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Version: v4

Manage and Upload Images

Images are the operating system templates instances boot from.

View images​

Go to Project -> Compute -> Images.

Images list in Horizon

The list shows the distribution, OS version, minimum disk and memory, visibility, disk format, and size. Public images are available to every project.

Upload an image​

Click Create Image.

Create Image form in Horizon

  • Image Name: the name shown in the image list.
  • Image Source: upload a local File, or fetch a URL.
  • Format: QCOW2 or RAW.
  • Image Requirements: minimum disk and memory a flavor must meet.
  • Visibility: Public shares the image with every project.
  • Protected: enable to block deletion.

Click Create Image.

Ceph-backed clouds perform best with RAW. Ceph clones a RAW image to create an instance or volume. A QCOW2 image cannot be cloned, so it is converted every time an instance or volume is created from it. Images added through Glance's image import are converted to RAW automatically.

The image stays in queued or saving until the upload finishes.

Snapshot a running instance​

A snapshot captures an instance's disk as a new image.

Go to Project -> Compute -> Instances, find the instance, then choose Create Snapshot. Snapshots appear under Project -> Compute -> Images with a type of Snapshot.

Instance snapshot in the Horizon images list

Shut the instance down before snapshotting if the workload writes to disk, so the snapshot is filesystem-consistent.