Upload and manage images¶
Last changed: 2024-04-17
You can create an image and use it as the base for your instances.
Upload an image¶
Log in to the dashboard
Select the appropriate project from the drop down menu at the top left
On the Project tab -> Compute tab -> Images category
Click Create Image
The Create An Image dialog box appears
Enter the following values:
+-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Image Name | Enter a name for the image | | Image Description | Enter a description of the image | | Image Source | Browse the image source | | Format | Select the image format (E.g. QCOW2) for the image | | Architecture | Specify the architecture. E.g. i386 for a 32-bit/x86_64 for a 64-bit | | Minimum Disk (GB) | Leave this field empty | | Minimum RAM (MB) | Leave this field empty | | Protected | Select if only users with permissions can delete the image - Yes/No | +-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Doing the same with CLI¶
The simplest way to obtain a virtual machine image that works with OpenStack is to download one of offical images. We recommend using the images in qcow2 format.
$ openstack image create --disk-format qcow2 --public --file ./cirros-x86_64-disk.img DemoImage
$ openstack image list
+--------------------------------------+---------------------+-------------+
| ID | Name | Status |
+--------------------------------------+---------------------+-------------+
| 6520eb21-09b6-4745-d905-7779ac579af8 | DemoImage | active |
| cbd76177-c79b-490f-9a7f-59f9eed3412e | Debian Jessie 8 | active |
| d175564a-156e-41c7-b2a3-fd8b018e9e11 | Outdated (Ubuntu) | deactivated |
| 484e5754-f4f7-409c-8ba1-454e422816b4 | Outdated (Ubuntu) | deactivated |
| fecf1f4d-e36d-44fe-94de-4eae707b40aa | Outdated (Ubuntu) | deactivated |
| 6f24613b-4f98-4caa-9bc6-0294f4c67fac | Outdated (Fedora) | deactivated |
| ceb6ff80-24de-460a-9ecc-85f3283aa98e | Outdated (Debian) | deactivated |
| d241a2b5-cd1d-4812-8d59-2ccfb1acbf88 | CentOS 7 | active |
+--------------------------------------+---------------------+-------------+
Useful image properties¶
When uploading custom images, there are a couple of properties you can set that provide additional benefits, more than 28 drives to a vm, different topology, larger than 2TB boot volumes, etc. The ones we recommend setting are;
hw_disk_bus: scsi
hw_scsi_model: virtio-scsi
hw_qemu_guest_agent: yes
You can set these whilst creating the image by using the
--property key=value parameter like so;
$ openstack image create --disk-format qcow2 --file fedora-coreos-34.20210919.3.0-openstack.x86_64.qcow2 \
--property hw_disk_bus=scsi --property hw_scsi_model=virtio-scsi --property hw_qemu_guest_agent=yes \
fedora-coreos-34.20210919.3.0-openstack.x86_64
You can also set or alter properties on an existing image using the same
--property key=value parameter like this;
$ openstack image set --property hw_machine_type=q35 --property hw_video_model=virtio cirros-0.5.2-x86_64-disk
Below are some additional properties you can experiment with, mind you that not
all images support all properties. Their default values are on the left,
suggested values to the right. hw_machine_type is finicky on older images.
hw_firmware_type will currently only work on images that support secureboot.
+--------------------------------------------+
| Property | Default | Suggested |
+---------------------+----------+-----------+
| hw_machine_type: | pc | q35 |
| hw_firmware_type: | bios | uefi |
| hw_video_model: | cirrus | virtio |
| hw_watchdog_action: | disabled | reset |
+--------------------------------------------+
You can read more about image properties here; https://docs.openstack.org/glance/latest/admin/useful-image-properties.html