Uploading Images

You can upload images to Photon Controller to create virtual machines and clusters. An image can be an OVA, vmdk, or ISO file. After you upload an OVA for Ubuntu 16.04, for example, you can create VMs from it on demand.

Photon Controller lets you seed the system with images that can be shared among tenants. As a tenant, you can also create your own images without sharing them with other tenants.

Before you can generate a VM or disk from an image, however, you must create a flavor for it. A flavor specifies a template for the resources and costs that a disk or VM image consumes. See Flavors.

For instructions on how to upload and enable the Kubernetes image, see Creating a Kubernetes Cluster.

Setting the Target

To work with Photon Controller from a workstation, you first set the target by using the Photon CLI. Setting the target establishes a connection to Photon Controller. The following command assumes that you set up Photon Controller to authenticate users.

photon target set https://<ip_address>:443

If you enabled the load balancer during deployment, the IP address in the command should be that of the load balancer, not a management node.

Uploading Images

To upload images, run the command photon image create command, replacing <type> with either ON_DEMAND or EAGER:

photon image create <local_file_path_to_image> -n <name> -i <type>

Here's an example:

photon image create /tmp/ubuntu16-04.ova -n ubuntu1604 -i ON_DEMAND

Eager Images and On-Demand Images

Photon Controller replicates an eager image to each cloud host's datastore when it is uploaded, making it immediately available across the system. In contrast, Photon Controller replicates an on-demand image to other cloud hosts only when a tenant creates a VM from it. An eager image produces VMs faster but consumes more storage space; an on-demand image produces VMs slower but takes less storage space.

Viewing Images

The photon image list command returns a list of images and their IDs.

The photon image show <image_ID> command displays details about an image, including its size, settings, and replication type.

Deleting Images

You can delete an image like this:

photon image delete <image_ID>