# Example: Use Docker Machine to provision cloud hosts
Docker Machine driver plugins are available for many cloud platforms, so you can use Machine to provision cloud hosts. When you use Docker Machine for provisioning, you create cloud hosts with Docker Engine installed on them.
You'll need to install and run Docker Machine, and create an account with the cloud provider.
Then you provide account verification, security credentials, and configuration options for the providers as flags to `docker-machine create`. The flags are unique for each cloud-specific driver. For instance, to pass a Digital Ocean access token, you use the `--digitalocean-access-token` flag.
As an example, let's take a look at how to create a Dockerized <ahref="https://digitalocean.com"target="_blank">Digital Ocean</a>_Droplet_ (cloud server).
### Step 1. Create a Digital Ocean account and log in
If you have not done so already, go to <ahref="https://digitalocean.com"target="_blank">Digital Ocean</a>, create an account, and log in.
### Step 2. Generate a personal access token
To generate your access token:
1. Go to the Digital Ocean administrator console and click **API** in the header.
6. Run some Docker commands to make sure that Docker Engine is also up-and-running.
We'll run `docker run hello-world` again, but you could try `docker ps`, `docker run docker/whalesay cowsay boo`, or another command to verify that Docker is running.
$ docker run hello-world
Hello from Docker.
This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.
1. Run `docker-machine create` with the `digitalocean` driver and pass your key to the `--digitalocean-access-token` flag, along with a name for the new cloud server.
For this example, we'll call our new Droplet "docker-sandbox".
(docker-sandbox) OUT | Creating Digital Ocean droplet...
(docker-sandbox) OUT | Waiting for IP address to be assigned to the Droplet...
Waiting for machine to be running, this may take a few minutes...
Machine is running, waiting for SSH to be available...
Detecting operating system of created instance...
Detecting the provisioner...
Provisioning created instance...
Copying certs to the local machine directory...
Copying certs to the remote machine...
Setting Docker configuration on the remote daemon...
To see how to connect Docker to this machine, run: docker-machine env docker-sandbox
When the Droplet is created, Docker generates a unique SSH key and stores it on your local system in `~/.docker/machines`. Initially, this is used to provision the host. Later, it's used under the hood to access the Droplet directly with the `docker-machine ssh` command. Docker Engine is installed on the cloud server and the daemon is configured to accept remote connections over TCP using TLS for authentication.
2. Go to the Digital Ocean console to view the new Droplet.
Notice that the new cloud server is running but is not the active host. Our command shell is still connected to the default machine, which is currently the active host as indicated by the asterisk (*).
4. Run `docker-machine env docker-sandbox` to get the environment commands for the new remote host, then run `eval` as directed to re-configure the shell to connect to `docker-sandbox`.
6. Run some `docker-machine` commands to inspect the remote host. For example, `docker-machine ip <machine>` gets the host IP adddress and `docker-machine inspect <machine>` lists all the details.
In this example, the `-p` option is used to expose port 80 from the `nginx` container and make it accessible on port `8000` of the `docker-sandbox` host.
In a web browser, go to `http://<host_ip>:8000` to bring up the webserver home page. You got the `<host_ip>` from the output of the `docker-machine ip <machine>` command you ran in a previous step. Use the port you exposed in the `docker run` command.
#### Understand the defaults and options on the create command
For convenience, `docker-machine` will use sensible defaults for choosing settings such as the image that the server is based on, but you override the defaults using the respective flags (e.g. `--digitalocean-image`). This is useful if, for example, you want to create a cloud server with a lot of memory and CPUs (by default `docker-machine` creates a small server). For a full list of the flags/settings available and their defaults, see the output of `docker-machine create -h` at the command line. See also <ahref="https://docs.docker.com/machine/drivers/os-base/"target="_blank">Driver options and operating system defaults</a> and information about the <ahref="https://docs.docker.com/machine/reference/create/"target="_blank">create</a> command in the Docker Machine documentation.
If you monitor the Digital Ocean console while you run these commands, you will see it update first to reflect that the Droplet was stopped, and then removed.
If you create a host with Docker Machine, but remove it through the cloud provider console, Machine will lose track of the server status. So please use the `docker-machine rm` command for hosts you create with `docker-machine --create`.
