Working with virtual images

Virtual images provide the operating system and product binary files needed to create a virtual system instance.

Before you begin

The IBM® OS image for Red Hat Linux Systems virtual image, for example, is preinstalled on your system. These images can be extended to customize the virtual images and the operating system. You can also use your own operating system and transform it into an image that Cloud Pak System Software can deploy.

To view a virtual image, you must be granted access to the virtual image or assigned the Workload resources administration with Full permission. See Understanding security roles for Cloud Pak System Software for more information.

Cloud Pak System Software supports the following guest operating systems:

RHEL 6.7 and above (64-bit)
RHEL 7.3 and above (64-bit)
Windows 2008 R2 (64-bit)
Windows 2012 R2 (64-bit)
Windows 2016 (64-bit)

Important: There are essential services that must run in deployed virtual images. If you modify these services, for example remove a RPM, ensure that the changes do not affect functionality of the image.

Network Restriction: Support of the VMXNET 3 virtual network adapter is limited to 3 addresses or less. For example, you may have the following in the image OVF file which indicates that your image is using the VMXNET 3 virtual network adapter:

<ovf:Item>
  <rasd:AddressOnParent>1</rasd:AddressOnParent>
  <rasd:AutomaticAllocation>true</rasd:AutomaticAllocation>
  <rasd:Caption:>Ethernet adapter on &quot;Network 1&quot;</rasd:Caption>
  <rasd:Connection>Network 1</rasd:Connection>
  <rasd:ElementName>Ethernet adapter on &quot:Network 1&quot;</rasd:ElementName>
  <rasd:InstanceID>7</rasd:InstanceID>
  <rasd:ResourceSubType>Vmxnext3</rasd:ResourceSubType>
  <rasd:ResourceType>10</rasd:ResourceType>
</ovf:Item

If you plan to deploy this image with 4 or more IP addresses, you must modify the OVF file to use a different NIC type. For example:

<ovf:Item>
  <rasd:AddressOnParent>1</rasd:AddressOnParent>
  <rasd:AutomaticAllocation>true</rasd:AutomaticAllocation>
  <rasd:Caption:>Ethernet adapter on &quot;Network 1&quot;</rasd:Caption>
  <rasd:Connection>Network 1</rasd:Connection>
  <rasd:ElementName>Ethernet adapter on &quot:Network 1&quot;</rasd:ElementName>
  <rasd:InstanceID>7</rasd:InstanceID>
  <rasd:ResourceSubType>PCNet32</rasd:ResourceSubType>
  <rasd:ResourceType>10</rasd:ResourceType>
</ovf:Item

Import the new image for use in deployments. Note that all NICs in the OVF file must use the same NIC type.

Storage Restrictions:

Your image must contain at least one disk image.
You must configure all disks to connect to the virtual machine using a SCSI controller rather than an IDE controller.

Related concepts:

Classic virtual system instance maintenance

Related tasks:

Viewing jobs in the jobs queue

Applying fixes

Creating classic virtual system patterns

Cloning classic virtual system patterns

Modifying classic virtual system patterns

Configuring advanced options

Making classic virtual system patterns read-only

Related reference:

Classic virtual system pattern views and parts

Accepting license agreements for script packages

Virtual System Patterns pane reference

Virtual images

Related information

Using the command-line interface for workload management