Validate OpenStack deployment and launch a virtual machine on Azure Cobalt 100

In this section, you’ll validate the Kolla-Ansible deployment by checking service health, uploading a test image, creating network resources, and launching a virtual machine instance.

If you closed your session since the Kolla-Ansible deployment, reactivate the virtual environment and reload the admin credentials:

    

        
        
source ~/kolla-venv/bin/activate
source /etc/kolla/admin-openrc.sh

    

Verify services

Verify the OpenStack services:

    

        
        
openstack compute service list
openstack network agent list

    

All services should show Status as enabled and State as up. If any service is down, the deployment is incomplete or misconfigured.

Bring up Open vSwitch bridges

Kolla-Ansible creates Open vSwitch (OVS) bridges for internal networking. On Arm Azure VMs, these bridges may not come up automatically after deployment, which causes instances to get stuck in ERROR state with no IP assignment.

Bring the bridges up manually:

    

        
        
sudo ip link set br-int up
sudo ip link set br-ex up
sudo ip link set br-tun up

    

Verify OVS configuration. Kolla-Ansible runs OVS inside the openvswitch_vswitchd container, so use docker exec to query it:

    

        
        
docker exec openvswitch_vswitchd ovs-vsctl show

    

The output is similar to:

    

        
        65e7f7e-0018-4c05-84d6-83db06b812ee
    Manager "ptcp:6640:127.0.0.1"
        is_connected: true
    Bridge br-ex
        Controller "tcp:127.0.0.1:6633"
            is_connected: true
        fail_mode: secure
        datapath_type: system
        Port eth1
            Interface eth1
        Port br-ex
            Interface br-ex
                type: internal
        Port phy-br-ex
            Interface phy-br-ex
                type: patch
                options: {peer=int-br-ex}
    Bridge br-int
        Controller "tcp:127.0.0.1:6633"
            is_connected: true
        fail_mode: secure
        datapath_type: system
        Port patch-tun
            Interface patch-tun
                type: patch
                options: {peer=patch-int}
        Port int-br-ex
            Interface int-br-ex
                type: patch
                options: {peer=phy-br-ex}
        Port br-int
            Interface br-int
                type: internal
    Bridge br-tun
        Controller "tcp:127.0.0.1:6633"
            is_connected: true
        fail_mode: secure
        datapath_type: system
        Port br-tun
            Interface br-tun
                type: internal
        Port patch-int
            Interface patch-int
                type: patch
                options: {peer=patch-tun}

        
    

All three bridges must show is_connected: true. If a bridge is missing or shows is_connected: false, re-run the ip link set commands and check that the neutron-openvswitch-agent container is running with docker ps | grep openvswitch.

Upload image

Download a Debian Arm64 cloud image:

    

        
        
wget https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/bookworm/latest/debian-12-genericcloud-arm64.qcow2

    

Upload it to OpenStack:

    

        
        
openstack image create "test-image" \
  --file debian-12-genericcloud-arm64.qcow2 \
  --disk-format qcow2 \
  --container-format bare \
  --public

    

Verify the image upload:

    

        
        
openstack image list

    

The output is similar to:

    

        
        +--------------------------------------+------------+--------+
| ID                                   | Name       | Status |
+--------------------------------------+------------+--------+
| 4537107d-4c52-4537-a3d2-bd5c5a13de5b | test-image | active |
+--------------------------------------+------------+--------+

        
    

The image must be in an active state before launching VMs.

Create network

OpenStack networking (Neutron) requires a logical network and an IP range for instances. Create a network:

    

        
        
openstack network create test-net

openstack subnet create test-subnet \
  --network test-net \
  --subnet-range 192.168.0.0/24

    

Verify the network:

    

        
        
openstack network list

    

The output is similar to:

    

        
        +--------------------------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+
| ID                                   | Name     | Subnets                              |
+--------------------------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+
| 1d8b3cc8-a2d3-476c-86d7-4b9533dbefb2 | test-net | a31916fa-783b-4b25-8acb-8694007b9198 |
+--------------------------------------+----------+--------------------------------------+

        
    

Verify the subnet:

    

        
        
openstack subnet list

    

The output is similar to:

    

        
        +--------------------------------------+-------------+--------------------------------------+----------------+
| ID                                   | Name        | Network                              | Subnet         |
+--------------------------------------+-------------+--------------------------------------+----------------+
| a31916fa-783b-4b25-8acb-8694007b9198 | test-subnet | 1d8b3cc8-a2d3-476c-86d7-4b9533dbefb2 | 192.168.0.0/24 |
+--------------------------------------+-------------+--------------------------------------+----------------+

        
    

Both outputs should show your created resources.

Create flavor

A flavor defines the compute resources — vCPUs, RAM, and disk — allocated to a virtual machine instance. OpenStack does not create any default flavors during deployment, so you need to create at least one before you can launch a VM:

    

        
        
openstack flavor create m1.tiny --ram 512 --disk 5 --vcpus 1

    

The m1.tiny flavor used here is a minimal definition suitable for testing: 1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, and a 5 GB root disk. This is enough to boot a Debian cloud image and confirm the environment is working.

Verify the flavor:

    

        
        
openstack flavor list

    

The output is similar to:

    

        
        +--------------------------------------+---------+-----+------+-----------+-------+-----------+
| ID                                   | Name    | RAM | Disk | Ephemeral | VCPUs | Is Public |
+--------------------------------------+---------+-----+------+-----------+-------+-----------+
| 20ea160b-bff7-4c2a-be1e-588a44dc699a | m1.tiny | 512 |    5 |         0 |     1 | True      |
+--------------------------------------+---------+-----+------+-----------+-------+-----------+

        
    

Launch a virtual machine

To launch a VM, run:

    

        
        
openstack server create \
  --flavor m1.tiny \
  --image test-image \
  --network test-net \
  test-vm

    

Verify VM status:

    

        
        
watch -n 2 openstack server list

    

The output is similar to:

    

        
        +--------------------------------------+---------+--------+------------------------+------------+---------+
| ID                                   | Name    | Status | Networks               | Image      | Flavor  |
+--------------------------------------+---------+--------+------------------------+------------+---------+
| 4f42729c-0635-40e2-9432-ac056e40f781 | test-vm | ACTIVE | test-net=192.168.0.150 | test-image | m1.tiny |
+--------------------------------------+---------+--------+------------------------+------------+---------+

        
    

If the VM stays in ERROR, check the following:

• OVS bridges
• compute service status
• image compatibility

Access Horizon dashboard

Open a browser and navigate to the public IP address of the VM:

    

        
        
http://<VM_PUBLIC_IP>

    

Retrieve the admin password:

    

        
        
cat /etc/kolla/passwords.yml | grep keystone_admin_password

    

Log in with the following credentials:

The following image shows a successfully launched instance in the OpenStack Horizon UI.

OpenStack Horizon Instances view with running VM

What you’ve accomplished

You validated your Kolla-Ansible OpenStack deployment end-to-end. You checked service health, configured OVS bridges for Arm on Azure, uploaded an Arm-compatible Debian image, created network and compute resources, and launched a running virtual machine. Your OpenStack environment is now fully functional and ready for use.