Link a SoftLayer account

You can register your SoftLayer account credentials in your Docker Cloud account to deploy nodes using Docker Cloud’s Dashboard, API, or CLI. Docker Cloud uses your SoftLayer username and API key to interact with SoftLayer on your behalf to create and manage your nodes (virtual servers).

Although any SoftLayer account with the right privileges will work, we recommend creating a new dockercloud-user user. If you have already created a service user, or do not wish to do so, continue to Add SoftLayer Account Credentials.

Create dockercloud-user in SoftLayer

Go to the Users section in SoftLayer (using the following URL): https://control.softlayer.com/account/users

Click Add User:

Fill out the Add User - Profile form, and enter dockercloud-user in the username field. Docker Cloud uses the service user’s API key, so the password you set is less important. Click Add User.

In the next step, Permissions, select the following permissions:

• Support
  • View Tickets
  • Add Tickets
  • Edit Tickets
• Devices
  • View Virtual Server Details
• Services
  • Manage SSH keys
• Account
  • Cancel Server
  • Cancel Services
  • Add Server

Click Add Portal Permissions.

Go back to the Users list, and click Generate under the API Key column:

Once generated, click the View link under the API Key column, and copy the generated API Key.

Once you create the new user dockercloud-user, have its credentials, and set its permissions, go back to Docker Cloud.

Add SoftLayer account credentials

To link your SoftLayer account so you can launch nodes from Docker Cloud, navigate to Account info > Cloud providers. Click Add credentials.

Copy and paste the username and the API Key you received from SoftLayer into their corresponding fields in dialog that appears.

What’s next?

You’re ready to start using SoftLayer as the infrastructure provider for Docker Cloud! If you came here from the tutorial, click here to continue the tutorial and deploy your first node.