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Grant any user the ability to start your virtual machine

Business case​

You want people in your organization or research group to be able to launch a virtual machine if it ever gets shut down. The virtual machine may get shut down, for example, if new software needs to be installed.

How to give a user access to your virtual machine.​

Users can grant others the ability to launch a virtual machine by sharing the virtual machine template with them. This feature shares both the virtual machine template AND the drive, yet you as a user only have to share once.

  1. Navigate to the virtual machines tab in the main menu bar.
  2. Locate the virtual machine that you would like to share and MAKE SURE IT IS SHUT DOWN. Users cannot share virtual machines while they are running.
  3. Select the share button which is the button directly to the left of the red trash button.
  4. A modal will appear that prompts the user to enter the users that the would like to share the virtual machine with. The drive that is attached to the virtual machine is already specified for you at the bottom. NOTE: Users must be part of the same team in order to share virtual machine templates.
  5. If the user that you are sharing the VM with is using tiCrypt, they need to log out and log back in to see the shared virtual machine in their virtual machine list.
  6. Launch the shared machine. The shared user does not even need to attach the shared drive.
Users can continue the lineage of sharing virtual machines that were shared with them as long as they are in the same team.
If you are ever unsure about which virtual machine is yours or which was shared with you, click on the share button and you can see all of the users who are shared on the virtual machine. The first name listed is the owner of the virtual machine.