Modify a VM template in public cloud

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

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Edit a VM template

Edit the general information of a template in public cloud

Enter the general details of the VM template:

Open

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 Modify a VM template .

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 Set default template icons by operating system type

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.

Add a bootstrap script to a VM template in public cloud

Add a bootstrap script to a VM template and the platform will add it to all VMs created from the template to use with the Cloud-init (or similar) option, for Guest setup, which you can configure on the Advanced tab. You can also use scripts that are saved as Script templates.  

Before you begin:

1. Prepare a template that is compatible with cloud-init (version 0.7.9 or above), or cloudbase-init, or a similar system

To add a VM bootstrap configuration or script:

1. In the Catalogue, edit a VM template

2. Go to Bootstrap

3. If you have the Add a script template to a VM template privilege, select Use own script or Use script template

   • For Use own script, paste your configuration or script in the Bootstrap script text box

   • For Use script template, click Search, and double-click a script template, or select a script template and click Accept

4. Continue to configure the VM template or click Save to finish

Note: when you save VM disks to an instance template, Abiquo copies the VM bootstrap script to the instance template.

Related links

• VM bootstrap script

• Prepare for guest setup with cloud-init or similar

• Manage script templates

Edit template on advanced tab in public cloud

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.

Add cost codes for extra charges for a VM template

See “Add cost codes for extra charges for a VM template” in Modify a VM template.

Manage VM templates with the API

Pages related to VM templates

• Main page with links to related pages: Catalogue view

• Guest setup