Each instance can have a private, or fixed, IP address and a public, or floating, one.
Private IP addresses are used for communication between instances, and public ones are used for communication with the outside world.
When you launch an instance, it is automatically assigned a private IP address that stays the same until you explicitly terminate the instance. Rebooting an instance has no effect on the private IP address.
A pool of floating IPs, configured by the cloud operator, is available in OpenStack Compute.
You can allocate a certain number of these to a project: The maximum number of floating IP addresses per project is defined by the quota.
You can add a floating IP address from this set to an instance of the project. Floating IP addresses can be dynamically disassociated and associated with other instances of the same project at any time.
Before you can assign a floating IP address to an instance, you first must allocate floating IPs to a project. After floating IP addresses have been allocated to the current project, you can assign them to running instances.
You can assign a floating IP address to one instance at a time.
