Getting started with Compute: Create your first Nebius AI Cloud virtual machine

Documentation Index

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Before you start

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Install the Nebius AI Cloud CLI

curl -sSL https://storage.eu-north1.nebius.cloud/cli/install.sh | bash

nebius profile create

nebius config set parent-id <project_ID>

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Install jq

sudo apt-get install jq

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Generate keys for SSH access to the VM

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Create a VM with eight GPUs with InfiniBand™ and a shared filesystem for training

1. Create a boot disk and save its ID to an environment variable:
   export TR_VM_BOOT_DISK_ID=$(nebius compute disk create \
     --name training-vm-disk-1 \
     --size-gibibytes 200 \
     --type network_ssd \
     --source-image-family-image-family ubuntu24.04-cuda13.0 \
     --block-size-bytes 4096 \
     --format json | jq -r ".metadata.id")
   
   The command creates a 200 GiB SSD disk with a 4 KiB block size and an Ubuntu boot image with pre-installed NVIDIA GPU drivers. For details about boot disk images (--source-image-family-image-family), see Boot disk images for Compute virtual machines.
2. Create a shared filesystem and save its ID to an environment variable:
   export TR_VM_FILESYSTEM_ID=$(nebius compute filesystem create \
     --name training-vm-filesystem-1 \
     --size-gibibytes 1024 \
     --type network_ssd \
     --block-size-bytes 4096 \
     --format json | jq -r ".metadata.id")
   
   The command creates a 1 TiB SSD shared filesystem with 4 KiB blocks.
3. Get the subnet ID and save it to an environment variable:
   export SUBNET_ID=$(nebius vpc subnet list \
     --format json \
     | jq -r ".items[0].metadata.id")
   
   Possible subnet ID: vpcsubnet-e0dcbaa76x2024xyz8.
4. For high-speed networking and efficient training, consider interconnecting multiple VM GPUs in a GPU cluster using InfiniBand. To do this, before creating the VM, create a GPU cluster to connect the VM and get its ID:
   export GPU_CLUSTER_ID=$(nebius compute gpu-cluster create \
     --name gpu-cluster-name \
     --infiniband-fabric fabric-3 \
     --format json \
     | jq -r ".metadata.id")
   
5. Create a VM with 8 GPUs for training:
   export NETWORK_INTERFACE_NAME=single-gpu-node-compute-api-network-interface
   export USER_DATA=$(printf "users:\n - name: user\n   sudo: ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL\n   shell: /bin/bash\n   ssh_authorized_keys:\n   - $(cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub)" | jq -Rs '.')
   
   export TR_VM_ID=$(nebius compute instance create \
     --format json \
     ${GPU_CLUSTER_ID:+--gpu-cluster-id} ${GPU_CLUSTER_ID:+"$GPU_CLUSTER_ID"} \
     - <<EOF | jq -r ".metadata.id"
   {
     "metadata": {
       "name": "training-instance"
     },
     "spec": {
       "stopped": false,
       "cloud_init_user_data": $USER_DATA,
       "resources": {
         "platform": "gpu-h100-sxm",
         "preset": "8gpu-128vcpu-1600gb"
       },
       "boot_disk": {
         "attach_mode": "READ_WRITE",
         "existing_disk": {
           "id": "$TR_VM_BOOT_DISK_ID"
         }
       },
       "filesystems": [
         {
           "attach_mode": "READ_WRITE",
           "mount_tag": "training-vm-filesystem-1",
           "existing_filesystem": {
             "id": "$TR_VM_FILESYSTEM_ID"
           }
         }
       ],
       "network_interfaces": [
         {
           "name": "$NETWORK_INTERFACE_NAME",
           "subnet_id": "$SUBNET_ID",
           "ip_address": {},
           "public_ip_address": {}
         }
       ]
     }
   }
   EOF
   )
   
   The given example assumes that you work with VMs that have public addresses, so you can later connect to these VMs by SSH. However, if you need isolated VMs without public addresses, remove the "public_ip_address": {} line from the VM configuration. To access the VM, you can set up a WireGuard jump server later. This approach enhances security and still provides access to the VM within the same subnet. For more information about creating VMs and managing their network parameters, see How to create a virtual machine in Nebius AI Cloud.

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Create a VM with one GPU for inference

1. Create a boot disk and save its ID to an environment variable:
   export INF_VM_BOOT_DISK_ID=$(nebius compute disk create \
     --name inference-vm-disk-1 \
     --size-gibibytes 200 \
     --type network_ssd \
     --source-image-family-image-family ubuntu24.04-cuda13.0 \
     --block-size-bytes 4096 \
     --format json | jq -r ".metadata.id")
   

2. Create a VM with one GPU for inference:
   export NETWORK_INTERFACE_NAME=single-gpu-node-compute-api-network-interface
   export USER_DATA=$(jq -Rs '.' <<EOF
   users:
     - name: user
       sudo: ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
       shell: /bin/bash
       ssh_authorized_keys:
         - $(cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub)
   EOF
   )
   
   export INF_VM_ID=$(nebius compute instance create \
     --format json \
     - <<EOF | jq -r ".metadata.id"
   {
     "metadata": {
       "name": "inference-instance"
     },
     "spec": {
       "stopped": false,
       "cloud_init_user_data": $USER_DATA,
       "resources": {
         "platform": "gpu-h100-sxm",
         "preset": "1gpu-16vcpu-200gb"
       },
       "boot_disk": {
         "attach_mode": "READ_WRITE",
         "existing_disk": {
           "id": "$INF_VM_BOOT_DISK_ID"
         }
       },
       "network_interfaces": [
         {
           "name": "$NETWORK_INTERFACE_NAME",
           "subnet_id": "$SUBNET_ID",
           "ip_address": {},
           "public_ip_address": {}
         }
       ]
     }
   }
   EOF
   )
   

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Connect to the VMs

1. Get your VM’s public IP address and save it to an environment variable:
   export TR_PUBLIC_IP_ADDRESS=$(nebius compute instance get \
     --id $TR_VM_ID \
     --format json \
     | jq -r '.status.network_interfaces[0].public_ip_address.address | split("/")[0]')
   
2. Use the public IP address to connect to the VM:
   ssh user@$INF_PUBLIC_IP_ADDRESS
   

1. Get your VM’s public IP address and save it to an environment variable:
   export INF_PUBLIC_IP_ADDRESS=$(nebius compute instance get \
     --id $INF_VM_ID \
     --format json \
     | jq -r '.status.network_interfaces[0].public_ip_address.address | split("/")[0]')
   
2. Use the public IP address to connect to the VM:
   ssh user@$INF_PUBLIC_IP_ADDRESS
   

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What’s next

• Learn about VM and GPU types
• Learn how to create different types of VMs
• Learn more about VM networking
• Learn how to work with GPU clusters