Useful image properties¶
You can set image properties that can be consumed by other services to affect the behavior of those other services. For example:
Image properties can be used to override specific behaviors defined for Nova flavors
Image properties can be used to affect the behavior of the Nova scheduler
Image properties can be used to affect the behavior of particular Nova hypervisors
Image properties can be used to provide additional information to Ironic (even when Nova is not used)
Using image properties¶
Some important points to keep in mind:
The
glance-api.conf
settingimage_property_quota
should be sufficiently high to allow any additional desired properties. (The default is 128.)You can use Glance property protections to control access to specific image properties, should that be desirable. See the Property Protections section of this Guide for more information.
Glance reserves properties namespaced with the
os_glance
prefix for its own use and will refuse attempts by API users to set or change them.You can use a plugin to the interoperable image import process to set specific properties on non-admin images imported into Glance. See Copying existing-image in multiple stores for more information. See the original spec, Inject metadata properties automatically to non-admin images for a discussion of the use case addressed by this plugin.
The Nova ImagePropertiesFilter, enabled by default in the Compute Service, consumes image properties to determine proper scheduling of builds to compute hosts. See the Compute schedulers section of the Nova Configuration Guide for more information.
Nova has a setting,
non_inheritable_image_properties
, that allows you to specify which image properties from the image a virtual machine was booted from will not be propagated to a snapshot image of that virtual machine. See the Configuration Options section of the Nova Configuration Guide for more information.Some properties recognized by Nova may have no effect unless a corresponding property is enabled in the server flavor. For example, the
hw_rng_model
image property has no effect unless the Nova flavor has been configured to havehw_rng:allowed
set to True in the flavor’s extra_specs.In a mixed hypervisor environment, the Compute Service uses the
hypervisor_type
image property to match images to the correct hypervisor type.Depending upon what hypervisors are in use in your Nova installation, there may be other image properties that these hypervisors can consume to affect their behavior. Read through the configuration information for your hypervisors in the Hypervisors section of the Nova Configuration Guide for more information.
In particular, the VMware hypervisor driver requires that particular image properties be set for optimal functioning. See the VMware vSphere section of the Nova Configuration Guide for more information.
Image property keys and values¶
Here is a list of useful image properties and the values they expect.
architecture
- Type:
str
The CPU architecture that must be supported by the hypervisor. For example,
x86_64
,arm
, orppc64
. Run uname -m to get the architecture of a machine. We strongly recommend using the architecture data vocabulary defined by the libosinfo project for this purpose.One of:
aarch64
- ARM 64-bitalpha
- DEC 64-bit RISCarmv7l
- ARM Cortex-A7 MPCorecris
- Ethernet, Token Ring, AXis—Code Reduced Instruction Setia64
- Itaniumlm32
- Lattice Micro32m68k
- Motorola 68000microblaze
- Xilinx 32-bit FPGA (Big Endian)microblazeel
- Xilinx 32-bit FPGA (Little Endian)mipsel
- MIPS 32-bit RISC (Little Endian)mips64
- MIPS 64-bit RISC (Big Endian)mips64el
- MIPS 64-bit RISC (Little Endian)openrisc
- OpenCores RISCparisc
- HP Precision Architecture RISCparisc64
- HP Precision Architecture 64-bit RISCppc
- PowerPC 32-bitppc64
- PowerPC 64-bitppcemb
- PowerPC (Embedded 32-bit)s390x
- S/390 64-bitsh4eb
- SuperH SH-4 (Big Endian)sparc64
- Scalable Processor Architecture, 64-bitunicore32
- Microprocessor Research and Development Center RISC Unicore32x86_64
- 64-bit extension of IA-32xtensaeb
- Tensilica Xtensa configurable microprocessor core (Big Endian)
hypervisor_type
- Type:
str
The hypervisor type. Note that
qemu
is used for both QEMU and KVM hypervisor types.One of:
hyperv
ironic
lxc
qemu
uml
vmware
xen
instance_uuid
- Type:
str
For snapshot images, this is the UUID of the server used to create this image. The value must be a valid server UUID.
img_config_drive
- Type:
str
Specifies whether the image needs a config drive.
One of:
mandatory
optional
(default if property is not used)
img_type
- Type:
str
Specifies the partitioning type of the image. The default value is
partition
if thekernel_id
/ramdisk_id
properties are present, otherwisewhole-disk
.One of:
whole-disk
- an image with a partition table embedded.partition
- an image with only the root partition without a partition table.
Note
This property is currently only recognized by Ironic.
kernel_id
- Type:
str
The ID of an image stored in the Image service that should be used as the kernel when booting an AMI-style image. The value must be a valid image ID
os_admin_user
- Type:
str
The name of the user with admin privileges. The value must be a valid username (defaults to
root
for Linux guests andAdministrator
for Windows guests).os_distro
- Type:
str
The common name of the operating system distribution in lowercase (uses the same data vocabulary as the libosinfo project). Specify only a recognized value for this field. Deprecated values are listed to assist you in searching for the recognized value.
One of:
arch
- Arch Linux. Do not usearchlinux
ororg.archlinux
.centos
- Community Enterprise Operating System. Do not useorg.centos
orCentOS
.debian
- Debian. Do not useDebian` or ``org.debian
.fedora
- Fedora. Do not useFedora
,org.fedora
, ororg.fedoraproject
.freebsd
- FreeBSD. Do not useorg.freebsd
,freeBSD
, orFreeBSD
.gentoo
- Gentoo Linux. Do not useGentoo
ororg.gentoo
.mandrake
- Mandrakelinux (MandrakeSoft) distribution. Do not usemandrakelinux
orMandrakeLinux
.mandriva
- Mandriva Linux. Do not usemandrivalinux
.mes
- Mandriva Enterprise Server. Do not usemandrivaent
ormandrivaES
.msdos
- Microsoft Disc Operating System. Do not usems-dos
.netbsd
- NetBSD. Do not useNetBSD
ororg.netbsd
.netware
- Novell NetWare. Do not usenovell
orNetWare
.openbsd
- OpenBSD. Do not useOpenBSD
ororg.openbsd
.opensolaris
- OpenSolaris. Do not useOpenSolaris
ororg.opensolaris
.opensuse
- openSUSE. Do not usesuse
,SuSE
, or `` org.opensuse``.rocky
- Rocky Linux. Do not useRocky
orrockylinux
.rhel
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Do not useredhat
,RedHat
, orcom.redhat
.sled
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. Do not usecom.suse
.ubuntu
- Ubuntu. Do not useUbuntu
,com.ubuntu
,org.ubuntu
, orcanonical
.windows
- Microsoft Windows. Do not usecom.microsoft.server
orwindoze
.
os_version
- Type:
str
The operating system version as specified by the distributor.
The value must be a valid version number (for example,
11.10
).os_secure_boot
- Type:
str
Secure Boot is a security standard. When the instance starts, Secure Boot first examines software such as firmware and OS by their signature and only allows them to run if the signatures are valid.
For Hyper-V: Images must be prepared as Generation 2 VMs. Instance must also contain
hw_machine_type=hyperv-gen2
image property. Linux guests will also require bootloader’s digital signature provided asos_secure_boot_signature
andhypervisor_version_requires'>=10.0'
image properties.One of:
required
- Enable the Secure Boot feature.disabled
oroptional
- (default if property not used) Disable the Secure Boot feature.
os_shutdown_timeout
- Type:
int
By default, guests will be given 60 seconds to perform a graceful shutdown. After that, the VM is powered off. This property allows overriding the amount of time (unit: seconds) to allow a guest OS to cleanly shut down before power off. A value of 0 (zero) means the guest will be powered off immediately with no opportunity for guest OS clean-up.
ramdisk_id
The ID of image stored in the Image service that should be used as the ramdisk when booting an AMI-style image.
The value must be a valid image ID.
rootfs_uuid
For whole-disk images (see
img_type
above), the UUID of the root partition.This property is used by Ironic when configuring software RAID.
trait:<trait_name>
- Type:
str
Added in the Rocky release. Functionality is similar to traits specified in flavor extra specs.
Traits allow specifying a server to build on a compute node with the set of traits specified in the image. The traits are associated with the resource provider that represents the compute node in the Placement API.
The syntax of specifying traits is trait:<trait_name>=value, for example:
trait:HW_CPU_X86_AVX2=required
trait:STORAGE_DISK_SSD=required
The nova scheduler will pass required traits specified on the image to the Placement API to include only resource providers that can satisfy the required traits. Traits for the resource providers can be managed using the osc-placement plugin.
Image traits are used by the nova scheduler even in cases of volume backed instances, if the volume source is an image with traits.
The only valid value is
required
. Any other value is invalid.One of:
required
- <trait_name> is required on the resource provider that represents the compute node on which the image is launched.
vm_mode
- Type:
str
The virtual machine mode. This represents the host/guest ABI (application binary interface) used for the virtual machine.
One of:
hvm
- Fully virtualized. This is the mode used by QEMU and KVM.xen
- Xen 3.0 paravirtualized.uml
- User Mode Linux paravirtualized.exe
- Executables in containers. This is the mode used by LXC.
hw_cpu_sockets
- Type:
int
The preferred number of sockets to expose to the guest.
Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_cpu_cores
- Type:
int
The preferred number of cores to expose to the guest.
Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_cpu_threads
- Type:
int
The preferred number of threads to expose to the guest.
Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_cpu_policy
- Type:
str
Used to pin the virtual CPUs (vCPUs) of instances to the host’s physical CPU cores (pCPUs). Host aggregates should be used to separate these pinned instances from unpinned instances as the latter will not respect the resourcing requirements of the former.
Only supported by the libvirt driver.
One of:
shared
- (default if property not specified) The guest vCPUs will be allowed to freely float across host pCPUs, albeit potentially constrained by NUMA policy.dedicated
- The guest vCPUs will be strictly pinned to a set of host pCPUs. In the absence of an explicit vCPU topology request, the drivers typically expose all vCPUs as sockets with one core and one thread. When strict CPU pinning is in effect the guest CPU topology will be setup to match the topology of the CPUs to which it is pinned. This option implies an overcommit ratio of 1.0. For example, if a two vCPU guest is pinned to a single host core with two threads, then the guest will get a topology of one socket, one core, two threads.
hw_cpu_thread_policy
- Type:
str
Further refine
hw_cpu_policy=dedicated
by stating how hardware CPU threads in a simultaneous multithreading-based (SMT) architecture be used. SMT-based architectures include Intel processors with Hyper-Threading technology. In these architectures, processor cores share a number of components with one or more other cores. Cores in such architectures are commonly referred to as hardware threads, while the cores that a given core share components with are known as thread siblings.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
One of:
prefer
- (default if property not specified) The host may or may not have an SMT architecture. Where an SMT architecture is present, thread siblings are preferred.isolate
- The host must not have an SMT architecture or must emulate a non-SMT architecture. If the host does not have an SMT architecture, each vCPU is placed on a different core as expected. If the host does have an SMT architecture - that is, one or more cores have thread siblings - then each vCPU is placed on a different physical core. No vCPUs from other guests are placed on the same core. All but one thread sibling on each utilized core is therefore guaranteed to be unusable.require
- The host must have an SMT architecture. Each vCPU is allocated on thread siblings. If the host does not have an SMT architecture, then it is not used. If the host has an SMT architecture, but not enough cores with free thread siblings are available, then scheduling fails.
hw_cdrom_bus
- Type:
str
Specifies the type of disk controller to attach CD-ROM devices to. As for
hw_disk_bus
.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_disk_bus
- Type:
str
Specifies the type of disk controller to attach disk devices to.
Only supported by the libvirt driver.
Options depend on the value of nova’s virt_type config option:
For
qemu
andkvm
: one ofscsi
,virtio
,uml
,xen
,ide
,usb
, orlxc
.For
xen
: one ofxen
oride
.For
uml
: must beuml
.For
lxc
: must belxc
.For
parallels
: one ofide
orscsi
.
hw_firmware_type
Specifies the type of firmware with which to boot the guest.
Only supported by the libvirt driver.
One of:
bios
uefi
hw_firmware_stateless
- Type:
bool
Specifies whether the image should be booted with stateless firmware. If true, firmware configurations do not persist over server reboot.
Only supported by the libvirt driver. Also UEFI firmware is required.
hw_mem_encryption
- Type:
bool
Enables encryption of guest memory at the hardware level, if there are compute hosts available which support this. See nova’s documentation on configuration of the KVM hypervisor for more details.
Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_virtio_packed_ring
- Type:
bool
Enables Packed VIRT-IO Queue feature. When set to true, instance will be scheduled to hosts that support negotiating the packed virt queue format. This feature may or may not be enabled depending on the guest driver. When used it will improve the small packet performance of network io. Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_pointer_model
- Type:
str
Input devices that allow interaction with a graphical framebuffer, for example to provide a graphic tablet for absolute cursor movement. Currently only supported by the KVM/QEMU hypervisor configuration and VNC or SPICE consoles must be enabled.
Only supported by the libvirt driver.
One of:
usbtablet
hw_rng_model
- Type:
str
Adds a random-number generator device to the image’s instances. This image property by itself does not guarantee that a hardware RNG will be used; it expresses a preference that may or may not be satisfied depending upon Nova configuration.
The cloud administrator can enable and control device behavior by configuring the instance’s flavor. By default:
The generator device is disabled.
/dev/urandom
is used as the default entropy source. To specify a physical hardwre RNG device, use the following option in thenova.conf
file:rng_dev_path=/dev/hwrng
The use of a hardware random number generator must be configured in a flavor’s extra_specs by setting
hw_rng:allowed
to True in the flavor definition.
Only supported by the libvirt driver.
One of:
virtio
Other supported device.
hw_time_hpet
- Type:
bool
Adds support for the High Precision Event Timer (HPET) for x86 guests in the libvirt driver when
hypervisor_type=qemu
andarchitecture=i686
orarchitecture=x86_64
. The timer can be enabled by settinghw_time_hpet=true
. By default HPET remains disabled.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_machine_type
- Type:
str
For libvirt: Enables booting an ARM system using the specified machine type. If an ARM image is used and its machine type is not explicitly specified, then Compute uses the
virt
machine type as the default for ARMv7 and AArch64.For Hyper-V: Specifies whether the Hyper-V instance will be a generation 1 or generation 2 VM. By default, if the property is not provided, the instances will be generation 1 VMs. If the image is specific for generation 2 VMs but the property is not provided accordingly, the instance will fail to boot.
For libvirt: Valid types can be viewed by using the virsh capabilities command (machine types are displayed in the
machine
tag).For hyper-V: Acceptable values are either
hyperv-gen1
orhyperv-gen2
.Only supported by the libvirt and Hyper-V drivers.
os_type
- Type:
str
The operating system installed on the image. The
libvirt
API driver contains logic that takes different actions depending on the value of theos_type
parameter of the image. For example, foros_type=windows
images, it creates a FAT32-based swap partition instead of a Linux swap partition, and it limits the injected host name to less than 16 characters.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
One of:
linux
windows
hw_scsi_model
- Type:
str
Enables the use of VirtIO SCSI (
virtio-scsi
) to provide block device access for compute instances; by default, instances use VirtIO Block (virtio-blk
). VirtIO SCSI is a para-virtualized SCSI controller device that provides improved scalability and performance, and supports advanced SCSI hardware.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
One of:
virtio-scsi
hw_serial_port_count
- Type:
int
Specifies the count of serial ports that should be provided. If
hw:serial_port_count
is not set in the flavor’s extra_specs, then any count is permitted. Ifhw:serial_port_count
is set, then this provides the default serial port count. It is permitted to override the default serial port count, but only with a lower value.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_video_model
- Type:
str
The graphic device model presented to the guest.
none
disables the graphics device in the guest and should generally be used when using GPU passthrough.One of:
vga
cirrus
vmvga
xen
qxl
virtio
gop
none
bochs
Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_video_ram
- Type:
int
Maximum RAM in MB for the video image. Used only if a
hw_video:ram_max_mb
value has been set in the flavor’s extra_specs and that value is higher than the value set inhw_video_ram
.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_watchdog_action
- Type:
str
Enables a virtual hardware watchdog device that carries out the specified action if the server hangs. The watchdog uses the
i6300esb
device (emulating a PCI Intel 6300ESB). Ifhw_watchdog_action
is not specified, the watchdog is disabled.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
One of:
disabled
- (default) The device is not attached. Allows the user to disable the watchdog for the image, even if it has been enabled using the image’s flavor.reset
- Forcefully reset the guest.poweroff
- Forcefully power off the guest.pause
- Pause the guest.none
- Only enable the watchdog; do nothing if the server hangs.
os_command_line
- Type:
str
The kernel command line to be used by the
libvirt
driver, instead of the default. For Linux Containers (LXC), the value is used as arguments for initialization. This key is valid only for Amazon kernel,ramdisk
, or machine images (aki
,ari
, orami
).Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_vif_model
- Type:
str
Specifies the model of virtual network interface device to use.
Only supported by the libvirt driver and VMware API drivers.
The valid options depend on the configured hypervisor.
KVM
andQEMU
:e1000
,e1000e
,ne2k_pci
,pcnet
,rtl8139
,virtio
andvmxnet3
.VMware:
e1000
,e1000e
,VirtualE1000
,VirtualE1000e
,VirtualPCNet32
,VirtualVmxnet
andVirtualVmxnet3
.Xen:
e1000
,netfront
,ne2k_pci
,pcnet
, andrtl8139
.
hw_vif_multiqueue_enabled
- Type:
bool
If
true
, this enables thevirtio-net multiqueue
feature. In this case, the driver sets the number of queues equal to the number of guest vCPUs. This makes the network performance scale across a number of vCPUs.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_boot_menu
- Type:
bool
If
true
, enables the BIOS bootmenu. In cases where both the image metadata and Extra Spec are set, the Extra Spec setting is used. This allows for flexibility in setting/overriding the default behavior as needed.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
hw_pmu
- Type:
bool
Controls emulation of a virtual performance monitoring unit (vPMU) in the guest. To reduce latency in realtime workloads disable the vPMU by setting
hw_pmu=false
.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
img_hide_hypervisor_id
- Type:
bool
Some hypervisors add a signature to their guests. While the presence of the signature can enable some paravirtualization features on the guest, it can also have the effect of preventing some drivers from loading. Hiding the signature by setting this property to
true
may allow such drivers to load and work.Only supported by the libvirt driver.
vmware_adaptertype
- Type:
str
The virtual SCSI or IDE controller used by the hypervisor.
Only supported by the VMWare API driver.
One of:
lsiLogic
lsiLogicsas
busLogic
ide
paraVirtual
vmware_ostype
A VMware GuestID which describes the operating system installed in the image. This value is passed to the hypervisor when creating a virtual machine. If not specified, the key defaults to
otherGuest
. See thinkvirt.com for supported values.Only supported by the VMWare API driver.
vmware_image_version
- Type:
int
Currently unused.
instance_type_rxtx_factor
- Type:
float
Deprecated and currently unused.
auto_disk_config
- Type:
bool
Deprecated and currently unused.