Working with ISOs#
Zergaw CloudStack supports ISOs and their attachment to Guest Instances. An ISO is a read-only file that has an ISO/CD-ROM style file system. Users can upload their own ISOs and mount them on their Guest Instances.
ISOs are uploaded based on a URL. HTTP is the supported protocol. Once the ISO is available via HTTP specify an upload URL such as http://my.web.server/filename.iso.
ISO images may be stored in the system and made available with a privacy level similar to Templates. ISO images are classified as either bootable or not bootable. A bootable ISO image is one that contains an OS image. Zergaw CloudStack allows a User to boot a Guest Instance off of an ISO image. Users can also attach ISO images to Guest Instances. For example, this enables installing PV or virtio drivers. ISO images are not hypervisor-specific.
Adding an ISO#
To make additional operating system or other software available for use with Guest Instances, you can add an ISO. The ISO is typically thought of as an operating system image, but you can also add ISOs for other types of software, such as desktop applications that you want to be installed as part of a Template.
Log in to the UI as an administrator or end User.
In the left navigation bar, click Templates.
In Select View, choose ISOs.
Click Add ISO.
In the Add ISO screen, provide the following:
Name: Short name for the ISO image. For example, CentOS 6.2 64-bit.
Description: Display test for the ISO image. For example, CentOS 6.2 64-bit.
URL: The URL that hosts the ISO image. The Management Server must be able to access this location via HTTP. If needed you can place the ISO image directly on the Management Server
Zone: Choose the zone where you want the ISO to be available
Bootable: Whether or not a guest could boot off this ISO image. For example, a CentOS ISO is bootable, a Microsoft Office ISO is not bootable.
OS Type: This helps the hypervisor perform certain operations and make assumptions that improve the performance of the guest. Select one of the following.
If the operating system of your desired ISO image is listed, choose it.
If the OS Type of the ISO is not listed or if the ISO is not bootable, choose Other.
Note
It is not recommended to choose an older version of the OS than the version in the image. For example, choosing CentOS 5.4 to support a CentOS 6.2 image will usually not work. In these cases, choose Other.
Extractable: Choose Yes if the ISO should be available for extraction.
Public: Choose Yes if this ISO should be available to other Users.
Arch: The supported arch types are listed. Select the desired one.
Click OK.
The Management Server will download the ISO. Depending on the size of the ISO, this may take a long time. The ISO status column will display Ready once it has been successfully downloaded into secondary storage. Clicking Refresh updates the download percentage.
Important: Wait for the ISO to finish downloading. If you move on to the next task and try to use the ISO right away, it will appear to fail.
Attaching an ISO to a Instance#
In the left navigation, click Instances.
Choose the Instance you want to work with.
Click the Attach ISO button. |iso.png|
In the Attach ISO dialog box, select the desired ISO.
Click OK.