7 new tips, tricks, and tutorials for OpenStack

Interested in building an open source cloud using the latest and greatest that OpenStack has to offer? You're not alone. We've collected some of the best how-tos, guides, tutorials, and tips published over the past month into this handy collection. Take a look, prepare to learn, and when you get stuck, remember that the official documentation for OpenStack is your friend too.

This month, we look at building RPM packages, simplifying log files, running custom code with Nova hooks, and more.

• Let's start out with something a little less technical for starters. If you're looking to find a hoster OpenStack solution, here's a quick and easy guide to finding the right OpenStack provider using the information provided by the OpenStack Marketplace. Of course, it's just a starting point and you'll want to investigate your options fully before making a commitment.
• Are the log files from your OpenStack Horizon installation piling up? You can rotate them out on a regular basis to reduce their size. Here's a quick way to truncate your log files.
• Want to create a new flavor in Nova, but only make it accessible to certain tenants in your cloud? It's pretty easy with this tip for granting access to specific users. (A flavor is just a specific set of resources allocated to a virtual machine.)
• Do you participate in the OpenStack development community? Want to keep an eye on the IRC channels even when you're away? Sean Dague has some tips for setting up an IRC proxy with ZNC, IRC on mobile, and more.
• Ever wanted to build an RPM package for an OpenStack component for testing, say, perhaps to try it out with an RDO installation. Adam You gives it a shot with Keystone, but with a disclaimer: "This is not a how to. This is more like a police log." But we found it easy enough to follow.
• Debugging simple code issues, including small syntax problems like a missed parenthesis, can be a difficult using certain testing tools commonly used with OpenStack, because the actual error gets lost in the output. Here's a simple way to make it a little bit eaier.
• Do you need to run some custom code when Nova creates your instance in OpenStack? Nova provides hooks for doing this, but it's not obvious how to use them. Lars Kellogg-Stedman has an easy-to-follow example.

That's it for this month. Check out our past OpenStack tutorials collection for more great guides and hints. And if we missed your favorite new guide or resource, let us know in the comments!