Images and snapshots¶

You use an image, or a snapshot, to boot your virtual machine.

Image¶

Images contain a bootable operating system, for example, a Linux derivative as Ubuntu or CentOS. They can have further collections of tools, packages, and configurations, for example RStudio or Apache Guacamole.
While each cloud site provides a selection of images you can use to boot up a virtual machine, de.NBI provides the same selection of images for every cloud site.

Snapshot¶

A snapshot is an exact copy of your virtual machine. You use the snapshot of an instance as the basis for another instance.
A typical workflow can be:

• To create a virtual machine based on a de.NBI provided image, to configure the virtual machine with needed tools and packages, and to create a snapshot from that configuration. Afterward, you launch new virtual machines based on the snapshot, so that you don't need to configure it every time.
• To configure a virtual machine for a workshop, create a snapshot of that machine, and afterward, launch a virtual machine for every user based on that snapshot.
• Save your configuration and data on your root disk to continue your work later.

Create a snapshot¶

After starting a machine you can go to the instance overview tab and create a snapshot, or you create one on the detail page. A window opens where you can enter a name for your snapshot. Confirm to create a snapshot.

View snapshots¶

1. Set how many snapshots you want to see on a page and scroll through the pages.
2. Filter your list of snapshots. Filter by name, project name and the OpenStack ID of the snapshot.
3. Perform an action on all selected snapshots. 'Select all' to select all snapshots or select specific snapshots.
4. Information about your snapshot: the name of the snapshot, the project name, and the status.
5. Delete the snapshot.

Boot from a snapshot¶

After you successfully created the snapshot, you can go to the new instance tab and choose your created snapshot as an image to start a vm.