0ct
firewall_policy: fwp-hvik9
    description: All new servers are added to this group unless specified otherwise.

$ brightbox groups remove_servers grp-98v4n srv-13y2j srv-25adm srv-uj1wm srv-5x0ct

Removing 4 servers from server group grp-98v4n

 id         server_count  name   
----------------------------------
 grp-98v4n  0             default
----------------------------------

$ brightbox groups list
	
 id         server_count  name                    
---------------------------------------------------
 grp-98v4n  0             default                 
 grp-f4rpy  3             web servers             
 grp-ncapg  2             db servers              
---------------------------------------------------

Rather than add servers to one group and then remove them from the other, we could have just used the brightbox groups move_servers command, which has the same overall result.

Firewalling

See the Cloud Firewall guide on how to control access to, from and between groups.