This document is for platform administrators and application owners that run
virtual machines (VMs) in VM Runtime on GDC. This document shows you
how to manually convert an existing virtual disk image to the
qcow2
format so that you can create and run VMs in Anthos VM Runtime using that source
image. You then learn how to create a VM directly from this converted virtual
disk image.
VM Runtime on GDC automatically converts an existing disk image to
the qcow2
format during deployment if needed. However, if you want to create
multiple VMs from a non-qcow2
virtual disk image, VM Runtime on GDC
must convert the image every time. This process to convert the image to the
qcow2
format increases the amount of time it takes to create and start the VM.
To reduce the time it takes to create each VM, convert the virtual disk image to
the qcow2
format first, as shown in this document.
Before you begin
To create a VM after you convert your existing virtual disk image, you need access to the following resources:
- Access to Google Distributed Cloud version 1.12.0 (
anthosBareMetalVersion: 1.12.0
) or higher cluster. You can use any cluster type capable of running workloads. If needed, try Distributed Cloud on Compute Engine or see the cluster creation overview. - The
virtctl
client tool installed as a plugin forkubectl
. If needed, install the virtctl client tool.
Convert a virtual disk image
In this document, you use the
QEMU disk image utility
to convert existing virtual disk images to the qcow2
format. The qemu-img
tool can convert virtual disk images from multiple formats, such as vmdk
or
vhdx
, to the qcow2
format for use with VM Runtime on GDC.
To convert virtual disk images to the qcow2
format, complete the following
steps:
Install the
qemu-utils
package using your Linux distro's package manager.Ubuntu
apt-get install qemu-utils
RHEL / CentOS
yum install qemu-utils
Use
qemu-img
to convert the existing virtual disk image:qemu-img convert -f EXISTING_DISK_IMAGE_FORMAT -O qcow2 \ EXISTING_DISK_IMAGE_NAME \ CONVERTED_DISK_IMAGE_NAME.qcow2
Replace the following values:
EXISTING_DISK_IMAGE_FORMAT
: the format of your existing virtual disk image, such asvmdk
.EXISTING_DISK_IMAGE_NAME
: the path and name of your existing virtual disk image.CONVERTED_DISK_IMAGE_NAME
: the path and name for your convertedqcow2
virtual disk image.
For more information on the
qemu-img
tool, such as the different image format options, see the QEMU disk image utility documentation.
Create a VM with your converted image
If you want to see your converted virtual disk image in action, create a VM and
use the local qcow2
-formatted image created in the previous section. For
production use, you should upload your converted virtual disk image to a central
repository and then
create a VM boot disk from HTTP source
or
from Cloud Storage using a Secret.
To use your local converted virtual disk image, complete the following steps:
Create a VM in your cluster:
kubectl virt create vm VM_NAME \ --os-type OS_TYPE \ --image CONVERTED_DISK_IMAGE_NAME.qcow2
This command creates a VM with the defaults of 2 CPU, 4 Gi memory.
Replace the following values:
VM_NAME
: name for your VMOS_TYPE
: the OS type of your converted virtual disk image. Can belinux
orwindows
.CONVERTED_DISK_IMAGE_NAME
: the path and name of your convertedqcow2
virtual disk image from the previous section.
It can take 10-20 minutes to create the VM from your locally converted virtual disk image, depending on the size of your image. Check the status of the VM with the
kubectl
command:kubectl get gvm VM_NAME
Replace
VM_NAME
with the name of your VM.The following example output shows the VM in a
Running
state when the process is complete:NAME STATUS AGE IP MY_VM Running 64s 192.168.2.124
What's next
You can upload your converted virtual disk image in qcow2
format to an HTTP
source or Cloud Storage. The following documents show you how to then create a
VM from those sources: