Modify a VM template in public cloud

Owned by MS (Unlicensed)
Feb 04, 2024
6 min read

This page describes how to edit a VM template in the public cloud catalogue.
To add VM templates from the provider or the local system to the catalogue, see https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652318149
To modify VM templates in private cloud, see https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652319204

 

Before you begin:

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

To modify a VM template:

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

Privileges: Manage VM templates from Catalogue

Edit virtual machine templates in the Catalogue
Edit a VM template

 

Edit the general information of a template in public cloud

Enter the general details of the VM template:

Edit the general details of a VM template
Edit the general details of a VM template

 

  1. Edit a Name to identify the template. The platform will assign this name to VMs that users create from this template. Check your cloud provider naming requirements!

  2. Optionally, select a Category. The platform will display the templates to users by category

  3. For the Icon, enter a URL with a public IP address, not localhost or 127.0.0.1. It may contain the IP address of the API server. For more details, see the template icons expanding section below.

  4. If your cloud provider supports hardware profiles and CPU/RAM values to configure VMs, you can configure CPU and RAM for the template. For more details, see the private cloud documentation at https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652319204 .

  5. The Creation date is the timestamp of when you onboarded the template from the cloud provider. 

For template icons:

  • We recommend square images of size 128x128 pixels with a transparent background. Compatible formats are PNG, JPG, and GIF.

  • If an administrator shares the template with other tenants, then this icon will display for their users

  • If you change the icon of a template with instance templates, when you create the next instance, it will have the new icon

  • If you do not set an Icon, the platform will use the default VM icon from the UI theme

  • If the Operating System is set on the Advanced tab, and you don't set an icon, the platform may display the icon for a specific OS type or a generic OS type. The platform will not assign this icon to VMs.
    See https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652337281

 

Edit virtual machine template disk in public cloud

To edit VM template disk in public cloud providers:

  1. The Capacity is the hard disk space to deploy this disk. Check your cloud provider's minimum capacity requirements for your operating system

    1. When you import a VM template from Azure, the Capacity will be set to 0 and this means the platform will use the default size of the template in the provider

  2. To set the storage service level of the template disk, select a Datastore tier. You can modify this value in a VM before you deploy it

 

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.

Scopes tab for sharing VM templates

To share a template with the enterprises in one or more scopes, select template scopes.

 

To remove enterprise access to a template, remove the scope containing the enterprise. 

  • You cannot remove a scope from the template if an enterprise in the scope is using the template, for example, if it has deployed VMs or instances of VMs. 

To make a template private to the owner enterprise, unselect all scopes.

Edit template on advanced tab in public cloud

Field

Value

Field

Value

Guest setup

In public cloud, by default the Guest setup option is automatically set to Cloud-init even if you do not select this option.
It also assumes that your templates are compatible with Cloud-init.
In AWS, for Windows templates, you can also select from: Cloudbase-init, EC2Config, EC2Launch, and EC2Launch v2.

Guest initial password

For Windows, select Guest initial password to request an initial password that will be sent by email or SMS.
Remember to set the User field below to an appropriate user, such as administrator.

Cost codes

The cost codes for extra charges for this template are now on a separate tab. See Add cost codes for extra charges for a VM template in https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652319204

Operating system

Select the operating system type.

To use the latest version of an operating system, select a generic type, e.g. WINDOWS, and do not enter the version. 

The platform uses the operating system to:

  • load the default icon defined for the OS or the generic OS type, if you have not set an icon

  • enable users to search for the template (e.g. Ubuntu 64-bit template)

  • determine the correct remote access method

For more details of VMware guest operating system types, see https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652319815 and https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652342377 .

OS version

OS version is used to:

  • add operating systems not included in the list of codes

  • provide details of operating systems

User

Default user for a VM created from this template for Linux SSH access and Windows RDP access

  • Enter the appropriate user for the operating system, for example, root or administrator

  • The user will need to enter their SSH public key in their user account and use their SSH private key to access the VM

Password

Default password for the default User of a VM created from this template for Windows systems only

NIC driver

Abiquo always supports E1000 drivers, and other drivers may be available depending on the cloud provider

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

  • For Google Cloud Platform, the VM must be powered on for reconfigure

Creation user

SYSTEM means that the platform created the template

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.

Enable hot-add or hot-reconfigure in VM is valid for supported providers only with supported guest operating systems. 
Check that the Operating system and OS version are correctly set for your system.

Option

Description

Option

Description

CPU hot-add

Let users add CPUs in the platform while the VM is powered on

RAM hot-add

Let users add RAM in the platform while the VM is powered on

Disks hot-reconfigure

Let users remove disks from the boot sequence and add disks to the end of the boot sequence while the VM is powered on

NICs hot-reconfigure

Let users add and remove NICs in the platform while the VM is powered on

Remote access hot-reconfigure

Let users reset remote access in the platform while the VM is powered on. Not used in public cloud

Add cost codes for extra charges for a VM template

See “Add cost codes for extra charges for a VM template” in https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652319204.

 

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

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