Mastering OpenStack Administration – Hands‑On Lab | Udemy

Hands‑on OpenStack 2025.1 ‘Epoxy’ for Admins. Build an AIO lab with Kolla‑Ansible on Ubuntu 24.04, run day‑2 ops via Horizon/Skyline & CLI, and practice real workflows across Keystone, Nova, Neutron, Cinder, Glance and Heat. This course focuses squarely on operating OpenStack. You’ll learn to administer projects and users, launch and troubleshoot instances, manage networks and volumes, master images, and automate with Heat – all against the current 2025.1 Epoxy release.

Why this course?

OpenStack changes fast; production teams expect admins who can work fluently across GUI and CLI, think “immutable” and “infrastructure‑as‑code,” and fix issues under pressure. This course is built for that reality:

• Up‑to‑date with OpenStack 2025.1 “Epoxy.”
• Dashboard + CLI fluency: start in Horizon/Skyline, then level‑up to the OpenStack CLI (industry best practice).
• Realistic, reproducible lab: a self‑hosted All‑in‑One VM you install locally, so every command and screenshot in the lessons matches your environment.
• Troubleshooting built‑in: you’ll diagnose and repair “broken‑on‑purpose” scenarios – exactly the situations admins meet in real life.
• Future‑ready operations: images as code, cloud‑init bootstraps, Heat for IaC, and the cattle‑not‑pets approach.

What you’ll do (high‑level):

• Operate a self‑hosted OpenStack Epoxy cloud via Horizon/Skyline and the OpenStack CLI.
• Administer identity with Keystone: projects, users, groups, roles, and RBAC.
• Run compute workloads with Nova: flavors, key pairs, lifecycle, and quotas.
• Provide persistent storage with Cinder: volumes, types/backends, snapshots, and backups.
• Design and secure networks with Neutron: project networks, routers, floating IPs, and security groups for micro‑segmentation.
• Manage production‑grade images with Glance: trusted sources, metadata, and image hygiene.
• Build custom images (snapshots + cloud‑init) and practice an immutable update workflow.
• Troubleshoot like an admin: CLI health checks, logs, common failure modes, and safe recovery procedures.
• Automate with Heat templates: model compute, storage, and networking as code and deploy a single‑instance web app stack.

How the Hands‑On Lab works

You’ll deploy a single‑node (AIO) OpenStack 2025.1 Epoxy lab VM on your Windows machine (demonstrated with VMware Workstation Pro). The course includes a step‑by‑step article to install the Lab VM and use provided openrc files, helper scripts, and example Heat templates. Once the lab is running, every lesson’s commands and demos run exactly the same on your side.

Recommended background (already listed as prerequisites):

• Linux basics (shell, file editing, simple scripting).
• Familiarity with virtualization and cloud concepts (instances, volumes, networks).

Is this course for you?

• System Administrators / DevOps Engineers operating or migrating to OpenStack.
• Virtualization pros moving from VMware or Hyper‑V to open‑source cloud.
• Aspiring OpenStack Admins/Architects who want a solid, hands‑on foundation before tackling large‑scale deployments.

Syllabus snapshot (you’ll progress from GUI to CLI)

1. OpenStack foundations & the admin role (architecture, governance, releases).
2. Getting started: set up the Lab VM, navigate Horizon & Skyline, then the CLI.
3. Keystone identity & RBAC: domains → projects → users → roles.
4. Nova compute: flavors, key pairs, lifecycle, monitoring, quotas.
5. Cinder storage: volumes, backends & types, snapshots, backups, quotas.
6. Neutron networking basics: networks, subnets, routers, floating IPs, security groups.
7. Glance images: trusted sources, metadata, production images.
8. Advanced networking & security: multi‑tier designs, micro‑segmentation, floating IP strategy, multi‑NIC instances (Octavia concepts introduced).
9. Advanced image service: snapshots, cloud‑init, immutable images, and a Kubernetes node image example.
10. Troubleshooting: service health, error states, network/storage fixes, rebuild/rescue.
11. Heat & automation: HOT syntax, parameters/resources/outputs, deploy a single‑instance web app stack.

Outcomes you can put to work immediately

• Confidently administer OpenStack projects end‑to‑end using both GUI and CLI.
• Design safe, routed tenant networks and expose services with floating IPs.
• Harden access with role assignments and least‑privilege security groups.
• Ship updates the cloud‑native way: rebuild instances from versioned images, not by hand‑patching servers.
• Automate standard stacks with Heat and troubleshoot with a repeatable CLI playbook.

If you’re ready to run OpenStack like a modern cloud – measured, automated, and resilient – enroll now and start mastering Epoxy‑era administration the hands‑on way.