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Compute

Overview · Updated May 2026

Coming from another cloud?

▸AWS·Amazon EC2

This Quake AI feature maps to AWS’s Amazon EC2.

▸Azure·Virtual Machines

Virtual Machineshigh

  • Uses Azure Resource Manager (ARM) REST API at /providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines instead of OpenStack Nova API at /v2.1/servers.
  • Tightly integrated with Azure services like Azure Active Directory for authentication, unlike OpenStack's Keystone.
  • VM creation requires specifying size from predefined series with hardware-specific features (e.g., AMD/Intel/ARM), not custom flavor configs.
  • Billed per second with complex pricing tiers based on series/reservation options, vs OpenStack's typically hourly or usage-based.
Azure docs ↗
▸Google Cloud·Compute Engine

This Quake AI feature maps to Google Cloud’s Compute Engine.

Compute

Compute gives you virtual machines you control. You pick an image and a flavor, attach the instance to your project networks, and then start, stop, resize, snapshot, or delete it whenever you need to.

OpenStack Nova backs Compute. For how Quake AI implements OpenStack, see How Quake AI uses OpenStack.

Start here#

Follow Create a virtual machine instance for the shortest path to a running VM. You choose an image and a flavor, attach the instance to a network, and connect to it over SSH.

Choose a pattern#

PatternUse it when
Create a virtual machine instanceYou want a VM on a default public network to log in and try the platform.
Create a VM on a private networkThe instance should sit on an isolated project network behind a router and floating IP.
Launch your first serverYou are new to Quake AI and want a numbered walkthrough that ends by deleting what you built.

How it works#

InputsRunning InstanceImageFlavorNetworkKey PairSecurity GroupUser Data
Click to zoom
What you assemble to create a compute instance: an image, flavor, network attachment, key pair, and security group combine into a running VM.

Creating an instance ties together an image (the OS and pre-installed software), a flavor (CPU, memory, and ephemeral disk allocation), and network attachments (which project networks the instance joins). Optionally add security groups for traffic filtering, key pairs for SSH authentication, and user data scripts for first-boot automation.

The platform places your instance on a compute node with sufficient capacity, respecting any placement policies you set through server groups (affinity or anti-affinity rules). After boot, you manage the instance through the console, CLI, or API: stopping it to save resources, resizing to a larger flavor as load grows, snapshotting for point-in-time recovery, or deleting it when the workload completes.

Instances use ephemeral disk by default (tied to the instance lifecycle). For data that must survive instance deletion, attach a persistent block storage volume from Block storage.

Concepts#

Concepts

  • Apps: Apps is a deployment feature in the Compute section of the Console (Compute > Apps). You pick an app from the catalog, and the platform provisions an instance from a pre-built image with the...
  • Cloud-init and First-boot Configuration: cloud-init is the industry-standard first-boot agent that runs inside Linux and BSD guests. When you launch an instance, Compute (OpenStack Nova) passes user data to the guest. cloud-init reads that...
  • Flavors: Flavors define the resource shape of an instance: vCPU count, memory, root disk size, and optional ephemeral or swap storage. The Compute service (OpenStack Nova) exposes flavors as named resource...
  • High Availability on Quake AI: A single instance running your application is a single point of failure. When that instance goes down (planned maintenance, hardware fault, or software crash), your users see an outage. High...
  • Images: Images give each new instance the same starting point: operating system, tooling, and baseline configuration. The Images service (OpenStack Glance) lets you discover, register, and retrieve virtual...
  • Instance Snapshots: Instance snapshots capture the full state of a running instance (root disk data, memory, and configuration) as an image you can store, clone from, or restore to. They are part of the Compute service...
  • Instances: Instances are virtual machines (VMs) that run on Quake AI. They give you isolated compute (CPU, memory, disk, and network), so you deploy applications and services inside projects without sharing an...
  • Key Pairs: Key pairs are the default way you prove you are allowed to log in to Linux instances without sending a password over the network. Quake AI stores the public half and injects it into the guest; you...
  • Self-hosted AI on Cloud Infrastructure: Self-hosted AI means running language models on infrastructure you control. Your prompts and completions stay on your network. You pay a fixed compute cost (not per token), and you can run open-weight...
  • Server Groups: Server groups apply placement policies (affinity or anti-affinity) that control whether your instances land on the same physical host or are spread across different hosts. The Compute service...

How-to#

  • How to Back Up and Restore a Quake AI VM: Protect a VM with snapshots, copy backups off-project for disaster recovery, and run a restore drill that proves you can boot from the backup. Instance snapshots live in the same project as the source...
  • How to Boot a Virtual Machine from an ISO Image: Install a custom operating system on Quake AI by booting from an ISO image. This process uses two volumes: a blank root drive and an ISO-backed drive. After the installation completes, you can...
  • How to Build a Golden VM Image with Packer: Build a reusable golden VM image with Packer and its OpenStack builder, then publish the result to the Quake AI Images service (OpenStack Glance) so you can launch identical instances from it.
  • How to Configure a VM with Cloud-init: Write cloud-init user data, pass it when you launch an instance, and confirm the guest applied your baseline on first boot.
  • How to Create a Virtual Machine Image: Upload a custom OS image to your Quake AI project so you can use it to launch instances. Quake AI supports QCOW2, RAW, and ISO disk formats. Use QCOW2 for most use cases.
  • How to Create a Virtual Machine Instance: Create a virtual machine (VM) instance with your choice of operating system, hardware flavor, and network configuration. This guide covers the common path: booting from a public image onto an existing...
  • How to Create a VM on a Private Network: Create a virtual machine on an isolated private network with internet access via a router and floating IP. This is the recommended approach for production workloads.
  • How to Create a VM on a Public Network: Create a virtual machine directly on the PublicEphemeral network for quick testing. The instance gets a public IP address automatically, so you can SSH in immediately.
  • How to Create an Instance Snapshot: Create a point-in-time snapshot of a running instance. Snapshots are stored as images and can be used to launch new instances or create golden images for repeatable deployments.
  • How to Deploy a Containerized Application with Docker Compose on a Quake AI VM: Run a multi-container application from a docker-compose.yml file on a Quake AI virtual machine. You install Docker and the Compose plugin on the VM, move your project onto it, supply environment...
  • How to Harden a Quake AI Virtual Machine: Harden a freshly provisioned Linux virtual machine before it serves traffic. Restrict network access with security groups, reduce SSH exposure in the guest OS, add a host firewall, enable automatic...
  • How to Launch a Windows Server VM: Important: You are responsible for meeting all licensing requirements.
  • How to Maintain a Quake AI VM Over Its Lifetime: Keep a production VM healthy over months of use: change its flavor when load grows, expand attached storage, reboot safely, rotate logs, and decommission the instance without leaving orphaned...
  • How to Operate a Running Quake AI VM: Use these procedures to connect over SSH, rotate access, attach storage, check resource usage, transfer files, and recover access to a running VM.
  • How to Patch and Update a Quake AI VM: Patch the guest operating system manually or on a schedule. Plan reboots for kernel updates, and create a Quake AI snapshot as a rollback point before a major upgrade.
  • How to Provision a Production-ready VM: Walk through the decisions and steps to launch a virtual machine you can run a workload on: pick sizing, attach SSH access, place the instance on the right network, pass first-boot configuration, and...
  • How to Resize a Quake AI VM to a Dedicated-cpu Plan: Move a VM from a shared vCPU flavor (the Developer plan's starting point) to a dedicated vCPU flavor (Basic and custom dedicated packs). A flavor resize keeps the instance ID, boot volume, attached...
  • How to Schedule Recurring Jobs on a Quake AI VM: Run a command or script on a fixed schedule inside a Quake AI instance, using either cron or systemd timers.
  • How to Set a Password on a Virtual Machine Instance: Set a login password on an instance so you can access it via the web console. Passwords are an alternative to SSH key pairs for console-based access.
  • How to Use the Virtual Machine Console: Access a running virtual machine through a browser-based VNC terminal. The console lets you interact with the instance without SSH, which is useful during OS installation, when network access is...

Templates

This validated OpenTofu template composes Compute, Network, and Block Storage into a self-hosted extract-and-load host you run on infrastructure you control.Custom package · ~$68/mo · 30 minutes
This pattern composes Compute, Network, and Block Storage into a self-hosted workflow orchestration host you run on infrastructure you control.Custom package · ~$34/mo · 25 minutes
This validated OpenTofu template composes Compute, Network, and Block Storage into a self-hosted business-intelligence host you run on infrastructure you control.Custom package · ~$67/mo · 25 minutes
This pattern composes Compute, Network, and Block Storage into a self-hosted API gateway on infrastructure you control.Custom package · ~$31/mo · 30 minutes
This pattern composes Compute, Network, and Block Storage into a self-hosted low-code platform for internal tools and admin panels, on infrastructure you control.Custom package · ~$32/mo · 20 minutes
This pattern composes Compute, Network, and Object Storage.Custom package · ~$60/mo · 25 minutes

Browse all templates

Deployments

Stand up a retrieval-augmented generation pipeline on Quake AI by composing Ollama inference with Qdrant vector search. You ingest documents, embed chunks with Ollama, store vectors in Qdrant, and...~$195/mo · Custom package · 30 minutes
Run the durable control plane on Quake AI CPU compute: a Redis or Valkey queue and a worker process accept jobs, submit each one to a third-party GPU or model API, poll for completion, retry on failure, and land results in Object Storage. The queue and workers stay always-on and cheap; the GPU work runs on a provider you choose.~$30/mo · Custom package · 45 minutes
Stand up a Next.js app on a single Quake AI instance using the validated OpenTofu template nextjs-app. You build a standalone container image, push it to a registry, apply the template, serve the app...~$13/mo · Custom package · 40 minutes
Stand up a Harbor container registry on a private subnet with one floating IP for HTTPS access using the harbor-registry OpenTofu template.~$72/mo · Custom package · 40 minutes
Stand up a private Valkey or Redis cache on a Quake AI private network using the validated OpenTofu template redis-cache. You set a password and apply the template, confirm the cache binds to the...~$14/mo · Custom package · 30 minutes
Stand up a Varnish Cache HTTP accelerator on one Quake AI instance using the validated OpenTofu template edge-cache. You apply the template, launch a private origin on the same subnet, confirm a cache...~$14/mo · Custom package · 45 minutes

Browse all deployments

Pricing data last validated: . For current rates, check quake.ai/pricing.

Reference and operations#

Operations runbooks cover instance connectivity and lifecycle failures.

Every instance needs a Network connection. For persistent disk, attach block storage volumes. To deploy instances from templates, use Automation.

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