Ever wish that you could completely automate the management of Linodes? Now you can: Introducing Linode API v2.0.
This new version allows for complete Linode life-cycle management. Now you can add and remove Linodes under your account, manage their disk images and configuration profiles, list IPs, issue boot and shutdown jobs, and query the status of host jobs.
The API is governed by the existing Users and Permissions system, so you’re able to create users under your Linode.com account, generate their API key, and allow them access to only the objects you’ve specified.
As always, Linodes added through Linode.com (and now the API) are invoiced through the pay-period you’ve selected. Removing a Linode issues a credit back to your account for the remaining unused portion, effectively providing instance-day billing.
- Linode API 2.0 Reference – Reference Documentation
- Python Bindings – by TJ Fontaine, Ryan Tucker, and others
- PHP Bindings – by Kerem Durmus
- Perl Bindings (v1)
The automation provided by the Linode API allows your applications and tools to directly control your Linodes in our Cloud. We’re excited about the possibilities and really look forward to seeing the creative projects that will undoubtedly grow alongside our continued development of the API.
Comments (27)
This is so cool guys. I had been meaning to request that you flesh out the API more so that it became a tool to manage the creation and control of linodes.
Excellent work! This is beyond awesome. This brings linode into the fully-automatic cloud-computing sphere at 1/4th the cost of an ec2 instance. Once the word gets out you guys may have fun trying to keep up with demand. (a really good situation to be in). In a word “wewp!”.
This is why Linode is the best. In Turkish; “Helal olsun!”
We’ve needed Linode container creation, clone, list and destroy – this is great news and we’ll take a look at your Reference Documentation. Thanks for your effort on this. We appreciate it. Thanks for also working on the implementation of your API for libcloud.org. We’ll be sure to let others know of your efforts.
DharmaTech
Nice API features. Any chance of iPhone app in the near soon.
@James
>>”This brings linode into the fully-automatic cloud-computing sphere at 1/4th the cost of an ec2 instance.”
How do you figure?
At $72 / mo., an EC2 get’s you 1.5 GB of RAM and a 1.8 GHz proc
Here’s the pricing calculator in case you don’t believe me.
http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/calc5.html
@Tim, price/resource comparisons aside, $20 gets you a Linode, which is roughly 1/4 the cost of the smallest EC2 instance.
@caker: Sure, $20 gets you a small Linode – which is 1/4 the cost of EC2 … but from a performance standpoint – that 1/4 the cost get’s you 1/7th the performance (360MB of RAM vs 1.8GB)
So dollar-for-dollar, EC2 is waaaaaaaaaaay more bang for the buck.
@caker: Another way to look at it:
For the performance of a EC2-small at $72 which get’s you 1.8GB … that would be equivalent to a Linode 1440 ($79) + Linode 360 ($20).
So, to get the same performance from 1 EC2-small ($72), it would cost $99 at Linode.
Which translates to Linode being 38% more expansive than EC2.
Again, I love you guys but let’s not forget – you’re not the least expensive / high-quality rodeo in town
@Tim: I think you’re forgetting available CPU resources in your calculations. With a Linode 360 you get access to four Xeon cores, which you can max out any available CPU time on. The vast majority of the time our hosts run under very low load, meaning you get a heck of lot more bang for your buck than a single 1.8 GHz processor.
@Tim: Define performance for me.
RAM does not equal performance. It depends on the workload, of course, but a blanket statement like that without some metric or benchmark to back it up is worthless. Also, where is bandwidth in your calculations? And persistent storage? And a static IP address? All of those are extra with AWS.
Regardless, here’s a more accurate comparison:
EC2 Small Instance, with reservation: 1.7GB RAM, 1 core, 64GB EBS, 800GB bandwidth, with static IP: $231.30/mo
Linode 1440, 1.4GB RAM, 4 cores, 64GB DIsk, 800GB bandwidth, static IP: $79.95/mo
Excellent day to release on, it was my birthday.
I used EC2 for a while, before I got my Linode, when I just needed to do the odd thing using Linux. Always cost me way more than I used because I’m in the UK and my bank adds £1.50 to any foreign transaction. When your using less than 50p a month, that’s a fortune!
Awesome!
Glad to see there are Perl bindings available. 🙂
@Tim
I’m with Chris and Phil on this one. I’d love there to be Linode in the EU (as EC2 has EU instances). However, every time I’ve tried to get anywhere near the total package that Linode offers using EC2 pricing, EC2 is way more expensive. (And I understand full well the problem for Linode in maintaining their quality control so far from the US).
Furthermore, Linode listens like no other supplier I’ve dealt with. And with the irc channel, when I’ve had a problem or worry that needed an _immediate_ answer, I’ve popped in there and got it. One time when I had trouble accessing my linodes, I went to the irc channel and they were even able to tell me about problems with my carrier from the UK of which I was unaware.
I’ve recommended Linode whenever people ask for hosting. And I don’t even ask that people use me as a referral – I want people to know that I’m recommending Linode purely because I think Linode is a top quality operation.
@caker
Thanks for the information.
It might be worthy while to create a Linode web page showing this comparison between you and EC2 for others to learn and understand
I’ve been on the fence for a while over Linode vs Slicehost vs EC2 vs Mosso, etc. I think Caker’s cost + feature comparisons have made me decide to go with Linode for my next mini-project. I agree with Tim, you SHOULD make a page comparing this! Compare yourselves to others and display popular websites that use your service (uptime is a big concern too).
From a cost-conscious (no, not cheap!) person like myself, seeing these numbers in front of me without having to hunt and calculate bandwidth, usage, etc. makes decisions turn from days (even weeks) to moments.
That combined with this new API and the hopes of an iphone app will have me signing up soon!
Best regards,
Tony Carrera
@caker Also, if you could break down the cost structure as well for the EC2 comparision – that would be great. Since it seems that most of the EC2 cost that you calculated is related to the bandwidth.
Any chance the stats graphs can be exposed using the API? It seems like they are available for some time period after you log in using the normal console but issuing commands with the API doesn’t do the same thing.
I wonder why nobody has slashdotted this announcement just yet.
I’m sure it would blast the sales as hell…
I would to have access to stats graphs through the API too 🙂
And it would be very useful to remove all the linode information on the graphs. Privacy is gold 🙂
It would be great if you could view the last n lines of the console from the API.
John
Looks cool, but the idea of debugging code that makes automated charges to my credit card is a little bit nerve-wracking. Any chance of getting a fail-safe of some sort in case I forget to increment a loop counter?
@Daniel: You’ll notice linode.create() has a built-in limiter of 5 Linodes added per hour.
Very nice. Any chance of a sandbox? say for example
https://apisandbox.linode.com/?api_key=abc123&api_action=linode.create&…
Comes back with something like
Node creation successful. $XX.XX was charged to your ImaginaryCard
I can’t send mail to api@linode.com, because your mail server returns error ‘User unknown’.
@Din: try again now, thanks.
Hi,
Do you guys have any plan to support other cloud APIs/Frameworks such as jclouds?
Thanks
Reza