Modify a VM Template

Before you begin:

Log in or switch enterprises to the tenant that owns the template

To modify a VM template:

Select the template and click on the control menu button in the top-right corner and select Edit

Privilege: Manage VM templates from Apps library

In private cloud datacenters, standard templates have disks that will deploy to the hypervisor datastore, in contrast to persistent templates that have disks on external storage volumes. This documentation describes standard templates.

Edit template General information

Troubleshooting minimum and maximum CPU and RAM values

The platform stores 0 as an empty value, so if you enter "0", it will disappear!
If users edit existing VMs that already had out-of-range values, the platform displays a warning but does not enforce the range.
Changes can affect recommended hardware profiles on the Advanced tab, so you may need to review them
Users with the Override VM constraints privilege can enter values outside this range

For more details see GUI Edit template General information

Modify VM template disks

To edit VM template disks in private cloud, edit a template and go to Disks.

To change the boot order of a disk

Click the pencil edit button near the Sequence number and enter a new number. There must always be a boot disk in the 0 position, and the boot disk cannot be an empty disk.

To download a disk

Select the disk
Click the Download symbol on the right-hand side of the disk details

To add a disk:

Click the + Add button in the top right of the Disk dialog
Select one of the options: Disk from local file, Disk from iso file, Empty disk or Template disk.
Enter the Details of the disk as described here.

Disk from local file
Click here to display details of Disk from local file
If you have not added any hypervisors yet, the V2V conversion process will generate conversions for ALL supported hypervisors
For more details see GUI Create a disk from local file
Disk from ISO file
Click here to display details of Disk from ISO file
For more details see GUI Create a disk from an ISO file
Empty disk
Click here to show/hide the details of an empty disk
Enter the Capacity (or size) of the deployed disk and the disk Controller type and for SCSI disks, the Controller information.
For more details see GUI Create an empty disk
When you deploy the VM, the platform will create the empty disk on the hypervisor datastore.
Template disk
Select a template from the Apps library and then select a disk from the template.
Click here to show/hide the screenshot
Abiquo will select the original disk, not the conversions. If you require other formats, generate conversions for these formats.

Manage template disk conversions

To display and manage disk conversions

Go to Disks, select the disk and check the conversion details in the Selected disk conversions panel

To manually launch conversions to template formats:

Click Generate missing conversions. The platform will create conversions for any new hypervisor types

To restart a failed conversion:

Beside the conversion, click the Restart conversion link

Click here to show/hide the screenshot

Edit a template disk

To edit a disk:

Select the Disk
Click the pencil Edit button and make changes as described below

For more details see GUI Edit virtual machine template disk

Delete a template disk

Before you begin, check that the template is not in use. A template is in use if it has deployed VMs or dependent instances.

To delete a template disk:

Select the Disk to delete
Click the Delete trash can icon.

Edit VM template variables

To add variables to a VM template, enter the Key and Value, then click Add.

To edit an existing value, click the pencil icon, enter the new Value, then click ok. To save your changes to the template, click Save.

The variables will be added automatically to new VMs. Users can edit the variables when configuring the VM.

After the VM deploys, users can then access variables in the guest.
For example, AWS stores the variables in the ~/vm-variables.rc file. Cloud-init may use variables.

Share VM templates from the Scopes tab

In the Apps Library Catalogue view, shared templates are marked with the outstretched hand symbol.

Privilege: Allow user to switch enterprises

By default, templates are local to the tenant that creates them (the "owner" enterprise). To share templates, assign scopes to them.

Users who belong to the owner enterprise or enterprises in a template's scopes can display and use the template.

To share a template with a scope:

Go to Users → Scopes
Create a scope
1. For enterprises to use the template, select them in the scope
Log in or switch to the enterprise that owns the template
Go to Apps library → Templates
Edit a template
Go to Scopes
Select the scope

For more information, see Manage Scopes and Manage resource scopes

For more details see GUI Edit template Scopes

In private cloud, the instances of shared templates belong to the enterprise that created them. When a template has instances, it is "in use" by the enterprises with instances. This may mean that you cannot delete a template without deleting or promoting the instances first.

When you make a shared template unavailable, other enterprises cannot deploy it, but it may not be marked as "unavailable" in the Apps library of other enterprises until you refresh your Apps library.

Activate hardware profiles for a VM template

When you edit a VM template, you can recommend some hardware profiles for users when they create VMs from this template. You can also restrict users to the recommended hardware profiles.

By default, users can access all hardware profiles that are active in the infrastructure (see Create a hardware profile) and allowed for their enterprise (see Allow a tenant to use hardware profiles).
To activate a set of selected hardware profiles for a VM template:

Go to Apps library → Public/Private → select region or datacenter → Templates
Edit a template
Go to Recommended
Select the hardware profiles to recommend for this template. When the user creates a VM, the platform will display (Recommended) beside them. For shared templates, remember that the administrator must allow the user's tenant to access the hardware profiles. See Allow a tenant to use hardware profiles.
To activate and display the recommended hardware profiles only, select the Enable only recommended HPs option

Activate datastore tiers for a VM template

When you edit a VM template in private cloud, you can recommend some datastore tiers for users when they create VMs from this template. You can also restrict users to the recommended tiers.By default, when users configure VMs, they can access all datastore tiers that are appropriately configured in the infrastructure and allowed for their enterprise.

To activate a set of selected datastore tiers for a template:

Go to Apps library → Private → select region or datacenter → Templates
Edit the template
Go to Recommended
Select the datastore tiers to recommend for this template. The platform will display these datastore tiers in the selection list with (Recommended) beside them. Remember that the administrator must allow the user's tenant to access the datastore tiers
To activate and display the recommended datastore tiers only, select the Enable only recommended DS tiers option

Edit template Advanced tab

You can also specify some Advanced template values using the OVF and the API. See Extended OVF Support and Template Definition.

Field	Value
Guest setup	Select Guest setup option of Cloud-init or Hypervisor tools.
Guest initial password	If Guest setup is selected, select this option to request an initial password
Cost code	Pricing cost code for this template. Requires the "Add a cost code in VM Template edition" privilege. See Pricing View
Operating system	Sets the VMware guest operating system type. Select from the pull-down list. For more details, see Guest operating system definition for VMware and Extended OVF Support and Template Definition. This attribute also enables users to search for templates in public cloud (e.g. Ubuntu 64-bit template). To use the latest version of an operating system, select a generic type, e.g. WINDOWS, and do not enter the version. If the template does not have an icon, the platform will load the default icon defined for the OS or the generic OS type.
Os Version	OS version is used to: add operating systems not included in the list of codes provide details of operating systems set the VMware guest operating system type See Guest operating system definition for VMware and Extended OVF Support and Template Definition for further details.
User	Default user for a VM created from this template for SSH access.
Password	Default password for the default User of a VM created from this template.
NIC driver	Abiquo always supports E1000 drivers On ESXi, Abiquo also supports PCNet32 and VMXNET3 On KVM, Abiquo supports VIRTIO drivers.
Enable UEFI boot	When selected, disable BIOS boot and enable UEFI boot. Requires templates with UEFI firmware and operating system support for UEFI boot. Abiquo recommends that users: Do not change the template's disk controllers Meet the minimum hardware requirements for the OS Correctly indicate the 32/64 bit architecture For VMs, the uefiEnabled attribute is read-only and it is available via the API.
Enable hot add / reconfigure in VM	See separate section
Creation user	SYSTEM means that the platform created the template, for example, from an OVF file in the NFS repository.
Creation date	Date and time when the template was created.

Enable hot add and hot reconfigure for VM templates

To allow users to reconfigure their VMs without powering off, set these values as described on the Advanced tab of the VM edit dialog.

Option	Description
Enable hot-add or hot reconfigure in VM	Supported providers only with supported guest operating systems. Check that the Operating system and OS version are correctly set for your system ESXi: See VMware documentation. After you hot-add or hot-reconfigure, remember to update your guest system as required
CPU hot-add	Enable users to add CPUs in the platform while the VM is powered on
RAM hot-add	Enable users to add RAM in the platform while the VM is powered on
Disks hot-reconfigure	Enable users to remove SCSI disks from the boot sequence and add SCSI disks to the end of the boot sequence while the VM is powered on IDE disks are not supported The platform will save other changes to the boot sequence but it will not implement them in the hypervisor. To implement these changes, power off the VM and make another configuration change that will trigger a reconfigure
NICs hot-reconfigure	Enable users to add and remove NICs in the platform while the VM is powered on
Remote access hot-reconfigure	Enable users to reset remote access in the platform while the VM is powered on. On ESXi, if the user changes the VNC password, the change will apply after the power on

Add tags to a VM template

When you edit a VM template, you can add tags to group resources and manage them in Control view.

To manage tags for a template:

Go to Apps library → select a datacenter or public cloud region
Go to Templates
Edit a template
Add tags

For more details see GUI Edit template Tags

Manage VM templates with the API

API Documentation

For the Abiquo API documentation of this feature, see Abiquo API Resources and the page for this resource VirtualMachineTemplatesResource.

Pages related to VM templates

Main Apps library page with links to related pages: Appliance Library View
Guest setup