Generating VM templates

Introduction

To create a VM template, you can install an operating system on a VM deployed directly on a hypervisor and then save the virtual disk file (or OVA) to load into Abiquo to share with your users.

As a guide, you can check many of the available settings for VM templates when you edit a VM template (especially, on the Advanced tab). See Modify a VM template | Edit template advanced tab. Abiquo may also recognize some additional hardware from the OVF file (within an OVA). See OVF reference.

UEFI boot

If your VM requires UEFI boot, then you must enable the option in Abiquo on the Advanced tab when you edit a template.

Virtual disk formats

You can use any virtual disk in a supported format as a template to deploy VMs in Abiquo - see Template compatibility table.

VM Templates can be very large and flat formats can have a size equal to the total virtual disk capacity. To minimize download overhead when distributing a VM template, convert it to a compressed format like VMDK-streamOptimized or QCOW2-compressedSparse.

VM disk controllers

Hard disks

By default, Abiquo attaches VM system disks to IDE controllers on all hypervisors.

VMware hypervisors can deploy VMs with SAS controllers or SCSI controllers for VM disks if you configure them using Abiquo configuration properties. See the VMware configuration page in the Infrastructure Guide.

When Abiquo deploys VMs with SCSI controllers, it uses the LSILogic SCSI controller by default. Abiquo supports additional SCSI controllers. You can configure SCSI disk controllers using Abiquo configuration properties.

DVDs

Abiquo supports ISO disks and DVDs with the ISO disk feature. You can also attach these disks within Abiquo when you edit a VM template.

VM Networks

Virtual network adapters

By default Abiquo uses Intel E1000 network drivers which are highly compatible with all systems. Abiquo also supports PCNet32 and VMXNET3 drivers on VMware, and VIRTIO drivers on KVM.

Configure networking to use DHCP

Select dynamically-assigned IP addresses in your default VM configuration to ensure that your VMs all receive different IP addresses!

Erase MAC addresses from network scripts

Some operating systems, such as Red-Hat, store your VM’s MAC addresses in their network initialization scripts. Abiquo assigns a new MAC when you deploy a VM from a template, but an old network script with an old MAC will fail and the VM network will not come up.

To ensure VMs will deploy correctly with a working network, erase all trace of physical addresses in the network scripts.