Welcome to the previous releases section of our documentation portal for IONOS Cloud. This section is dedicated to archiving previous release notes for the year(s), excluding the latest release.

What's new

Changes to the Login Process

AI Model Hub now supports OpenAI Image endpoint

Firewall Rules Upgrade: Broader Protocol Coverage

Introducing Custom MAC Address Capability for Network Interfaces

Kubernetes Version 1.28 End-of-Life Notification

Changes to the Login Process

Network Security Groups Support in Cloud API v6

New Database Interface

Event Streams for Apache Kafka General Availability

Managed Kubernetes Versions

Explore our guides and reference documents to integrate IONOS Cloud products and services.

Documentation Spotlight

Set Up IONOS Cloud

Developer Reference

Product User Guides

AI

Compute Services

Containers

Data Analytics

Databases

Network Services

Observability

Storage & Backup

Security

What's new

What's new

What's new

and

What's new

Documentation updates

Changes as of April 2, 2024

As part of our ongoing redesign, we have significantly enhanced its layout, appearance, and navigation to provide an unmatched user experience and improved visibility of our products and product categories. Consequently, you will observe changes in the product listing on the vertical navigation bar on the left side of this page.

We aim to improve the visibility of our functional products and make documentation easily discoverable. Our team has worked diligently to ensure these modifications align with the best practices in documentation portal design and user experience. The result is a documentation portal that offers our users a streamlined and efficient browsing experience.

What's changing?

Across the documentation portal:

• The new look and feel of the document, with refreshing color and font style changes, make the content visually appealing.

• Appealing banners differentiate between different documentation sections, such as User Guides, Developer Reference, Support, and FAQs.

• A new Log in tab on the horizontal navigation bar redirects to the log in page.

• APIs, SDKs & Tools tab on the horizontal navigation bar have been renamed to Developer Reference.

On the landing page:

• Well-categorized and comprehensive sections for IONOS Cloud products and services: Getting Started, Developer Reference, Product User Guides, and Security.

• Card-based layouts for products:

  • Bite-sized snippets of information provide an overview of the product.

  • Clickable cards swiftly redirect to the landing page of the respective product documentation.

• Product Categories and Products:

  • Listed in an alphabetical order on the landing page and on the vertical navigation bar on the left side of this page.

  • To ensure sync with the newly designed product catalog on the IONOS website, specific:

    • Products have either moved to an existing product category or placed under a newly added product category.

    • Product names have changed.

On the vertical navigation bar:

Who’s impacted, and what about availability?

End users can view upgrades via the accessible public documentation portal.

What changed in the product categories?

The changes include the following:

Effective changes to product categories:

List of products with new names:

Product recategorization:

We are publishing changes in phases on the documentation portal, which means that it is constantly evolving. However, the product's functionality and features remain unaffected. We will keep you updated about all changes here.

What's new

DBaaS for MariaDB is available in all IONOS Cloud locations

Increased Key Length in IONOS Object Storage

Managed Kubernetes - Regional Control Planes

Firewall Rule Changes for Backup Service Users

Critical Backdoor in XZ Utils for Linux (CVE-2024-3094)

Documentation updates

Redesigned Documentation Portal Landing Page

Updates to IONOS Cloud Product Categories and Products

What's new

IONOS DBaaS for MariaDB

Firewall Rule Changes Required for Backup Service Users

Grafana Access Enhancement for Sub-Users in Logging Service

What's new

Sub-user Management for Logging Service

What's new

IONOS Telemetry API for Logging Service

IONOS Cloud Crossplane Provider is now available in the official Upbound Crossplane Marketplace

Advisory on Container Escape via runc (CVE-2024-21626)

API/SDK Authentication Token Manager

What's new

AI Model Hub

New Network menu in the DCD

Network File Storage

Cross Connect General Availability in the Frankfurt Region

Managed Kubernetes Versions

Advisory on CVE-2024-6387

Changes to AMD Opteron Node Pools

Documentation updates

Changes to Backup Service

Certificate Manager

Veeam Backup & Replication settings for Object Storage

What's new

What's new

Documentation updates

What's new

Documentation updates

What's new

Documentation updates

What's new

At IONOS Cloud, we are committed to continuously improving our services to enhance your experience and safeguard your data. We are pleased to announce that on November 11, 2024, we implemented significant updates to our Identity and Access Management (IAM) Single Sign-On (SSO) login process, resulting in the redesign of the login screens. This change will not impact your data and no action is required at your end.

The updates are designed to increase security protocols to protect user data and streamline access. They will help ensure that IONOS Cloud continues to provide a secure, reliable, user-friendly platform and an improved login interface with faster response times.

The rollout is gradual and not instantaneous. You would have already noticed the changes to the Partner/Reseller Portal, which went live on November 12, 2024. The transformation of the DCD login screen will be implemented on November 18, 2024.

The change requires you to validate yourself in the following screens:  1. The first one requires your Email Address and Password.  2. The second screen requests the Time-based one-time password (TOTP) from your authenticator app if you have configured 2-Factor Authentication.

We recommend proceeding with your authentication as usual. This new login approach improves security by controlling the authentication and authorization of your accounts and makes logging into multiple applications much easier and safer by allowing you to use one set of credentials.

What's new

Cloud DNS

The IONOS AI Model Hub is designed to simplify the deployment and management of advanced machine learning models, eliminating the complexities associated with hardware and infrastructure. This inference service serves a range of powerful AI models that facilitate developers' implementation of sophisticated AI solutions without worrying about underlying hardware and operational overheads.

IONOS' AI Model Hub supports various use cases, including:

• Text Generation: Utilize pre-trained Large Language Models (LLMs) to generate text and answer queries using textual descriptions.

• Image Generation: Utilize pre-trained text-to-image models to create images based on textual descriptions.

• Document Embeddings: Store and query extensive document collections based on semantic similarity.

• Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG): Enhance responses by combining Large Language Models with contextually relevant documents stored in a vector database.

Features

The IONOS AI Model Hub Service offers a wide array of features tailored to meet the needs of modern developers:

1. Managed Hosting: Utilize AI models without needing to maintain the underlying infrastructure.

2. Security and Compliance: Keep your data secure and compliant with regulations, as data processing is confined within Germany. Your input data is not used for training purposes in any way.

3. Scalability: Scale your AI deployments seamlessly based on your needs.

4. Integration Options: Easily integrate with your applications using REST APIs that are fully OpenAI-compatible, with support for popular programming languages like Python and Bash.

5. Diverse Model Offerings: Choose from various foundation models, including Large Language Models and text-to-image models, each capable of generating innovative and sophisticated AI outputs.

6. Document Embeddings: Store and manage document collections and perform semantic similarity searches to extract contextually relevant information.

7. Retrieval Augmented Generation: Combine vector databases and Large Language Models to generate enhanced outputs that are contextually aware, providing more accurate and helpful responses.

8. Token-based Billing: Pay for the services based on the number of tokens used, enabling cost-efficient usage and transparency in billing.

Concepts

Understanding the foundational concepts of the IONOS AI Model Hub will help you leverage its full potential:

Foundation Models

Foundation models are pre-trained on massive datasets to perform a wide range of language and image processing tasks. They can generate text, answer questions, and create images based on textual descriptions. With IONOS, you can access these models via APIs, simplifying the process of integrating advanced AI capabilities into your applications.

Key Points:

• Access various open-source Large Language Models for text generation and text-to-image models for image generation.

• Use models without managing underlying hardware.

• Maintain data privacy and comply with German data protection regulations.

Document Embeddings

Vector databases provide a way to store and manage document collections, enabling semantic similarity searches. Documents are converted to embeddings (vector representations), allowing the discovery of related content through similarity searches.

Key Points:

• Persist documents and search for semantically similar content.

• Use API endpoints to manage document collections and perform searches.

• Ensure document storage and processing stays within Germany.

Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)

Retrieval Augmented Generation combines the capabilities of Large Language Models and vector databases to improve the quality of responses. By supplementing the inherent knowledge of Large Language Models with specific, contextually relevant information from document collections, Retrieval Augmented Generation provides more accurate and detailed answers.

Key Points:

• Use Large Language Models together with document collections from vector databases.

• Improve response accuracy and relevance by incorporating additional context.

• Implement sophisticated AI solutions using a combination of querying and generation.

Components

API Endpoints

Use dedicated REST API endpoints to interact with various models and services. These endpoints are designed to facilitate the quick and easy integration of AI capabilities into your applications. The IONOS AI Model Hub provides two API options for maximum flexibility: its native IONOS AI Model Hub API and an OpenAI-compatible API, making it easy to work with tools that support OpenAI endpoints.

OpenAI-Compatible Endpoints:

These endpoints mirror OpenAI’s API structure, allowing for seamless integration with tools and platforms already designed for OpenAI:

1. Models: Retrieve the list of available models and their details.

2. Chat Completions: Generate conversational responses using supported Large Language Models.

3. Image Generations: Create high-quality images based on text prompts.

Native IONOS AI Model Hub Endpoints:

1. Model Management: Endpoints for retrieving model lists, querying models, and managing predictions.

2. Document Management: Endpoints for creating, modifying, retrieving, and deleting document collections and individual documents.

3. Querying and Generating: Endpoints for combining semantic searches with Large Language Models to implement Retrieval Augmented Generation scenarios.

Authentication and Authorization

Security is paramount, and IONOS provides robust mechanisms to authenticate and authorize API requests. Users must generate and use API tokens to access the AI services securely.

Data Privacy and Compliance

IONOS ensures that all data processing complies with German and European data protection regulations. Your data is processed within Germany, providing an additional layer of security and compliance.

Technical Support

IONOS offers expert technical support to help you troubleshoot and optimize your AI deployments. Whether you need assistance with API integration or model performance, the support and Professional Service team is available to ensure your success during German business hours.

Backup of Collections in Vector Database

IONOS does not backup the data saved to collections in the vector database. Please ensure that you can restore the content of your collections in case of deletion.

The Password Policy feature in IONOS Cloud helps organizations enforce password security by defining a set of rules that must be followed when creating and updating passwords. This feature is crucial for safeguarding accounts and ensuring adherence to security standards. Always ensure that your policies are in line with industry best practices to safeguard your data effectively.

Features

• Customizable Rules: The password rule can be customized to your needs such as recommendations to have complex passwords to improve the security of user accounts. You can define criteria on the length of the password, whether or not to include lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and special characters in the password and the minimum quantity of each of these character types.

• Ease of Use: Using the DCD or the IAM Identity Password Policies API, contract owners can manage password policies easily.

• Flexibility: Create, retrieve, update, or delete a password policy as needed. It is recommended to keep your policies reasonable to promote user compliance. On deleting a password policy, the IONOS standard applies for password management.

API endpoint

The Password Policy Manager feature is part of the Identity Management API and can be managed using the /{passwordPolicyId}/ endpoint. Further documentation can be found in the respective Password Policy API documentation.

To access this API, you must authenticate requests using your Bearer token, which enables requests to authenticate using a JSON Web Token (JWT). From the DCD, Generate authentication token.

Password Policy Manager in the DCD

Using the DCD, you can create, update, or delete a password policy as needed.

Create a password policy

To create a password policy, follow these steps:

1. In the DCD, go to Menu > Management > Password Policy under Security.

2. Click Create password policy in the Password Policy Manager.

3. Enter the following details to configure a password policy:

• Description: Add a detailed description that explains the password policy. The length of the description must not exceed 1024 characters.

• Password length: Enter or use arrow keys to select the maximum password length. You cannot set a password policy that is less than 5 characters in length. For example, if the defined length is 9, the password must be a minimum of nine characters in length.

• Must contain uppercase letters [A—Z]: Select the checkbox if the password policy must contain any uppercase letters from A—Z.

  • Minimum quantity: Enter or use arrow keys to specify the allowed count of uppercase characters in the password. For example, if 4 is the quantity chosen, the password must contain a minimum of four uppercase characters.

• Must contain lowercase letters [a—z]: Select the checkbox if the password policy must contain any lowercase letters from a—z.

  • Minimum quantity: Enter or use arrow keys to specify the allowed count of lowercase characters in the password. For example, if 4 is the quantity chosen, the password must contain a minimum of four lowercase characters.

• Must contain numerics [0-9]: Select the checkbox if the password policy must contain numbers from 0 to 9.

  • Minimum quantity: Specify the minimum allowed count of numerics in the password.

• Must contain special characters [@, #, $, %, etc.]: Select the checkbox if the password policy must contain special characters. Any character apart from a—z,A—Z, and 0 to 9 is referred to as a special character.

  • Minimum quantity: Specify the minimum allowed count of special characters in the password.

4. Click Save password policy.

Update a password policy

To update an existing password policy, follow these steps:

1. In the DCD, go to Menu > Management > Password Policy under Security.

2. Click Edit to update the description or password policy details such as the length of the password or characters allowed in the password policy.

3. Click Save to reflect the changes made to the password policy.

Delete a password policy

If you no longer need a password policy, you can delete it permanently. To delete an existing password policy, follow these steps:

1. In the DCD, go to Menu > Management > Password Policy under Security.

2. Click Delete and confirm the deletion again by selecting Delete and use IONOS Standard.

As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, it is paramount to ensure that user data is handled responsibly and transparently. This commitment protects user privacy and builds trust in the technology we provide. At IONOS, we strive to uphold the highest standards in data handling while delivering innovative AI solutions through our AI Model Hub.

Data Collection, Usage, and Storage

• Stateless Service: AI Model Hub operates as a stateless service, meaning it does not retain user prompts or outputs. Each session is independent, ensuring that your interactions are not logged or recorded for future reference or used to train or improve models.

• Data Collections: Customers can upload their documents to a Vector database. Each collection is dedicated to a customer by design and is securely stored in a database in our Berlin data center, ensuring that user data is subject to strict geographic regulations and protections.

• Service Logs: We collect standard service logs like any other application. These logs are essential for operational integrity and performance tracking. They are used to:

  • Monitor the overall performance and health of the AI Model Hub service.

  • Identify and troubleshoot any potential issues that may arise.

  • Provide support services effectively when users encounter difficulties.

Data Security

Our infrastructure is hosted in our Berlin data center, designed to meet stringent security standards.

We employ multiple security measures, including:

• Encryption protocols to protect data both at rest and in transit.

• The use of API key tokens protects API endpoints.

• Regular security audits and compliance checks to identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities.

Privacy Guidelines

The IONOS AI Model Hub API allows you to access vector databases to persist your document collections and find semantically similar documents.

The vector database is used to persist documents in document collections. Each document is any form of pure text. In the document collection not only the input text is persisted, but also a transformation of the input text into an embedding. Each embedding is a vector of numbers. Input texts which are semantically similar have similar embeddings. A similarity search on a document collection finds the most similar embeddings for a given input text. These embeddings and the corresponding input text are returned to the user.

Overview

This tutorial is intended for developers. It assumes you have basic knowledge of:

• REST APIs and how to call them

• A programming language to handle REST API endpoints (for illustration purposes, the tutorials uses Python and Bash scripting)

By the end of this tutorial, you'll be able to:

• Create, delete and query a document collection in the IONOS vector database

• Save, delete and modify documents in the document collection and

• Answer customer queries using the document collection.

Background

• The IONOS AI Model Hub API offers a vector database that you can use to persist text in document collections without having to manage corresponding hardware yourself.

• Our AI Model Hub API provides all required functionality without your data being transfered out of Germany.

Before you begin

Manage document collections

In this section you learn how to create a document collection. We will use this document collection to fill it with the data from your knowledge base in the next step.

To track, if something went wrong this section also shows how to:

• List existing document collections

• Remove document collections

• Get meta data of a document collection

Create document collections

To create a document collection, you have to specify the name of the collection and a description and invoke the endpoint to generate document collections:

If the creation of the document collection was successful, the status code of the request is 201 and it returns a JSON document with all relevant information concerning the document collection.

To modify the document collection you need its identifier. You can extract it from the returned JSON document in the variable id.

List existing document collections

To ensure that the previous step went as expected, you can list the existing document collections.

To retrieve a list of all document collections saved by you:

This query returns a JSON document consisting of your document collections and corresponding meta information

The result consists of 8 attributes per collection of which 3 are relevant for you:

• id: The identifier of the document collection

• properties.description: The textual description of the document collection

• properties.documentsCount: The number of documents persisted in the document collection

If you have not created a collection yet, the field items is an empty list.

Remove a document collection

If the list of document collections consists of document collections you do not need anymore, you can remove a document collection by invoking:

This query returns a status code which indicates whether the deletion was successful:

• 204: Status code for successfull deletion

• 404: Status code given the collection did not exist

Get meta data for a document collection

If you are interested in the meta data of a collection, you can extract it by invoking:

This query returns a status code which indicates whether the collection exists:

• 200: Status code if the collection exists

• 404: Status code given the collection does not exist

The body of the request consists of all meta data of the document collection.

Manage documents in document collection

In this section, you learn how to add documents to the newly created document collection. To validate your insertion, this section also shows how to

• List the documents in the document collection,

• Get meta data for a document,

• Update an existing document and

• Prune a document collection.

Add documents to document collection

To add an entry to the document collection, you need to at least specify the content, the name of the content and the contentType:

This request returns a status code 200 if adding the document to the document collection was successful.

List existing documents in document collection

To ensure that the previous step went as expected, you can list the existing documents of your document collection.

To retrieve a list of all documents in the document collection saved by you:

This query returns a JSON document consisting of your documents in the document collection and corresponding meta information

The result has a field items with all documents in the collection. This field consists of 10 attributes per entry of which 5 are relevant for you:

• id: The identifier of the document

• properties.content: The base64 encoded content of the document

• properties.name: The name of the document

• properties.description: The description of the document

• properties.labels.number_of_tokens: The number of tokens in the document

If you have not created the collection yet, the request will return a status code 404. It will return a JSON document with the field items set to an empty list if no documents were added yet.

Get meta data for a document

If you are interested in the metadata of a document, you can extract it by invoking:

This query returns a status code which indicates whether the document exists:

• 200: Status code if the document exists

• 404: Status code given the document does not exist

The body of the request consists of all meta data of the document.

Update a document

If you want to update a document, invoke:

This will replace the existing entry in the document collection with the given id by the payload of this request.

Prune a document collection

If you want to remove all documents from a document collection invoke:

This query returns the status code 204 if pruning the document collection was successful.

Query documents in the document collection

Finally, this section shows how to use the document collection and the contained documents to answer a user query.

To retrieve the documents relevant for answering the user query, invoke the query endpoint as follows:

This will return a list of the NUM_OF_DOCUMENTS most relevant documents in your document collection for answering the user query.

Summary

In this tutorial you learned how to use the IONOS AI Model Hub API to conduct semantic similarity searches using our vector database.

Namely, you learned how to:

• Create a necessary document collection in the vector database and modify it

• Insert your documents into the document collection and modify the documents

• Conduct semantic similarity searches using your document collection.

• In the DCD, go to Menu > Data Center Designer and click Open Start Center.

To create a data center, use one of the following options:

Option 1: From the Data Center Designer menu

1. In the DCD, go to Menu > Data Center Designer. A drop-down window appears.

1. Provide the following details:

• Name: Enter a name to identify the data center uniquely.

• Description: (Optional) Add information that describes the Virtual Data Center (VDC).

• Region: From the drop-down list, choose the physical location of the data center that hosts your infrastructure.

1. Select Create Data Center to confirm.

Alternatively, you can also create a data center using the following options:

Option 2: From the DCD home page

• In the DCD, go to the My Virtual Data Centers section and click Create new.

• Provide the details to create a data center. For more information, see Step 2 in Create a Data Center.

• Select Create Data Center to confirm.

Option 3: From the Start Center

• In the DCD, go to Menu > Data Center Designer and click Open Start Center.

• In the right-side of the Start Center screen under the Create Data Center section, provide the details to create the data center. For more information, see Step 2 in Create a Data Center.

• Select Create Data Center to confirm.

The Data Center Designer (DCD) is a unique tool for creating and managing Virtual Data Center (VDCs). Its graphical user interface (GUI) makes data center configuration intuitive and straightforward. You can drag and drop virtual elements from the Palette to set up and configure data center infrastructure components in the Workspace. For more information, see Palette and workspace.

As with a physical data center, you can use the DCD to connect various virtual elements to create a complete hosting infrastructure. For more information, see Configure a Data Center.

The same visual design approach is used to make any adjustments later. You can log in to the DCD and scale your infrastructure capacity. Alternatively, you can set defaults and create new resources when needed.

Core functionality

Using the DCD, you can both control and manage the following services provided by IONOS Cloud:

• Data Centers: Create, configure, and delete entire data centers. Cross-connect between VDCs and tailor user access across your organization.

• Dedicated Core Servers: Set up, pause, and restart virtual instances with customizable storage, CPU, and RAM capacity. Instances can be scaled based on usage.

• Block Storage: Upload, edit, and delete your private images or use images provided by IONOS Cloud. Create or save snapshots for use with future instances.

• Networking: Reserve and manage static public IP addresses. Create and manage private and public LANs including firewall setups.

• Basic Features: Save and manage SSH keys; connect via Remote Console; launch instances via cloud-init; record networking via flow logs and monitor your instance use with monitoring software.

Compatibility

As a web application, the DCD is supported by the following browsers:

• Google Chrome™: Version 30+

• Mozilla® Firefox®: Version 28+

• Apple® Safari®: Version 5+

• Opera™: Version 12+

• Microsoft® Internet Explorer®: Version 11 & Edge

DCD elements

You can set up your data center infrastructure by using a drag-and-drop visual interface.

The DCD contains the following elements:

The square elements serve as building blocks for your VDC. Each element represents an IONOS Cloud product or service. Some elements are compatible, while others are not. For example, a Server icon can be combined with the Storage (HDD or SSD) icon. In practice, this would represent the physical act of connecting a hard drive to a server machine. For more information, see Set Up Storage.

Palette and workspace

The palette is a dynamic sidebar that contains VDC elements. You can click and drag each element from the palette into your workspace and position it as per your requirements.

All cloud products and services are compatible with each other. You may create a Server and add Storage to it. A LAN Network will interconnect your Servers.

Some elements may connect automatically via drag-and-drop. The DCD will then join the two if able. Otherwise, it will open configuration space for approval.

Right-click an element and select Delete from the drop-down menu. You can also select the element directly and hit Delete/Backspace from your keyboard.

Context menu

The context menu offers different options depending on the element. To see the context menu, right-click on any element. For example, right-click a Cube or a Server to update it.

Inspector pane

When an element is selected, the Inspector pane will appear on the right side of your screen. You can configure the element properties. For example, for a Server element, you can define its Name and Availability Zone, Preset, vCPUs and RAM.

This pane allows you to finalize the creation of your data center. Once your VDC is set up, select PROVISION CHANGES. This makes your infrastructure available for use.

Upon creating a data center, you can manually configure the IONOS Cloud infrastructure for each server using the palette and workspace in the DCD. It comprises all the building blocks and the necessary resources required to configure, operate, and manage your products and services. You can also configure and manage multiple VDCs and configure settings for each server automatically.

Configure a Dedicated Core Server

To configure your Dedicated Core Server, follow these steps:

1. Drag the Dedicated Core server element from the palette into the workspace.

2. Enter the following details in the Settings tab of the Inspector pane:

   • Name: Enter a unique name for your server.

   • Availability Zone: Select a zone from the drop-down list to host the server on the chosen zone.

   • CPU Architecture: Select either AMD or Intel cores.

   • Cores: Select the number of CPU cores.

   • RAM: Select any size starting from 0.25 GB to the maximum limit allotted to you. The size can be increased or reduced in steps of 0.25 GB. The maximum limit varies based on your contract resource limits and the chosen data center. For more information about creating a full-fledged server, see Create a Dedicated Core Server.

Add storage to the Dedicated Core Server

1. Drag a Storage element from the palette onto a Dedicated Core server in the workspace.

2. To configure your Storage element, enter the following details in the Inspector pane:

• Name: Enter a storage name unique to the VDC.

• Availability Zone: Select a zone from the drop-down list to host the storage element associated with the server.

• Size in GB: Choose the required storage capacity.

• Performance: Select a value from the drop-down list based on the requirement. You can either select Premium or Standard, and the performance of your storage element varies accordingly.

• Image: Select an image from the drop-down list. You can select one of IONOS images or choose your own.

• Password: Enter a password for the chosen image on the server—a root or an administrator password.

• Backup Unit: Select a backup unit from the drop-down list. Click Create Backup Unit to instantly create a new backup unit if unavailable.

For more information about adding storage to the server, see Block Storage Overview.

Connect to the internet

1. Drag a Network Interface Card (NIC) element from the palette into the workspace to connect the elements.

2. To configure your NIC element, enter the following details in the Network tab of the Inspector pane:

   • Name: Enter a NIC name unique to this VDC.

   • MAC: Media Access Control Address field is populated automatically upon provisioning and cannot be changed.

   • LAN: The name of the configured LAN is displayed. To select another network, select a value from the drop-down list.

   • Firewall: It is Disabled by default. Select a value from the drop-down list to configure your firewall settings. For more information, see Configure a Firewall.

   • IPv4 Configuration:

     • Primary IP: The primary IP address is automatically assigned by the IONOS DHCP server. You can, however, enter an IP address for manual assignment by selecting one of the reserved IP addresses from the drop-down list. Private IP addresses (according to RFC 1918) must be entered manually.

     • DHCP: It is often necessary to run a DHCP server in your virtual data center (e.g., PXE boot for fast rollout of VMs). If you use your own DHCP server, clear this check box so that the IONOS DHCP server does not reassign your IPs.

For more information about network configuration, see Configure a Network.

Provision Changes

1. Select PROVISION CHANGES in the Inspector pane to start the provisioning.

2. Review your changes in the Validation tab of the Provision Data Center window.

3. Confirm changes by entering your password. Resolve conflicts without a password.

4. When ready, select Provision Now.

Next steps

After configuring data centers, you can specify a preferred default data center location, IP settings, and resource capacity for future VDCs. For more information about configuring VDC defaults, see Create a Dedicated Core Server.

1. Open a web browser and navigate to https://dcd.ionos.com.

2. On the top right corner of the login screen, select your preferred language. The DCD supports German (DE), English (EN), French (FR), and Spanish (ES) languages.

3. Enter the Email Address and Password details that were obtained during the sign-up process for an IONOS Cloud account.

4. The additional screen to enter the code is only visible to users with 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) enabled.

5. Click Sign In.

DCD dashboard

Once logged in, you will see the DCD dashboard, which shows a concise overview of your virtual data centers in the My Virtual Data Centers and Resource Allocation, which shows the current usage of resources across your infrastructure. You will also see options to contact help and support, What's new in the DCD, and IONOS Cloud Status details.

To start seeing data center-relevant details in the dashboard, you need to create your first data center. To do so, see Create a Data Center and Configure a Data Center.

DCD Menu bar

The DCD dashboard consists of a Menu bar, which you can use to create and manage the data center, access all the IONOS Cloud services, and view and manage your user account. Additionally, you can view notifications, visit the help section, learn more about DCD, and contact support when needed.

For more information on DCD core functionality and DCD elements, see Data Center Designer.

This tutorial guides you through creating and managing Users, User Groups, and Resources in the Virtual Data Center (VDC).

User access control

A new VDC in the Data Center Designer (DCD) is manageable by contract owners. To assign resource management capabilities to other members in VDC, you can add users and groups and grant them appropriate privileges to work with the data center resources.

Create a user

The User Manager lets you create new users, add them to user groups, and assign privileges to each group. Privileges either limit or increase your access based on the user role. The User Manager lets you control user access to specific areas of your VDC.

1. In the DCD, go to Menu > Management > Users & Groups.

1. Select + Create in the Users tab.

2. Enter the user's First Name, Last Name, Email, and Password.

1. Select Create to confirm.

Create a group

The creation of groups is useful when you need to assign specific duties to the members of a group. You can create a group and add members to this group. You can then assign privileges to the entire group.

1. In the Groups tab, select + Create.

2. Enter a Group Name.

3. Select Create to confirm.

Assign privileges to a group

1. In the Groups tab, select a group from the Groups list.

2. In the Privileges tab, select checkboxes next to the privilege name.

Add users to a group

Users are added to your new group on an individual basis. Once you have created a new member, you must assign them to the group.

1. In the Groups tab, select the required group.

2. In the Members tab, add users from the + Add User drop-down list.

Benefits of user group assignment

When assigning a user to a group, whether you are a contract owner or an administrator, you can:

• Create a new user within DCD.

• Determine the resources that members of this group can access. These resources could be:

  • VDCs

  • Images

  • Snapshots

  • IP blocks

Add group to a resource

1. In the Resources tab, select a resource from the drop-down list.

2. In the Visible to Groups tab, click + Add Group.

3. Select a group from the drop-down list.

Assign resources to a group

1. In the Groups tab, select the required group.

2. Select the Resources of Group tab.

3. Click + Grant Access and select the resource to be assigned to the group from the drop-down list.

Enable or disable access for a resource

• To enable access, select the Edit or Share checkbox for a resource.

• To disable access, select the required resource. Clear either the Edit or Share checkboxes. You can also directly click Revoke Access.

Remove a user from the group

Users can be removed from your group on an individual basis.

1. Select the Members tab.

2. Click Remove User.

Manage your account and billing

This tutorial guides you through generating and managing authentication tokens in the Data Center Designer (DCD).

Generate authentication token

In the DCD, you can now generate the authentication token to securely access IONOS Cloud APIs and SDKs by using the API/SDK Authentication Token Manager. Along with improved user security, the Token Manager offers a seamless user experience to generate tokens in a simplified way and use the token several times to access the APIs and SDKs. You can generate up to 100 authentication tokens and use any of these token values for authorizing access to APIs and SDKs.

To create a secure authentication token for authorizing to use APIs and SDKs, follow these steps:

1. In the DCD, go to Menu > Management > Token Management.

1. In the API/SDK Authentication Token Manager, select Generate Token.

2. Copy the Token ID and Close the token-generated window.

Authentication token attributes

• Each token has a Time To Live (TTL), which is the duration for which a token is valid before it expires and becomes inactive. Select a TTL value from the drop-down list. The following are the possible values:

  • 1 Hour

  • 4 Hours

  • 1 Day

  • 7 Days

  • 30 Days

  • 60 Days

  • 90 Days

  • 180 Days

  • 365 Days

• Each token consists of:

  • ID: This is the ID of the token which you can use in the Auth API. For example, to delete the token by ID.

  • Creation Date: The date and time stamp of the token.

  • Expiration Date: The date and time stamp when the token becomes invalid depending on the defined TTL at the time of token generation.

• The generated token is listed in the API/SDK Authentication Token Manager screen.

• The Token Value is displayed only once upon generation, and you must save this value for future use.

• The token is valid based on the defined TTL field at the time of token generation.

Delete an authentication token

To delete an authentication token, follow these steps:

1. In the DCD, go to Menu > Management > Token Management.

2. In the API/SDK Authentication Token Manager, select the authentication token to delete and select the Delete option.

3. Select Delete to confirm.

Users need appropriate privileges to create and manage data center. The group privilege called Create Data Center must be enabled for a group so that the members of this group inherit it through group privilege settings and can create and manage Virtual Data Center (VDCs).

To set user privileges to create and manage VDCs, follow these steps:

1. In the DCD, go to Menu > Management > Users & Groups under Users.

2. Select the Groups tab in the User Manager window.

3. Select the appropriate group to assign relevant privileges.

4. In the Privileges tab, select Create Data Center.

Revoke user privileges

You can revoke a user's Create Data Center privilege by removing the user from all the groups with this privilege enabled.

To revoke this privilege from a contract administrator, disable the administrator option on the user account. After performing this action, the contract administrator will become a contract user, and the privileges that were set up for the user before becoming an administrator will then be in effect.

IONOS Cloud is a robust and flexible platform that helps users build and manage their cloud infrastructure smoothly. The platform offers user-friendly cloud solutions that can be managed via the or .

This section covers the first steps to working with the IONOS Cloud DCD and explores helpful advanced guides for fully configuring and managing various IONOS Cloud solutions.

First steps

Access the DCD to create and configure your first data center with IONOS Cloud.

Explore advanced guides

Dive deeper with advanced and commonly referred user guides to continue your learning.

The IONOS AI Model Hub provides an OpenAI-compatible API that enables high-quality image generation using state-of-the-art foundation models. By inputting descriptive prompts, users can create detailed images directly through the API, without the need for managing underlying hardware or infrastructure.

Supported Image Generation Models

The following models are currently available for image generation, each suited to different types of visual outputs:

Overview

In this tutorial, you will learn how to generate images using foundation models via the IONOS API. This tutorial is intended for developers with basic knowledge of:

• REST APIs

• A programming language for handling REST API endpoints (Python and Bash examples are provided)

By the end, you will be able to:

1. Retrieve a list of available image generation models in the IONOS AI Model Hub.

2. Use prompts to generate images with these models.

Getting Started with Image Generation

To use image generation models, first set up your environment and authenticate using the OpenAI-compatible API endpoints.

Step 1: Retrieve Available Models

Fetch a list of models to see which are available for your use case:

This query returns a JSON document listing each model's name, which you’ll use to specify a model for image generation in later steps.

Step 2: Generate an Image with Your Prompt

To generate an image, send a prompt to the /images/generations endpoint. Customize parameters like size for the resolution of the output image.

Step 3: Extract and Interpret the Result

The returned JSON includes several key fields, most importantly:

• data.[].b64_json: The generated image in base64 format.

• usage.prompt_tokens: Token count for the input prompt.

• usage.total_tokens: Token count for the entire process (usually zero for image generation, as billing is per image).

Summary

In this tutorial, you learned how to:

1. Access available image generation models.

2. Use descriptive prompts to generate high-quality images, ideal for applications in design, creative work, and more.

The IONOS AI Model Hub offers an OpenAI-compatible API that enables powerful text generation capabilities through foundation models. These Large Language Models (LLMs) can perform a wide variety of tasks, such as generating conversational responses, summaries, and contextual answers, without requiring you to manage hardware or extensive infrastructure.

Supported Text Generation Models

The following models are currently available for text generation, each suited to different applications:

Overview

In this tutorial, you will learn how to generate text using foundation models via the IONOS API. This tutorial is intended for developers with basic knowledge of:

• REST APIs

• A programming language for handling REST API endpoints (Python and Bash examples are provided)

By the end, you will be able to:

1. Retrieve a list of text generation models available in the IONOS AI Model Hub.

2. Apply prompts to these models to generate text responses, supporting applications like virtual assistants and content creation.

Getting Started with Text Generation

To use text generation models, first set up your environment and authenticate using the OpenAI-compatible API endpoints.

Step 1: Retrieve Available Models

Fetch a list of models to see which are available for your use case:

This query returns a JSON document listing each models name, which you’ll use to specify a model for text generation in later steps.

Step 2: Generate Text with Your Prompt

To generate text, send a prompt to the chat/completions endpoint.

Step 3: Extract and Interpret the Result

The returned JSON includes several key fields, most importantly:

• choices.[].message.content: The generated text based on your prompt.

• usage.prompt_tokens: Token count for the input prompt.

• usage.completion_tokens: Token count for the generated output.

Summary

In this tutorial, you learned how to:

1. Access available text generation models.

2. Use prompts to generate text responses, ideal for applications such as conversational agents, content creation, and more.

With IONOS Cloud , you can quickly provision Dedicated Core servers and vCPU Servers. Leverage our user guides, reference documentation, and FAQs to support your hosting needs.

Product Overview

Developer Tools

Recommended How-Tos

Frequently Asked Questions

Dedicated Core Servers that you create in the are provisioned and hosted in one of IONOS' physical data centers. Dedicated Core Servers behave exactly like physical . They can be configured and managed with your choice of the operating system. For more information, see .

Boot options: For each server, you can select to boot from a virtual CD-ROM/DVD drive or a storage device ( or ) using any operating system on the platform. The only requirement is the use of KVM . IONOS provides a number of with multiple versions of Microsoft Windows and different Linux distributions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Availability Zones

Secure your data, enhance reliability, and set up high-availability scenarios by deploying your Dedicated Core Servers and storage devices across multiple .

Assigning different Availability Zones ensures that servers or storage devices reside on separate physical resources at IONOS.

For example, a server or a storage device assigned to Availability Zone 1 resides on a different resource than a server or storage device assigned to Availability Zone 2.

You have the following Availability Zone options:

• Zone 1

• Zone 2

• A - Auto (default; our system automatically assigns an Availability Zone upon provisioning)

Live Vertical Scaling (LVS)

If the capacity of your Virtual Data Center no longer matches your requirements, you can still increase or decrease your resources after provisioning. Upscaling resources allows you to change the resources of a Dedicated Core Server without restarting it, permitting you to add RAM or ("hot plug") to it while it is running. This change allows you to react to peak loads quickly without compromising performance.

After uploading, you can define the properties of your images before applying them to new storage volumes. The settings must be supported by the image, otherwise, they will not work as expected. After provisioning, you can change the settings directly on the storage device, which will require a restart of the server.

The types of resources that you can scale without rebooting will depend on the operating system of your . Since kernel 2.6.25, Linux has LVO modules installed by default, but you may have to activate them manually depending on the derivative. drivers are optimized for virtual environments and provide direct access to underlying hardware.

For IONOS images, the supported properties are already preset. Without restarting the Dedicated Core Server, its resources can be scaled as follows:

• Upscaling: CPU, RAM, NICs, storage volumes

• Downscaling: NICs, storage volumes

Scaling up is the increase or speed up of a component to handle a larger load. The goal is to increase the number of resources that support an application to achieve or maintain accurate performance. Scaling down means reducing system resources, irrespective of whether you have used the scaling-up approach. Without restarting the Dedicated Core Server, only upscaling is possible.

Limitations

CPU Types: Dedicated Core Server configurations are subject to the following limitations, by CPU type:

AMD CPU

Intel® CPU

A single Intel® physical core with Hyper-Threading Technology is exposed to the operating system of your Dedicated Core Server as two distinct "logical cores", which process separate threads.

RAM Sizes: Because the working memory (RAM) size cannot be processed during the initial configuration, newly provisioned servers with more than 8 GB of RAM may not start successfully when created from IONOS Windows images.

Live Vertical Scaling: Linux supports the entire scope of IONOS Live Vertical Scaling, whereas Windows is limited to CPU scaling. Furthermore, it is not possible to use LVS to reduce storage size after provisioning.

The IONOS AI Model Hub provides an OpenAI-compatible API, allowing seamless integration with various frontend tools that use Large Language Models (LLMs). This guide walks you through the setup process, using as an example tool.

By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to configure AnythingLLM to use the IONOS AI Model Hub as its backend for AI-powered responses.

Step 1: Get an Authentication Token

You will need an authentication token to access the IONOS AI Model Hub. For more information about how to generate your token in the IONOS DCD, see .

Save this token in a secure place, as you’ll need to enter it into AnythingLLM during setup.

Step 2: Select a Language Model

The IONOS AI Model Hub offers a variety of Large Language Models to suit different needs. Choose the model that best fits your use case from the table below:

During setup, you’ll enter the model’s "Model Name" value into AnythingLLM’s configuration.

Step 3: Obtain the Base URL

For connecting to the IONOS AI Model Hub, use the following Base URL for the OpenAI-compatible API:

You will enter this URL in the configuration settings of AnythingLLM.

Step 4: Configure AnythingLLM

With your authentication token, selected model name, and base URL in hand, you’re ready to set up AnythingLLM:

1. Open AnythingLLM and go to the configuration page for the Large Language Model (LLM) settings.

   • In AnythingLLM, this can be accessed by clicking the wrench icon in the lower left corner, then navigating to AI Providers -> LLM.

2. Choose Generic OpenAI as the provider.

3. Enter the following information in the respective fields:

   • API Key: Your IONOS authentication token.

   • Model Name: The name of the model you selected from the table (e.g., meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct).

   • Base URL: https://openai.inference.de-txl.ionos.com/v1