Access and use of bwCloud-OS

bwCloud-OS is an infrastructure-as-a-service environment based on OpenStack, specially developed and operated for research, teaching, and administration at higher education institutions in Baden-Wuerttemberg. It enables virtual machines (VMs) to be provisioned, operated, and decommissioned quickly and flexibly as needed—with the same functions as physical servers, but with significantly shorter provisioning times.

Access via bwIDM

The bwCloud-OS is available to all members of Baden-Wuerttemberg higher education institutions that are part of the federated identity management system (bwIDM). Access is granted via your personal bwIDM ID.

If your higher education institution has activated the use of bwCloud-OS, you can simply log in with your bwIDM ID and access the bwCloud-OS-Dashboard  directly. There you can create, configure, and start virtual machines. 

Creating and using instances (VMs)

After logging into the bwCloudOS dashboard, you can create your virtual machine (VM) in just a few steps:

1. Select a flavor (combination of CPU, RAM, and storage space
2. Select the desired operating system image
3. Set an SSH key for secure access (replaces password login)
4. Optional: Customize firewall rules and additional storage

The public SSH key is automatically integrated into the system when the VM is created. You can then connect to the instance externally via SSH. 

Detailed step-by-step instructions can be found in the bwCloud-OS Wiki

Data protection and security 

Please note that bwCloud-OS does not currently offer a sufficient level of protection for personal or particularly sensitive data.

Therefore, do not store any sensitive or personal information within your instances.

For more information, please refer to the terms of Use