This section explains how to collect cloning images.
Use the following methods to collect cloning images:
Collecting Cloning Images from L-Servers with an OS Installed
Collecting Cloning Images from Templates of Server Virtualization Software
Registering the Server Management Software (BMC BladeLogic Server Automation) Package
Registering Image Files Stored in the Cloning Image Folder on the Resource Orchestrator Manager
Note
For physical L-Servers, agents must be registered before collecting cloning images.
For details, refer to "7.6 Collecting and Registering Cloning Images" in the "Setup Guide CE".
Use the following method to collect cloning images:
Collecting Cloning Images from L-Servers with an OS Installed
After installing an OS, right-click the target L-Server in the orchestration tree, and select [Cloning]-[Collect] from the popup menu.
The [Collect a Cloning Image] dialog is displayed.
Perform the following settings:
Note
For physical L-Servers, the target L-Server must be operating when cloning images are being collected.
Cloning images cannot be collected from a physical L-Server on which a VM host has been installed.
For virtual L-Servers, the target L-Server must be stopped when cloning images are being collected.
Enter a name to identify the collected cloning image.
For a cloning image name, enter a character string, beginning with an alphabetic character (upper or lower case), and containing up to 32 alphanumeric characters (upper or lower case) and underscores ("_").
When there is already a cloning image of the same image type with the same name in the image pool a cloning image is being registered to, it will be registered as the next version of that cloning image.
However, for the following range of VM types, it is treated as being the same type of image.
- VMware, Hyper-V, OVM for x86 2.2, OVM for x86 3.x, Citrix Xen, Solaris Zones, OVM for SPARC
- KVM, Xen
[KVM]
Ensure that each image name differs depending on the image location type ("Virtual Disk", "Raw Disk").
For details on image location types, refer to "Image Location Type and Storage Location of Cloning Images" in "8.6.7 Collecting Cloning Images" in the "Setup Guide CE".
Note
Use the following methods to collect cloning images:
- Collecting cloning images from physical servers with OSs installed
- Collecting cloning images from physical L-Servers with OSs installed
- Collecting cloning images from virtual L-Servers with OSs installed
- Collecting cloning images from templates of server virtualization software
- Registering the server management software (BMC BladeLogic Server Automation) package
- Registering image files stored in the cloning image folder on the Resource Orchestrator manager
Ensure that each cloning image collected using one of the above methods has a unique name in the same image pool.
[KVM] [Xen]
Ensure that the cloning image has a unique name.
Select when specifying the same name as that of a cloning image which has already been collected. Select the cloning image from the list.
Cloning images with the same name can be saved up until the maximum number of image versions.
The maximum number of image versions is three by default.
[KVM]
As the only cloning images that can be updated are those with the same image location type as the disk type of the system disk used by the target L-Server, only cloning images with the same image location type are displayed.
For details on image location types, refer to "Conditions for Collection and Updating of Cloning Images" in "8.6.7 Collecting Cloning Images" in the "Setup Guide CE".
To collect cloning images involving data disks, check the "Collect all disks" checkbox. When not checked, only system disks will be collected.
To use customization of VM guests, check the "On (when deployed)" checkbox.
This item is only displayed when the OS type supports the customization function.
[Citrix Xen]
For details on the customization of VM guests, refer to "8.9.12 Customization Function of Guest OS" in the "Setup Guide CE".
[OVM for x86 3.x]
For details on the customization of VM guests, refer to "8.10.12 Customization Function of Guest OS" in the "Setup Guide CE".
To use customization of VM guests, select the system type of the guest OS.
This item is activated when the "On (when deployed)" checkbox of OS settings is checked.
- When the VM guest OS is a 32-bit operating system
Select "32-bit Operating System".
- When the VM guest OS is a 64-bit operating system
Select "64-bit Operating System".
Select the storage location for cloning images. Clicking the [Select] button displays the [Select a Location for this Image] dialog.
Select the storage location, and click the [OK] button.
[OVM for x86 3.x]
The storage location for images which was specified in the [Collect a Cloning Image] dialog is disabled.
It is assumed that the virtual storage resource containing the L-Server for collecting cloning images has been specified.
Select the image pool to register cloning images in.
Enter a comment that identifies the cloning image.
Up to 128 characters other than percent signs ("%"), back slashes ("\"), double quotes ("), and line feed characters can be specified.
Click the [OK] button.
Collected cloning images are stored in image pools.
Physical L-Servers are temporarily powered off while collecting cloning images.
When the [Cancel] button is clicked in the Recent Operations area, the confirmation dialog to quit the process is displayed.
From the command-line, execute rcxadm image create. For details on the rcxadm image create command, refer to "4.1 rcxadm image" in the "Reference Guide (Command/XML) CE".
Cloning images (identifiable by their name attribute) can be managed by image version.
Note
For virtual L-Servers, the results of cloning image collection vary based on the disk configurations as follows.
[VMware]
When the target L-Server includes Raw Device Mapping (RDM) disks, the target disks are treated as virtual disks and the image will be collected.
[Hyper-V]
When the target L-Server includes Pass-through disks, the image cannot be collected regardless whether "Collect all disks" is specified or not.
When the target L-Server includes difference disks, the image will be collected including the difference disks by specifying "Collect all disks".
When the target L-Server has snapshots, images cannot be collected. Even when the snapshots are deleted, images cannot be collected until the merge process of snapshot files is completed. Wait for a while until the merge process is completed and then collect images.
Collecting Cloning Images from Templates of Server Virtualization Software
For details, refer to "14.7.1 Virtual Image Resources".
Point
To perform maintenance of registered images (templates) using VM management software, it is necessary to place them in image maintenance mode. For details on placing images into image maintenance mode, refer to "6.4 Managing Images" in the "Operation Guide CE".
Note
When using MAK license authentication for activation in the following OSs, Sysprep can be executed a maximum of three times.
Microsoft(R) Windows Server(R) 2008 R2
Microsoft(R) Windows Server(R) 2008
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 7
Microsoft(R) Windows Vista(R)
Since Sysprep is executed when creating L-Server with images specified or when collecting cloning images, collection of cloning images and creation of L-Servers with images specified cannot be performed more than three times. Therefore, it is recommended not to collect cloning images from L-Servers that have had cloning images deployed, but to collect them from a dedicated master server.
The network parameter auto-configuration function defined in a cloning image cannot be used for Resource Orchestrator.
When the target server of cloning image collection has a redundant NIC configured, release redundancy and then perform collection.
[VMware] [Hyper-V]
The disk space necessary for the collected cloning images can be confirmed from the following display.
Resource list for image pools, or cloning image list in the [Resource Details] window
Resource list for image resources, or version list in the [Resource Details] window
From the command-line, execute rcxadm image list. For details on the rcxadm image list command, refer to "4.1 rcxadm image" in the "Reference Guide (Command/XML) CE".
[Xen] [KVM] [OVM for x86 2.2]
The disk area necessary for extraction cannot be checked from collected cloning images.
For this reason, include the disk size in the cloning image name or the comment, and check the necessary disk area is available before extracting images.
[VMware]
For details on how to collect cloning images on VMware, refer to "8.2.8 Collecting Cloning Images" in the "Setup Guide CE".
[Hyper-V]
For details on how to collect cloning images on Hyper-V, refer to "8.3.8 Collecting and Deleting Cloning Images" in the "Setup Guide CE".
[Xen]
For details on how to collect cloning images on RHEL5-Xen, refer to step 3 in "8.4.6 Creating L-Servers" in the "Setup Guide CE".
[KVM]
For details on how to collect cloning images on RHEL-KVM, refer to step 3 in "8.6.6 Creating L-Servers" in the "Setup Guide CE".
[OVM for x86 2.2]
For details on how to collect cloning images on OVM for x86 2.2, refer to "8.5.7 Collecting Cloning Images" in the "Setup Guide CE".
[OVM for x86 3.x]
For details on how to collect cloning images on OVM for x86 3.x, refer to "8.10.7 Collecting and Registering Cloning Images" in the "Setup Guide CE".
[Citrix Xen]
For details on how to collect cloning images on Citrix Xen, refer to "8.9.7 Collecting and Registering Cloning Images" in the "Setup Guide CE".
Point
[VMware]
When "Default" is specified in the [Collect a Cloning Image] dialog, it is assumed that the virtual storage resource containing the L-Server for collecting cloning images has been specified.
[Hyper-V]
Images are stored in the SCVMM library.
Specify a library which has sufficient available disk space to store the collected images.
When "Default" is specified in the [Collect a Cloning Image] dialog, selection is made from libraries registered with SCVMM, but collection of images may fail as the available disk space of libraries is not managed by SCVMM.
[Xen]
When "Default" is specified for the storage destination of images during cloning image collection, a virtual storage is automatically selected from the same storage pool as the virtual storage containing the target L-Server from which cloning images will be collected.
[KVM]
When "Default" is specified for the storage destination of images during cloning image collection, the disk is selected according to the disk type of the system disk used by the target L-Server, as follows:
When the disk type of the system disk used by the target L-Server is "Raw Disk"
Disk resources accessible from the VM host are selected automatically from the same storage pool as the one where the system disk used by that L-Server is registered.
When the disk type of the system disk used by the target L-Server is "Virtual Disk"
Virtual storage resources accessible from the VM host are selected automatically from the same storage pool as the one where the system disk used by that L-Server is registered.
[Citrix Xen]
When "Default" is specified in the [Collect a Cloning Image] dialog, it is assumed that the virtual storage resource containing the L-Server for collecting cloning images has been specified.
A given cloning image (identified by its name attribute) can be managed by image version.
If a cloning image is created using VM management software, it can be used as is.
Registering the Server Management Software (BMC BladeLogic Server Automation) Package
In the ROR console management software tree, right-click the target management software (BladeLogic), and select [Update] from the popup menu.
The BMC BladeLogic Server Automation information is updated, and the detected package is registered as a cloning image.
Registering Image Files Stored in the Cloning Image Folder on the Resource Orchestrator Manager [Solaris Zones (Solaris 11)]
For details on how to register cloning images, refer to "8.7.5 Creating and Importing Cloning Images" in the "Setup Guide CE".
