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Import your own custom Image

Introduction​

In the E2E cloud stack, we empower our customers by allowing them to get their customized images made available in their MyAccount console. Customers can bring in their golden images (customized Linux distributions with software and configurations to fit the specific needs) from on-premises environments or even from other cloud providers to the E2E cloud platform and use them to create virtual machines with their choice of Plans.

This option saves time and effort required to set up and configure your node from scratch to get your required golden stack in place. You can get your bootable disk images from virtual machines (VMs) on your local workstation, from your physical datacenters, or from VMs that run on another cloud platform to E2E Cloud-Platform.

Prerequisites​

VM Initialization Method​

There are different methods to pass information to a newly created Virtual Machine. This information can include the network configuration of the VM, user credentials, init scripts, and free-form data.

In our cloud platform, we use the OpenNebula context package for virtual machine initialization. This package configures the network, sets the user credentials, sets the hostname, and adds provided SSH keys, etc.

Download and Installation of Contextualization Packages and Dependencies to Your VM​

...

CentOS/RHEL 6.x​

wget https://github.com/OpenNebula/addon-context-linux/releases/download/v5.8.0/one-context-5.8.0-1.el6.noarch.rpm
yum install -y epel-release
yum install -y one-context-[0-9]*el6*rpm

CentOS/Fedora/RHEL 7.x​

wget https://github.com/OpenNebula/addon-context-linux/releases/download/v5.8.0/one-context-5.8.0-1.el7.noarch.rpm
yum install -y epel-release
yum install -y one-context-[0-9]*el7*rpm

Debian/Ubuntu​

wget https://github.com/OpenNebula/addon-context-linux/releases/download/v5.8.0/one-context_5.8.0-1.deb
apt-get purge -y cloud-init
dpkg -i one-context_*deb || apt-get install -fy

OpenSUSE 42,15​

wget https://github.com/OpenNebula/addon-context-linux/releases/download/v5.8.0/one-context-5.8.0-1.suse.noarch.rpm
zypper --no-gpg-check install -y one-context-[0-9]*suse*rpm

Alpine Linux​


wget https://github.com/OpenNebula/addon-context-linux/releases/download/v5.8.0/one-context-5.8.0-r1.apk         
apk add --allow-untrusted one-context-[0-9]*apk

FreeBSD 11,12​


wget https://github.com/OpenNebula/addon-context-linux/releases/download/v5.8.0/one-context-5.8.0_1.txz
pkg install -y curl bash sudo base64 ruby open-vm-tools-nox11
pkg install -y one-context-[0-9]*.txz


Note

If you have cloud-init present in your virtual machine for initialization, please make sure that the respective cloud-init service is disabled on boot before taking the image. The cloud-init will conflict with the OpenNebula context package which may result in failure of the virtual machine initialization process.

Supported image formats​

E2E cloud-platform supports images in qcow2, qed, raw, vdi, vhd, and vmdk formats for import.

tip

To save space and reduce import time, you can also compress the file using gzip and tar compression formats.

Disk requirements​

The image should contain a single disk partition. The primary partition on the disk can be in any format that you like as long as it boots properly from the MBR bootloader. The disk should not be larger than 2048 GB (2 TB).

Operating System requirements​

| Disk images with any bootable operating system can be imported to E2E cloud-platform, but the context package and initialization method are easier to configure for the Operating systems offered on the virtual node environment than others. The following operating systems are tested for this guide:

  • CentOS/RHEL >= 6
  • Debian >= 8
  • Ubuntu >= 14.04
Note

Other operating systems can also be imported, but they might require additional configuration steps that are not covered in this guide.

Prerequisites for importing an image to E2E Cloud-Platform​

  • Create an E2E Object Storage for storing the exported images or choose an existing bucket. To learn how to create an E2E Object Storage, follow Object Storage.
  • Upload the image to the Object Storage using the Upload feature

Upload Image

  • After the image has been uploaded to the bucket, you can simply copy the link, which is a public E2E Object Storage URL.

Copy Link

Importing an image to E2E Cloud-Platform​

Once you have an image ready meeting the aforementioned prerequisites, you can provide us with a public E2E Object Storage URL from where we can download the image. We will get the image imported to our cloud-platform from the backend and make it available in your MyAccount Saved Images section from where you can use it to create virtual machines with your choice of plan.

  • Go to MyAccount and log in using your credentials.
  • On the left Navigation bar, select Nodes under the compute section.
  • You will be redirected to the Manage Node page.
  • Click on ‘Saved Images’.

Import Saved Image

  • You will be redirected to the ‘Manage Saved Image’ page.
  • Click on the ‘Import Custom Image’.

Import Custom Image

  • The import custom image window will open. Please provide the following details:

    Public URL: Paste the public E2E Object Storage URL which you have copied from the object storage. We will import the image from this link.

    Custom Image Name: This field is pre-filled with the name, but you can customize it if you like.

Import Details

Note

The imported image will be saved in a format specific to our environment. This means that the actual size of the image stored in our system can be different from the size of the image as visible in your environment. This difference can sometimes be as high as 5 times the original size. Please contact us at cloud-platform@e2enetworks.com.

  • After you've entered the required details, click Import. An information message will appear on the screen.
Note

Importing virtual images will take some time, depending on the size of the image. You will be notified once an image is imported.

Import In Progress

  • Once your custom image is added to your account, you can create a node or create a scale group from your custom image.

Create Node or Scale Group

Pricing​

There are no charges for importing your custom images on E2E Cloud-platform. You will be charged for the storage space consumed by the image at ₹ 4.00/GB per month. You can create the virtual machine using your imported custom image and delete the image to avoid incurring image storage costs.