Overview

Virtual Machines are defined in templates. In basic terms, a VM template describes a Virtual Machine as resources, components, and attributes – for example, CPU and memory, disk images, network interfaces, context, and operational parameters.

You can create a VM template from zero, or you can download, modify or clone an existing template.

To run a Virtual Machine, you instantiate the template for that Virtual Machine. This operation creates the Virtual Machine, which goes through a series of steps, each defined by a specific state, such as INIT, PENDING or BOOT. The VM will go through different states in varying order, according to the operations performed on it. Some VM states, such as PROLOG, BOOT or RUNNING are visible to end users and serve to perform VM operations; others are used for system internals.

A VM template can be instantiated any number of times, sequentially or concurrently, that is to say a single template can be used to instantiate a number of VMs. Cloud admins or authorized users can instantiate and operate on VMs through the Sunstone web interface or the onetemplate and onevm commands.

How Should I Read this Chapter

Virtual Machine Templates is a complete guide for creating and modifying VM templates, with examples for VM disks, capacities, networking, attributes and instantiation.

Virtual Machine Instances details how to instantiate templates and operate on Virtual Machines, including a list of VM states, example commands, and explanations of the steps to instantiate a template.

The Configuration References section contains the complete references for Virtual Machine Template and Virtual Machine States.

Hypervisor Compatibility

These guides are compatible with all hypervisors.