Page Comparison

...

How to Import Templates into the Appliance Library

The options for importing templates are described below. They are:

• Use GUI upload
• Use Abiquo API download
• Manually upload the virtual disk and OVF file
• Use template-repository

Image Removed

Use the UI to Upload an OVA in the Abiquo Apps Library

Abiquo supports OVA upload for templates that are compatible with Abiquo. The OVA should have a single virtual system but can contain multiple disks.

See Add VM Templates to the Apps Library in the User's Guide.

Use the UI to Upload a VM Disk File into the Abiquo Appliance Library

For smaller VM disk files, using the GUI upload is recommended. Abiquo will generate the OVF descriptor for the disk file.

The browser performs a multi-part upload, but the HTTP protocol is still used, so there is no recovery of partially uploaded files.

See Add VM Templates to the Apps Library in the User's Guide.

Manually Upload a VM Template to the NFS Repository

Use manual upload for larger VM templates.

Manual Upload Prerequisites

Adding templates to the NFS Repository requires access to the NFS repository file system, so a system administrator should be responsible for this task.

You should be familiar with Appliance Library and VM Template Concepts

Abiquo VM Templates are OVF Packages and they consist of disk files and ovf descriptors.

You can use external tools to generate an OVF Package to be imported into Abiquo as a VM template. These tools include recent versions of VirtualBox and VMware vShpere.

Current OVF Package restrictions are:

• Abiquo supports multiple disks in the OVF descriptions
• Abiquo only supports a single system in the OVF descriptions

...

...

Manually upload VM template files

In a manual upload, you copy the template files directly to the NFS repository. You can unzip an OVA file to obtain the template files, which are virtual disk file(s) and an OVF definition. See Export an OVA from ESXi vSphere 7 with OVF tool.

Abiquo reads the OVF to obtain the template details, such as operating system, disk capacity, and the name and description (from the product section of the OVF). See OVF reference and Guest operating system definition for VMware.

To upload VM templates to the Abiquo Platform, the manual process consists of  do these steps:.

Copy the file(s) to the repository

VM Template files must be copied to the Abiquo NFS repository.

1. Copy the file(s) to the Abiquo NFS repository

...

1. 1. Go the /opt/vm_repository folder. Here there should be folders for each enterprise in Abiquo

   2. Open the folder for your enterprise ID. See How to find the enterprise that owns a template

   3. Create a separate directory for each OVF Package

...

1. 1. .

...

1. 1. Copy the disk files (e.g. .vmdk, .vdi ...) and the

...

1. 1. OVF descriptor document (.ovf)

...

1. 1. . We recommend that you use the same base name for the system disk and the OVF file. For example:

      Code Block
      /opt/vm_repository/{

...

1. 1. ID_ENTERPRISE}/{

...

1. 1. MY_FOLDER}/myVMTemplate.vmdk /opt/vm_repository/{

...

1. 1. ID_ENTERPRISE}/{

...

1. 1. MY_FOLDER}/myVMTemplate_HardDisk.vhd /opt/vm_repository/{

...

1. 1. ID_ENTERPRISE}/{

...

1. 1. MY_FOLDER}/myVMTemplate.ovf

...

2. In Abiquo, go to the Catalogue view for Private cloud, and click the round-arrow refresh button next to your datacenter name.

   Image Added

When you refresh the Catalogue, Abiquo will detect the disk files in the NFS repository folders and match them with the OVF description.

The templates will appear in the Catalogue view and as soon the conversion files are ready, they will be ready to deploy.

...

Manual upload example

In this example we will upload images to the default enterprise repository for Abiquo.

1. Copy the files to the NFS repository

   1. Go to /opt/vm_repository

   2. The Abiquo

...

1. 1. enterprise ID is 1, so

...

1. 1. we will open the folder 1, which is /opt/vm_repository/1.

   2. Create a separate directory for

...

...

1. 1. the template, which in this case is ubuntu_server

      Code Block
      $ mkdir ubuntu-server $ cd ubuntu-server

...

1. 2. Copy the system disk file, an extra disk, and the OVF descriptor

      Code Block
      $ scp username@10.10.10.10:/home/username/ubuntu_vxxx.vmdk /opt/vm_repository/1/ubuntu-server/

...

1. 1. $ scp username@10.10.10.10:/home/username/ubuntu_vxxx_extra_disk.vmdk /opt/vm_repository/1/ubuntu-server/

...

If you have an OVF descriptor, copy it too.

...

...

1. 1. scp username@10.10.10.10:/home/username/ubuntu_vxxx.ovf /opt/vm_repository/1/ubuntu-server/

...

Create the OVF descriptor if necessary

...

If you use the Template-Repository to upload your template, then the OVF Descriptor will be created automatically.

If you uploaded only the template disk file(s) directly to the repository, you must create the OVF file to describe the disk file(s). Otherwise, you can skip this step.

Create an OVF file with the image file name and .ovf extension.

$ touch ubuntu-910-server-X86_64-vmdk5.ovf
$ ls -lh
total 198M
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4.4K Aug 19 05:23 ubuntu-910-server-x86_64-vmdk5.ovf
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 198M Aug 19 05:27 ubuntu-910-server-x86_64-vmdk5.vmdk

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 128M Aug 19 05:29 ubuntu-910-server-x86_64-extra_disk-vmdk5.vmdk

Edit the OVF file according to the guidelines in OVF Reference#OVF for Abiquo.

Enter the deployed file size for each disk file

It is important you properly identify the deployed disk file size as the ovf:capacity in the OVF envelope.

    <Info>List of the virtual disks used in the package</Info>
    <Disk ovf:capacity="734003200" ovf:diskId="vmdisk1" ovf:fileRef="file1" ...

The ovf:capacity can be obtained using "VBoxManage showhdinfo" or using "diskid". See below - Importing Templates into the Appliance Library. You should enter the provisioned size.

Determining the Size of a VM Disk File

When working with virtual machine templates, it is important to know the correct size of every virtual machine disk file (both the system disk and auxiliary disks).

In Abiquo it is important you properly identify the ovf:capacity in the OVF envelope.

    <Info>List of the virtual disks used in the package</Info>
    <Disk ovf:capacity="734003200" ovf:diskId="vmdisk1" ovf:fileRef="file1" ...

This value will be used in the BPM conversion and persistent image creation process, so it would be best to set it to the right value.
If that is not possible, it can be updated later from the Appliance Library view by editing the template, selecting and editing the disk, and entering the Capacity. It is important to enter the correct value, because otherwise your virtual machine deploy might fail.

Image Removed

Use VBoxManage

The ovf:capacity can be obtained using the command

VBoxManage showhdinfo <disk file>

This will output most of the disk image data. We will retrieve the Logical Size field value.

For example, for CentOS

[root@localhost]# VBoxManage showhdinfo /root/VMs/CentOS-5-5-w-LAMP.vmdk 

UUID:                 0147718f-d8b4-4c53-8c82-877ce76f1d93
Accessible:           yes
Description:
Logical size:         51200 MBytes
Current size on disk: 2881 MBytes
Type:                 normal (base)
Storage format:       VMDK
Location:             /root/VMs/CentOS-5-5-w-LAMP.vmdk 
[root@localhost]#

Use diskid

Click here to download the diskid utility. diskid uses qemu-img to provide information about the hard disk file.
Follow the instructions in the disk id documentation to install the utility.

Example of using diskid to identify a disk file. When uploading the virtual machine template to Abiquo, enter the virtual_size in the Hard disk field of the upload form.

user@localhost:~/Downloads$ diskid Sugar_CRM-disk1.vmdk

file_name: Sugar_CRM-disk1.vmdk
format: vmdk
disk_size: 304M
variant: streamOptimized
virtual_size: 17G

Refresh the Repository in the Appliance Library view

In Appliance Library view, click the refresh button next to the name of your repository in the repository list.

Image Removed

When you refresh the Appliance Library, the vm_repository contents will be detected (and matched with the OVF description). Valid disks will be converted to compatible formats for all the installed hypervisors. If there are no hypervisors installed, they will be converted to all formats. These images will appear in the Appliance Library view and as soon the conversion files are ready, they will be ready for deployment.

How to Upload VM Template Icons

This guide will explain the steps to upload icons to your Abiquo Server and use them in the Appliance Library instead of using the ones from the remote repository.

Prerequisites

You will require root access to the Abiquo Server and the "Manage virtual machine templates from the appliance library" privilege in Abiquo. The Cloud Admin and Enterprise Admins have this privilege by default.

Create icons directory

On the Abiquo Server, create a new directory under webapps and restart tomcat:

# mkdir /opt/abiquo/tomcat/webapps/icons
# service abiquo-tomcat restart

Upload icons from your local machine to the Abiquo Server

Place your icons in the directory you created on the Abiquo Server. To upload them from your local machine, run the following command:

user@mymachine:~$ scp <filename> root@<abiquo-server-ip>:/opt/abiquo/tomcat/webapps/icons/

In this example, we will use a GRML icon called "grmllogo.png" and the Abiquo Server has the IP address of 10.10.10.1, so the command will look as follows:

user@mymachine:~$ scp grmllogo.png root@10.10.10.1:/opt/abiquo/tomcat/webapps/icons/

You can check if your icon is available by going to its web address in your browser. In our example, this will be:

http://10.10.10.1/icons/grmllogo.png

Add the icon to the VM template in the appliance library

Now log in to Abiquo and go to the Appliance Library. In our example, the GRML_test virtual machine template has the Abiquo default icon. 

Image Removed

Select the virtual machine template that you want to change the icon of. Click edit. In our example, we have edited the GRML_test template.

Image Removed

Enter the URL of the template icon in the format "http://<abiquo-server-ip>/icons/<filename>". In our example this is:

http://10.10.10.1/icons/grmllogo.png

Then click Validate. You should now see the new image beneath the URL.

Image Removed

Click Accept to save the new icon. 

Image Removed

...

2. Log in to Abiquo and refresh the Catalogue for your datacenter.

Your VM template should now be available in the Catalogue.

...

Manually upload an extra disk to an existing template

You can manually upload a new disk to add to an existing template, but you must also add the disk to the OVF file for that template. When the appliance manager checks the file system, it will detect the new disk, but it will only add the disk to the Abiquo template if the disk is defined in the OVF file.

...

Create an OVF descriptor if necessary

Abiquo recommends that you always use an automatically generated OVF descriptor, and it is easy to export one from vCenter, for example. See Export an OVA from ESXi vSphere 7 with OVF tool

However, if you are feeling lucky, you can create one following these instructions.

1. Copy a sample Abiquo OVF file, such as the Example OVF Descriptor in OVF referenceor copy one from a valid template. Save the OVF file with the image file name and .ovf extension.

2. Edit the OVF file according to the guidelines in the OVF for Abiquo section of OVF reference.

   1. Remember that you must enter the disk size. See Determine the size of a VM disk file

...

Related links

For details of how to use the Appliance manager to download a template from your filesystem to the Abiquo catalogue, see Appliance manager template API upload and download.

For details of how to replace a template disk, see https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/doc/pages/311378488/Modify+VM+template+disks#Replace-a-template-disk,

...