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How to create an Instance
Reviewed on 23 June 2025 • Published on 26 May 2021
This page shows how to create your first Scaleway Instance. An Instance is a virtual machine in the cloud. Just like a physical machine, it has resources - virtualized CPU, RAM, storage etc. - which vary depending on the Instance type you choose. After you have created your Instance you can connect to it and use it for a wide range of computing use cases depending on the Instance type you chose, from running small-scale tests and personal projects to hosting applications and development environments to setting up a production environment.
Select a tab below for instructions on how to create an Instance via either our console, our API, or our CLI.
Name your Instance, or leave the randomly-generated name in place. Optionally, you can add tags to help you organize your Instance.
Add volumes, which are storage spaces used by your Instances. A block volume with a default name and 5,000 IOPS is automatically provided for your system volume. You can customize this volume and attach up to 16 local and/or block type volumes as needed.
Important
Ensure that the volume containing your OS image has a minimum size of 10 GB. For a GPU OS, the recommended size is 125 GB.
When multiple Block Storage volumes are linked to your Instance, the primary volume will host the OS and is essential for booting the Instance. Once the Instance is created can modify your boot volume.
Booting from a volume that either lacks an OS or is among multiple volumes with identical operating systems can lead to inconsistent boot outcomes.
Configure network of the Instance.
Leave the checkbox ticked to assign a Public IPv4 to the Instance. You can either allocate a new IPv4 address or select one or multiple existing IPv4s. Alternatively, uncheck the box if you do not want an IPv4.
Leave the checkbox ticked to assign a Public IPv6 to the Instance. You can either allocate a new IPv6 address or select one or multiple existing IPv6s. Alternatively, uncheck the box if you do not want an IPv6.
Tip
You can attach up to 5 IPs to an Instance, combining IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, which is useful for running different services or applications on the same Instance.
(Optional) Click Cloud-init to configure a cloud-init configuration. Otherwise, leave this option set to its default values.
You can configure a cloud-init script to automate Instance setup, such as setting up software, users, and system configurations at the first boot.
Verify the SSH keys that will give you access to your Instance.
Verify the Estimated cost of your Instance, based on the specifications you chose.
Click Create Instance. The creation of your Instance begins, and you will be informed when the Instance is ready.
Your Instance is now created, and you are redirected to the Overview tab. From here, you can see information including your Instance’s Public IP, the SSH command to use to connect to it, and other information, settings, and actions for the Instance.
Choose an Availability Zone, which represents the geographical region where your Instance will be deployed.
Choose a POP2-WIN Instance type from the Production-Optimized range.
Choose a Windows Server image to run on your Instance.
Name your Instance, or leave the randomly-generated name in place. Optionally, you can add tags to help you organize your Instance.
Add volumes, which are storage spaces used by your Instances. A block volume with a default name and 5,000 IOPS is automatically provided for your system volume. You can customize this volume and attach up to 16 local and/or block type volumes as needed.
Important
Ensure that a volume containing a Windows Server image has a minimum capacity of 25 GB.
When multiple Block Storage volumes are linked to your Instance, the primary volume will host the OS and is essential for booting the Instance. Once the Instance is created can modify your boot volume.
Booting from a volume that either lacks an OS or is among multiple volumes with identical operating systems can lead to inconsistent boot outcomes.
Alternatively, use the Instances API to check the block_bandwidth field at /instance/v1/zones/{zone}/products/servers.
This field provides detailed information about block bandwidth for each Instance type, helping you ensure compatibility with high-performance storage.
Configure network of the Instance.
Leave the checkbox ticked to assign a Public IPv4 to the Instance. You can either allocate a new IPv4 address or select one or multiple existing IPv4s. Alternatively, uncheck the box if you do not want an IPv4.
Leave the checkbox ticked to assign a Public IPv6 to the Instance. You can either allocate a new IPv6 address or select one or multiple existing IPv6s. Alternatively, uncheck the box if you do not want an IPv6.
Tip
You can attach up to 5 IPs to an Instance, combining IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, which is useful for running different services or applications on the same Instance.
(Optional) Click Advanced options to configure a cloud-init configuration. Otherwise, leave these options at their default values.
You can configure a cloud-init script to automate Instance setup, such as setting up software, users, and system configurations at the first boot.
Choose the RSA SSH key that will give you access to your Instance. If you do not have an RSA SSH key yet, click Add RSA SSH key and follow the steps indicated.
Tip
To activate the OpenSSH Server during Instance creation, add a with-ssh tag before launching the Instance.
Verify the Estimated cost of your Instance, based on the specifications you chose.
Click Create Instance. The creation of your Instance begins, and you will be informed when the Instance is ready.
Your Instance is now created, and you are redirected to the Overview tab. From here, you can see information including your Instance’s Public IP, the command to use to retrieve the password and connect to it, and other information, settings, and actions for the Instance.
Open a terminal and configure your environment variables with the export commands shown below.
Note
This is an optional step that seeks to simplify your usage of the API. Ensure that you replace the variables represented by triangle brackets in the example below with your own customized values:
The Project ID of the Project you want to create the Instance in. You can find your Project ID in the Settings tab of the relevant Project in the Scaleway console.
The Availability Zone you want to create the Instance in, e.g. fr-par-1.
Customize the payload for your API call. This payload specifies the configuration of the Instance you want to create. We provide an example payload below with all the required parameters, and a table of information to help you adapt it to your needs.
{
"name": "my-new-instance",
"project": "'""$SCW_PROJECT_ID""'",
"commercial_type": "GP1-S",
"image": "ubuntu_noble",
"enable_ipv6": true,
"volumes
"0": {
"name": "my-volume",
"size": 300000000000,
"volume_type": "l_ssd"
}
}
}
Parameter
Description
Valid values
name
A name of your choice for the Instance (string)
Any string containing only alphanumeric characters, dots, spaces and dashes, e.g. "my-new-instance".
project
The Project in which the Instance should be created (string)
Any valid Scaleway Project ID (see above), e.g. "b4bd99e0-b389-11ed-afa1-0242ac120002"
commercial-type
The commercial Instance type to create (string)
Any valid ID of a Scaleway commercial Instance type, e.g. "GP1-S", "PRO2-M". Use the List Instance Types endpoint to get a list of all valid Instance types and their IDs.
image
The image to install on the Instance, e.g. a particular OS (string)
Any valid Scaleway image label, e.g. ubuntu_noble which is the label for the Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat image.
enable_ipv6
Whether to enable IPv6 on the Instance (boolean)
true or false
volumes
An object that specifies the storage volumes to attach to the Instance. Must respect the volume constraints of the commercial_type (i.e. for each type of Instance, a minimum amount of storage is required, and there is also a maximum that cannot be exceeded. Some Instance types support only Block Storage (b_ssd), others also support Local Storage (l_ssd) ). These constraints are available at the List Instance Types endpoint, via the volume_constraints parameter for each type listed in the response
A (dictionary) object with a minimum of one key ("0") whose value is another object containing the parameters "name" (a name for the volume), "size" (the size for the volume, in bytes), and "volume_type" ("l_ssd" or "b_ssd"). Additional keys for additional volumes should increment by 1 each time (the second volume would have a key of 1.) Further parameters are available, and it is possible to attach existing volumes rather than creating a new one, or create a volume from a snapshot. For full details see here.
Use the following curl command, replacing the payload with the one you specified in step 2, to create your Instance.
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
Valid Instance creation results in a 201 response containing a server object that confirms the attributes of your Instance.
Tip
To make this response more readable, try adding | jq '.' to the end of the command shown in step three. This tells your shell to use the jq JSON processor to parse the response received from this call and display it in a formatted way.
Tip
When creating an Instance via the API, it is in a powered off state by default. To power it on, call the Perform action endpoint, passing it the ID of your Instance (returned in the 201 response at step 3) and poweron as the action to perform.
See the Instance API documentation for full details on the Instance API. In particular, see the Create an Instance call for more details of configurable parameters when creating an Instance.
Prepare your command by choosing values for the parameters below to define the Instance you want to create. Use the table to select appropriate values.
name=my-new-instance
project-id=adcaffc9-38ef-4502-86e1-f70d3c353745
zone=fr-par-1
type=GP1-S
image=ubuntu_noble
ip=new
root-volume=l:300GB
Parameter
Description
Valid values
name
A name of your choice for the Instance
Any string containing only alphanumeric characters, dots, spaces and dashes, e.g. my-new-instance.
project-id
The Project in which the Instance should be created
Any valid Scaleway Project ID, e.g. b4bd99e0-b389-11ed-afa1-0242ac120002
zone
The Availability Zone in which the Instance should be created. Note that some Instance types are only available in certain Availability Zones (see **type`**below)
Any valid Scaleway Availability Zone, e.g. fr-par-1, pl-waw-2
type
The type of Instance to create
Any valid ID of a Scaleway Instance type, e.g. GP1-S, PRO2-M. Use the server-type command to get a list of all valid Instance types and their IDs. The default value is DEV1-S
image
The image to install on the Instance, e.g. a particular OS
Any valid Scaleway image label, e.g. ubuntu_noble which is the label for the Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat image.
ip
The IP address to use for the Instance.
new to create a new IP, dynamic to create a dynamic IP address, none for no public IP address, or an existing IP ID. Default is new
root-volume
The root volume for the Instance (type e.g. l (local) or b (block) followed by a colon and its required size e.g. 10GB)
Any valid volume type and size that is coherent with the storage constraints of the Instance type (available via scw instance server-type list)
Open a terminal and run the command below, with the parameters modified according to your needs as defined in step one.
Your Instance is created, and its details are returned to you in response.
Read the official Scaleway CLI Instance documentation for full details on how to create an Instance via the CLI, including all available parameters, and how to take your next steps.