Importing a boot image

IBM Power Virtual Server located in IBM data centers: Off-premises

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud: On-premises

You can import a custom boot image by using the IBM® Power® Virtual Server CLI or the console. All data centers use Tier 0, Tier 1, Tier 3, and Fixed IOPs storage types. After the volume is created, you cannot change the storage types. A virtual machine (VM) can have disks from multiple storage types. Large boot images take time to successfully import. You might experience a delay in receiving a confirmation message.

Image import requires Hash-Based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) keys (access, secret) to access your IBM Cloud Object Storage bucket. To generate your HMAC keys, see Using IBM COS HMAC credentials.

The IBM® Power® Virtual Server Job feature tracks long-running asynchronous operations like VM capture, image export, and image import across multiple workspaces in your cloud account.

As part of this Job feature, the following API and CLIs are available:

API for image import - Create a new image from available images you have stored in IBM COS.
CLI command - ibmcloud pi image import.
CLI command ibmcloud pi jobs.

The Power Virtual Server VM capture, image export, and image import features are restricted to one operation at a time per Power Virtual Server workspace. If one of these operations is submitted successfully, then another new operation (VM capture, image export, and image import) cannot be submitted until the previous operation is complete.

Using the Power Virtual Server API to import a boot image

To import a boot image, you can use the APIs listed in the Create a new image from available images you have stored in IBM COS topic.

To import a customized SAP HANA or SAP NetWeaver image, specify the following image details:

      "importDetails":{
         "licenseType":"byol",
   "product":"Hana",
         "vendor":"SAP"
      }

Using the Power Virtual Server CLI to import a boot image

Complete the following steps to import a boot image by using the Power Virtual Server CLI. For more information, see the Power Virtual Server CLI Reference.

To import a custom image from IBM Cloud Object Storage, use the ibmcloud pi image-import command.
Find your newly imported image by using the ibmcloud pi images command.
```
shell
ibmcloud pi images [--long] [--json]
```
To import a customized SAP HANA or SAP NetWeaver image, use the -d, --import-details strings command.

Using the Power Virtual Server user interface to import a boot image

Complete the following steps to import a boot image by using the Power Virtual Server user interface.

The Image file name field supports the following formats: .ova, .ova.gz, .tar, .tar.gz and .tgz.

Click Boot images, then Import image.

If you are importing a customized SAP HANA or SAP NetWeaver image, you must select the self-certification checkbox.
After you click Import image, enter all of the required information. Refer to the table at the end of the page to complete the necessary fields to import a boot image.

Select the Validate import with checksum file toggle button to validate the import file against the checksum file. You can generate the checksum file while exporting the image files to the IBM Cloud Object Storage bucket. The checksum file and the import images must be placed in the same bucket. The checksum file name is based on the name of the imported image file and has the file extension .sha256. For more information about generating a checksum file, see Using the Power Virtual Server user interface to capture and export a VM.

If you are creating your own image, you can create a checksum image and place it with your own image in the same bucket. One of the ways to generate the checksum image is by using the command shasum -a 256 <filename> or sha256sum <filename>.

Validating an import file against the checksum file might add extra time to the image import process.
Find your newly uploaded boot image in Boot images.
Return to Virtual server instances and provision a new Power Virtual Server virtual service instance. Click the arrow in the appropriate boot image tile to see your custom boot image.

Boot images options
Field	Description
Catalog image name	Enter the name that you want your imported image to display in your image name catalog.
Storage type	Select whether you want Tier 1 (NVMe-based Flash Storage) or Tier 3 (SSD Flash Storage) for the storage type. A VM cannot have disks from both Tier 1 and Tier 3 storage types.
Storage pool	One or more custom image storage volumes are placed in the storage pool based on the storage pool placement options (auto-select, affinity, or anti-affinity) that you choose. The boot volume of any VM that is deployed by using this image deploys in the same storage pool. For more information about storage volumes, see Adding and managing storage volumes.
Auto-select pool	Select this option to automatically create the storage volume in a pool that has sufficient capacity.
Affinity	Use this option to identify the storage pool that must be used to place the boot volumes, based on an existing PVM instance (VM) or storage volume from your account. The custom image storage volumes are placed in the same storage pool where the affinity object resides. If you are using a PVM instance as the affinity object, the storage pool that is selected to place the boot volumes is based on the PVM instance’s root (boot) volume.
Anti-affinity	Use this option to identify one or more storage pools that you want to exclude from getting selected to place the boot volumes based on one or more existing PVM instances (VMs) or storage volumes from your account. While choosing a storage pool to create the custom image storage volumes, the storage pools in which the list of anti-affinity objects reside are selected. If you are using PVM instances as the anti-affinity objects, the storage pools are excluded depending on each PVM instance’s root (boot) volume that you specified.
Source details (Cloud storage)	Use the following fields to set the Cloud storage details.
Region	Select either us-east, us-south, ca-tor, eu-de, eu-es, eu-gb, au-syd, jp-tok, jp-osa for the region.
Image file name	Enter the file name of the image. The image file name must not contain spaces. Supported file formats are `tar` and `ova`. You can compress image files by using `gzip`. The supported file name extensions are `.ova`, `.ova.gz`, `.tar`, `.tar.gz` and `.tgz`. You must use the private endpoint domain. For example, `Aix_7200-03-02-1846_cldrdy_112018.gz`.
Bucket name	Sub folders can be used and specified as `bucketName/optional/folders`. Optional folders are created automatically if they don’t exist. To identity your bucket name, select Menu icon > Resource list > Storage > Cloud Object Storage name > Buckets.
Cloud Object Storage access key	To identify your access key, select Menu icon > Resource list > Storage > Cloud Object Storage name > Service credentials > View credentials. Copy the `access_key_id` value and past it into this field.
Cloud Object Storage secret key	To identify your secret key, select Menu icon > Resource list > Storage > Cloud Object Storage name > Service credentials > View credentials. Copy the `secret_access_key` value and paste it into this field.

If you' want to download your image at a later point, go to the Resource List in the IBM Cloud dashboard user interface, and access your Cloud Object Storage workspace. In the bucket where your image is stored, select the image file that you want to download and select Download objects. For more information about the Cloud Object Storage CLI command, see Download an object.