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Libvirt Realms

A future release of the tiCrypt backend will support image uploading through the tiCrypt front-end. The only option is to transfer the image to the distribute file system that stores the Libvirt pools and to activate the image manually.

Performing these operations requires root access to all the VM hosts.

Listing the existing pools

#Execute on one of the VM Hosts
#
virsh pool-list

The result should look like:

NameStateAutostart

default

active

yes

ticrypt-bricks

active

yes

ticrypt-vm

active

yes

ticrypt-vm-drives

active

yes

ticrypt-vm-uploaded-images

active

yes

The ticrypt-vm-uploaded-images pool is reserved for future use. The pool where the new image needs to be placed is ticrypt-bricks.

Finding the location of ticrypt-bricks pool

virsh pool-dumpxml ticrypt-bricks |grep -i path

The result should look like:

<path>/ticrypt/libvirt/pools/ticrypt-bricks</path>

The path will of course differ depending on your setup. For the rest of this section we will use this path but you have to replace it by yours.

Placing and activating the new VM image

# Place the image in the pool
cp MyImage.qcow2 /ticrypt/libvirt/pools/ticrypt-bricks
# Refresh the pool so Libvirt knows about it
virsh pool-refresh ticrypt-bricks
# List the images in the pool and find ours
virsh vol-list ticrypt-bricks | grep MyImage

If you want to list all the images, run the last command without grep:

# List all the images
virsh vol-list ticrypt-bricks

Integration with tiCrypt backend

Once you added an image, navigate to the "Management" tab in tiCrypt frontend, and under "Libvirt Volumes" ensure that the new image is visible to tiCrypt (refresh the list if it is not).

Under the "VM Images" section, add an new image and point it to the new Libvirt Volume corresponding to your image. Provide the required information, especially the OS.

Only VM Images are visible to the VM Bricks, not Libvirt Volumes. If you do not define a VM Image, you cannot use it to build or update a VM Brick.

Nutanix Realms

In Nutanix, the VM Image can only be added through PRISM interface. You must have access PRISM and sufficient credentials to be able to perform this operation.

Nutanix will convert your image from any of the supported formats into the correct type.

Carefully name your image since you have to remember the name when creating the VM Brick in tiCrypt

Once the image is transfered, it will be visible within tiCrypt in the "Management" tab, "VM Images" section.

Building VM Bricks in tiCrypt

Once a VM Image is build based on your new disk image, the process is the same for both Libvirt and Nutanix realm types. The VM Image becomes available as a choice of image for the construction of a new or updating an existing VM Brick.

Updating an existing VM Brick does not affect any running VMs based on that brick until the VM reboots.