Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator Documentation v6.0.2
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An image is a template for either a disk (when using KVM and Xen hypervisors) or a server (when using VMware and Hyper-V hypervisors). Images are stored in Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator in read-only format. Images may contain only the operating system for the virtual machine, or any required configuration of software that you want to have on the virtual machine. 

Images created from a remote location (as opposed to an already existing disk) must be created from a URL. If you do not have your own image repository, or if you cannot fetch an image from a public repository like those listed below, you can use Dropbox as an impromptu image repository. For instructions on how to do this, see https://www.dropbox.com/help/201/en.

Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator supports the following image file types:

  • .qcow2
  • .raw
  • .ova
  • .img

  • .iso 

    If you are using an .iso file, you must create a disk from it and attach this to the required server. For information about how to create a disk, see Creating a Disk. For information about how to attach a disk to a server, see Managing a Server. 

  • .vmdk

  • EZos (Virtuozzo - formerly PCS - clusters only)

    This image type can only be fetched from a URL; it cannot be created from a local disk.

Images can be obtained from the following sources:

  • The Flexiant image repository at https://images.flexiant.com
  • Ubuntu cloud images at http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/

  • CirrOS images, which are small and useful for testing purposes, at http://download.cirros-cloud.net/ 

    If you want to be able to set an initial password on your server rather than using the password specified by the image itself, you should ensure that the image contains cloud-init or an equivalent. If you are unsure about whether or not your image contains the required package, contact the image provider.

To create an image:

  1. Show the resources page by clicking the Resources link in the page navigation menu.



  2. Click on the Images tab.



  3. On the Images widget, click the Create button.



    The Create Image dialog is displayed. 
     
  4. Specify the following:
    • Name - The name of the Image.
    • VDC - The VDC in which to create the image.

    • Default User name - The user account that enables you to gain access to the image. This is a property of the image, as the user account already exists in the image. This user account will be the root user of all virtual machines created using the image. 

      Please check with your image provider for the default username.

    • Generate Password  - Selecting Yes generates a password for the default user. This requires cloud-init or an equivalent to have been bundled with the image in order to work.
    • Image configuration - The product offer to use to create the image.
    • From - Whether to retrieve the image from a local disk or server, or from a URL.
      • From Disk/Server options:
        • Disk/Server - The disk/server to create the image from.
      • From URL options:

        • Container Support - Whether the image can be used to create containers.

          The option to specify container support is only available on clusters which support container virtualisation.

        • Virtual Machine Support - Whether the image can be used to create virtual machines.

          The option to specify virtual machine support is only available on clusters which also support container virtualisation.

        • URL - The URL at which the image is located. 

          If you are fetching an EZos template, the URL should be specified in the format ezos://ezosname. For example, to fetch an EZos template called centos-6-x86_64, the URL should be ezos://centos-6-x86_64. Similarly, to fetch an EZos template called ubuntu-12.10-x86_64, the URL should be ezos://ubuntu-12.10-x86_64. EZos templates are available in Virtuozzo clusters only.

        • Auth Username - The username required to retrieve the image, if any.
        • Auth Password - The password required to retrieve the image, if any.
        • Checksum - If you know the checksum of the image, enter it here. This helps to validate the image you download.
           

  5. Once these fields have been filled out appropriately, click the  button. A job will be submitted to build the image. Creating from a local disk/server usually takes a few seconds, while downloading a remote image will depend on the size of the image and speed of the internet connection. 

    If you are creating an image by fetching a remote resource, the image you create will not appear in the images widget until the fetch is complete.

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