Abiquo 5.1
To display VM templates
On the right, the platform will display all the templates available for the selected datacenter or public cloud region
Privilege: Manage VM templates from Apps library
Icon view
In Icon view, to activate the VM template operations menu, select a VM template. This menu will vary, depending on the context.
Screenshot: Options menu of VM template
Screenshot: VM instance template, created from VM disks
In list view, to display the VM Template operations buttons, select a VM template.
The predefined categories are "Applications servers", "Database servers", "Others", and "Web servers". If you download a VM template from a remote repository and its category does not exist yet, the platform will create the new global category with this name.
The default global category is "Others" and you cannot delete this category.
Administrators who can manage global categories can promote a local category to global. You cannot demote a global category to local or move local categories from one tenant to another.
Privilege: Manage VM template categories, Manage VM template global categories
To create a VM template category:
The new category will be added to the Categories list.
To add a VM template to a category:
When you delete a category, all the templates belonging to this category will be changed to the category ''Others''.
To copy a VM template, move the mouse over the VM template in the Apps library, and from the options button menu, select Duplicate. Enter the name for the new template. Select the disks you wish to copy and click Save. Abiquo will create the duplicate as a new independent template in the Apps library.
Privilege: Manage VM templates from Apps library, Export template to public cloud, Export template to private cloud
You can export:
To export to public cloud, you must first prepare the templates according to the cloud provider instructions.
Abiquo uses the BPM - V2V conversion service to perform any required conversions and to upload the template to public cloud.
During an export, the platform will queue the BPM and V2V processes for conversions, instances and persistent templates.
To use this feature you must have the base privilege of Manage VM templates from Apps library AND the privilege appropriate to the template destination of Export template to public cloud or Export template to private cloud. Before you export to public cloud, prepare your templates as described in Preparing Templates for Export to Public Cloud
Before you begin:
To export a template
In the Abiquo API you can perform the export using the VirtualMachineTemplates Resource with the same method as is used for promoting an instance template. The datacenter repository should be the destination of the export and the request payload should contain a link to the VM template to export. See https://wiki.abiquo.com/api/latest/VirtualMachineTemplatesResource.html#create-a-virtual-machine-template-in-a-datacenter-repository-by-download-promote-or-export
To delete a shared template or make it unavailable, you must be logged in to the owner enterprise. If you make it unavailabe, it will only be marked as unavailable for all users when the template owner performs a refresh of the Apps Library.
To remove a template that is not in use
Abiquo will remove the template from the Apps Library and the NFS repository file system.
If you want to prevent users from creating new VMs from a template, but it is in use (in VMs or for instances) so you cannot delete it, then you can make it unavailable. This means that the platform will remove the template disk files and you cannot recover them within the platform. A template wiill also become unavailable if one or more of its disk files is deleted from the NFS repository file system outside of the platform.
To make a template unavailable in the UI:
In the Apps library, the platform will not display the unavailable template in the default view. To display the template again, click the filter button and mark the checkbox to display Deleted templates, which are unavailable templates with no disk files. The platform will mark the template icon with a red X symbol.
If one or more template disk files are deleted from the NFS repository, the template will become unavailable. However, if you restore the disk file(s) to the filesystem, then the template will become available again. If the template was downloaded from a remote repository, you can download it again to restore it. After you restore a template, when users redeploy VMs, they will work with the new template and its conversions.
Here is a simple example of the process of deleting a template. An enterprise downloads a VM template from remote repository. A user deploys a VM from the template and modifies the VM. Then a user creates an instance from the deployed VM and deploys a new VM from the instance.
In a datacenter, the platform stores an instance with the original master template. This means that you cannot delete a master template if it has instances. However, you can promote an instance to a master template.
The platform identifies master templates with the "M" symbol on the template icon and instances with the "S" symbol on the template icon.
To display the instances under a master template:
You can modify the instance template, to change the CPU, RAM, icon, and so on, and these changes will not affect the master template.
This feature is available in the API. See https://wiki.abiquo.com/api/latest/VirtualMachineTemplatesResource.html#create-a-virtual-machine-template-in-a-datacenter-repository-by-download-promote-or-export
To promote an instance:
The platform will display the completed template in the Apps library view and you can edit it as required
You cannot delete a master template if it has VMs deployed or instances with VMs deployed, but you can make it unavailable, which deletes the template disk file. If a master template is unavailable, to display it and access the instances panel, select the checkbox to display Deleted VM templates. If you wish to create a VM from an instance of a deleted master template, first promote the instance to a master template.
When you try to delete an instance that is in use in a VM (deployed or undeployed), the platform will only allow you to make it unavailable, which means that the platform will delete the disk file. Users cannot create or deploy VMs with an instance that is unavailable. After you confirm the delete, the platform will display a list of VMs using the template. Click Yes to force the delete of the instance disk file.
Failed instances may occur if there is a connection error between the platform and the VM disks. Failed instances are marked with the failed template icon.
To remove a failed instance template:
In a public cloud region, an instance is a new template that is independent of the original master template. The platform saves the VM configuration. To ensure that you can identify relationships between templates, name your instances carefully.
The platform will identify the public cloud image by the cloud provider's identifier. For example in AWS, an EBS image is identified by its AMI identifier. The name you assign to an instance may be stored in another format such as a label.
The platform does not update templates in the public cloud provider so any changes that you make to templates in the platform will apply in the Apps Library only. For example, if you rename an instance template, this name will not apply in public cloud.
To delete an instance template in public cloud:
The platform will delete the template from the Apps library only. If required, delete the template in the cloud provider too.
To find an Abiquo instance that was deleted from the public cloud Apps library:
Troubleshooting
If a template is still in the Abiquo Apps library, it will not display in the results of the remote search.