Configure Virtual Machines

To prepare to configure a VM do these steps:

1. If your VM is deployed

   1. If your VM supports hot-reconfigure (in private cloud on VMware hypervisors, in public cloud, see provider features tables), you may configure when powered on
   2. If your VM does not support hot-reconfigure, select the VM and go to the stop button.
      1. If your guest supports graceful shutdown with guest tools, select the Shut down option
      2. Or connect to the VM and shut it down directly
      3. Or if your VM is prepared for a hard shutdown, select Power off
2. On the VM icon, select the options menu, and select Edit. Full configuration details are given below
3. After you make your changes click Save. The platform will reconfigure the VM. 
4. Deploy or power on the VM as appropriate.

If you deploy a VM without configuring a network interface, the platform will automatically assign an address in the default network.

Your administrator may create or obtain multiple IP addresses for your virtual datacenters under Virtual datacenters → Networks.

Create NICs and IP addresses

To create NICs and attach them to a VM:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → Virtual appliances
2. If your VM is deployed and you are not using hot-reconfigure of NICs, shut down the VM
3. Edit the VM and go to Networks
4. Select a network type and a network. Network types include:
   
   1. Private networks with private IP addresses that only allow your VMs to communicate with others inside the same virtual datacenter.
   2. External networks that belong to an enterprise and allow VMs to communicate with machines outside their virtual datacenter
      
   3. Public networks with Internet addressable public IP addresses that may be required to access your VM in public cloud
   4. Subnets of global networks that are required to deploy in Google Cloud Platform and that enable you to access cloud services without general internet access  
5. Depending on the network type, you may be able to:
   
   • Request an automatically created NIC and IP by dragging and dropping "Automatically generated IP" to your VM. This IP address will be created and assigned at deploy time.
     
   • Create a new IP address and NIC by clicking the + add button, which requires the Manage virtual network elements privilege 
   • Purchase a public IP address by clicking the Purchase public IPs button
   • Create a new NIC by dragging an IP address into the IPs pane
     
     
     
     

   For each VM your administrator may limit the total number of network interfaces and/or the number of network interfaces in the same network

Optionally set Default gateway

In the Default gateway box, optionally select an address to be the default gateway of the VM.

To reorder network interfaces in the VM in supported clouds:

1. Beside a network interface, click the pencil edit button
2. Enter the desired number in the sequence where you would like to move the interface
3. Click OK

To remove a NIC from a VM:

1. Check that its network does not have the default gateway address for the VM
2. Click the X beside the NIC

To change the default gateway:

1. Select a new gateway from the list. 

To remove the current default gateway:

1. Select the gateway address
2. Click the X delete button beside the gateway address

For public cloud network configurations, please check for the following:

• Automatic network configuration or network requirements, for example, a required public IP
• Charges for public IPs that are not used by running VMs. When you remove an IP from a VM or undeploy the VM, if you no longer need the same IP address, remove it from your VDC and the platform.
• Different public IP address when you remove a public IP and add another public IP to your virtual datacenter and VM
• Limits for public IPs that are independent of any public IP limit in the platform
• The platform does not support OCI Secondary private IP addresses, so it will not display them in the VM configuration. It will display them as unavailable on the Network configuration screens. See Display secondary IP addresses in OCI

A public IP that is not part of any network in the platform is called a floating IP.

To remove a public IP from your VM

1. Power off or undeploy the VM
2. Click the trash bin delete button near the IP address.

In private cloud datacenters, VMs can have the following storage types, when supported in your environment:

• Volumes of managed storage

• Hard disks on the hypervisor datastore

• ISO hard disks on datastore DVD drives

To display VM storage, including the details of the primary disk and attached storage,

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → select VM
2. Go to the VM details panel → Storage

To display and configure VM storage:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → select the VM
2. To configure storage, if you are not using hot-reconfigure of disks, power off the VM
3. Edit the VM
4. Go to Storage

Storage volumes are persistent, which means they will still be available after you undeploy the VM. 

To attach storage volumes to a VM

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → select VM
2. If you are not using hot reconfigure, power off the VM
3. Edit the VM and go to Storage
4. The platform displays the list of Volumes available to you in the virtual datacenter.  To attach a volume to your VM, drag it from the Volumes pane to the main Storage pane. 
5. To save all your changes to the VM, click Save. If the VM is deployed, it will be automatically reconfigured.

In private cloud datacenters, you can create secondary hard disks that are not persistent. This means that when you undeploy the VM or remove the hard disk the platform will delete your hard disks and destroy all data on them.

• Administrators can control the display of the Hard Disk Tab in Configuration View#General tab
• The administrator can force the use of the same controller type and controller as for the primary template disk using the appropriate Abiquo Configuration property.

To save data before you undeploy, create a backup, or create an Abiquo instance template, or copy data to a persistent volume. See Manage VMs#SaveVMdiskstocreateaninstancetemplate and Manage Persistent Storage and VMs

To add a VM hard disk:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit VM → Storage

2. Click the add button at the top right of the tab

3. Select Assign virtual disk and complete the dialog

4. Click Save to create the disk, then finish editing the VM, then click Save

For more details see GUI Edit virtual machine Storage Assign virtual disk

When you configure a VM, you can select an ISO disk from the catalogue to install software on your VM.

To add an ISO disk from the Apps library catalogue:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit a VM → Storage
2. Click the + add button
3. Choose Select an ISO disk
4. From the Apps library browser window that opens, select an ISO disk 
5. Click Save

Abiquo will create a DVD hard disk on the hypervisor datastore to contain the ISO disk. You cannot resize an ISO hard disk.

When you detach a volume, it will be available in the virtual datacenter again. For ESXi, you can only detach an iSCSI external storage volume if the VM does not have VMware snapshots. If you cannot detach a volume as expected, please contact your System Administrator.

When you detach a hard disk, the platform will destroy it and all data on it.

To delete a hard disk or to detach a volume of virtual storage:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit VM → Storage

2. Select the hard disk or volume

3. Click the detach/delete button at the top right of the Storage tab

4. Confirm the delete or detach operation

5. Click Cancel to discard changes or Save to reconfigure the VM in the hypervisor

A volume that has been detached will now be available again in the virtual datacenter.

Abiquo recommends that you change the boot order by itself, without making any other disk configuration changes at the same time. Disk hot-reconfigure on ESXi only supports changes to the boot order as part of disk add or disk remove operations. Other changes made in the platform will not be implemented until the VM is powered off and reconfigured. Note that the platform will ignore Cloud-init ISO disks in the boot order.

To change the boot order:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit VM → Storage
2. Click the pencil edit button beside the Boot order number
3. Enter the new number in the Boot order where you want the disk to go and click ok.
4. Repeat for other disks, as required 
5. The platform will ensure that each disk has a unique number in the boot order and the boot order is contiguous (without gaps between disk numbers).
6. Click Save to reconfigure the VM with the new order

 The platform will change the boot order.

After you add a volume of external storage to a VM, save the VM before you modify the volume.

To modify a VM volume:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit VM → Storage
2. Select the attached volume and click the pencil edit button
3. Modify the controller type and controller as required
   
   Edit a VM volume in private cloud
   
   
   Edit a VM volume in Azure
   
   
   For more details see GUI Edit volume VM

To make other changes to a volume (e.g. resize), go to the Virtual datacenters view on the Volumes tab. See Manage Persistent Storage and VMs#Managepersistentvolumes

You can edit hard disks, for example, to change the name and resize them, including in an existing deployed VM on demand.

To edit a hard disk

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit virtual machine → Storage
2. Select the hard disk and click the pencil edit button
   
   Edit a virtual disk in private cloud
   
   
   Edit the system disk in AWS
   
   
   For more details see GUI Edit virtual disk
   
   
3. Click Save on the Edit virtual disk size popup

4. Continue editing the VM or click Save to reconfigure the VM

The platform uses backup systems, such as Veeam or Networker, and it creates backups for VMs that are deployed on the hypervisor.

When you configure a backup for your VM, the platform will display the disks backup symbol in the lower right-hand corner of the VM icon. 

In some environments the backup system may support restore for VMs that were previously deployed and are now undeployed. If you delete the VM, you cannot access the backup system through the platform. 

To request a manual backup of a VM now:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit VM → Backup
2. At the bottom of the Backup tab, click the Backup now button

The platform will request an immediate backup of the VM or a VM snapshot

To configure your VM backup by selecting the backup policy and the disks, do these steps:

1. Edit the virtual machine and go to Backup → Backup policies
   
   
2. Select from the list of Backup policies
3. Click Show details. Depending on your system configuration and user privileges, you may be required to configure different backup options. Examples of backup options
   
   

4. If required, enter backup frequency, or date and/or time

   Backup Times

   Abiquo uses ISO 8601 and you should check the time standard used in each datacenter with the datacenter owner

   Time zones in ISO 8601 are represented as local time (with the location unspecified), as UTC, or as an offset from UTC

5. If required, select disks
   
   • Note: Some backup systems will ignore your disk selection and create a backup of all disks. Check your cloud provider's documentation for more information

Before you begin:

1. Create your VM with a template that is compatible with cloud-init version 0.7.9 or above, or cloudbase-init, or a similar system
2. In private cloud, the platform will create an ISO disk for Configuration drive

To add a VM bootstrap configuration or script in private or public cloud:

1. Go to create or edit VM → Bootstrap script
2. Paste your configuration or script in the Bootstrap script text box
3. Continue to configure the VM or click Save to finish

Abiquo supports firewall policies that are similar to security groups in private cloud with network managers, and in public cloud providers that support security groups, such as AWS and Azure.

If your provider offers firewall policies, first create them in your virtual datacenters, then assign firewall policies to your VMs.

To assign a firewall from the virtual datacenter to a VM:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit VM → Firewalls
2. Mark the required firewall policy with a tick in the Firewall policies checklist
3. Click Save or continue editing the VM as required

Troubleshooting:

• If you cannot assign more firewall policies, check your cloud provider's limit. For example, for AWS, see http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonVPC/latest/UserGuide/VPC_SecurityGroups.html#VPCSecurityGroups
• If your provider's default firewall policy does not display, you may need to synchronize your virtual datacenter or firewall policies before you continue
• If an expected firewall policy does not display, for example, a firewall policy that you recently created, you may need to wait for the firewall policy to propagate through the provider's API because of eventual consistency
• You can remove the default firewall when editing a VM. However, if the provider requires a firewall and you do not supply another one, the platform will assign the default firewall again.

Configure Chef Attributes

To assign a virtual machine to a load balancer, select the load balancer from the list.

Display Metrics for a VM

Add VM variables

Read Guest Variables

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.abiquo.<variable-name>"

To display VM events:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → Virtual appliances
2. Edit a VM
3. Go to Events

To display the detail of an event, click on the event.

To sort events by a column, click on the column header.