How-to Create Virtual Machines

Owned by JM Lopez
Oct 08, 2024
2 min read

For more information about VM management, please refer to the VSS Guidelines.

ITS Private Cloud Portal

  1. Login to the ITS Private Cloud Portal https://vss-portal.eis.utoronto.ca

  2. Look for the VM to edit and click +

  3. Select how would you like to build the VM:

    1. OS Install. The virtual machine operating system must be installed from ISO media. Make sure to select the required media in the ISO field.

    2. Content Library. Our content library is comprised of Nix and Windows pre-installed images such as Ubuntu Cloud images ready for cloud-init customization.

    3. VM Clone. Use this method when you need to duplicate a virtual machine from a running instance. You are required to select a source virtual machine and could be powered on or off.

    4. VM Template. Use this method when you need to deploy from a virtual machine template.

    5. OVF/OVA Image. We allow users to upload OVA/OVFs to the User Storage. Select this when you have already uploaded your image and run the synchronization task.

  4. Fill out all other required fields after selecting a built option.

  5. Fill out the Disks tab.

    1. Storage type: SSD or HDD based.

    2. Disks: You can add as many disks as needed. See Virtual Machine Disk guidelines for limits.

  6. Fill out the Networks tab.

    1. If you are uncertain of which networks, the ITS Private Cloud offers two options free of charge:

      1. VSS-CGN. Available only on-campus and over UTORvpn.

      2. VSS-Public. Public IP available through the Internet.

  7. Fill out the Admin Tab with admin, environment, functional contacts and a description. This is considered as virtual machine metadata.

  8. Toggle options for the Automated Incident Response Introducing VM Automated Incident Response with Event Driven Automation on the ITS Private Cloud

    1. Reset on restore. Will issue a power cycle task if the OS reports a failure.

    2. Reboot on restore. Will issue a reboot task if the OS reports a failure.

  9. Click Create and celebrate

  10. You will get a confirmation email for the request submission, and when the vm has been created

 

Command-Line Interface (vss-cli)

The following steps should guide you through the process of requesting a virtual machine snapshot using either via https://vss-cli.eis.utoronto.ca or a local ITS Private Cloud Command Line Interface vss-cli

  1. Run vss-cli configure to configure your VSS credentials. If you have already done this, please go to next step.

  2. Use the vss-cli compute vm mk --help to list all available methods:

    Usage: vss-cli compute vm mk [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]... Deploy Virtual machines. Options: -u, --user-meta TEXT User metadata in key=value format. These tags are stored in the request. --dry-run no changes --help Show this message and exit. Commands: from-clib Create vm from Content Library item. from-clone Create vm from clone from-file Create virtual machine from VSS CLI specification. from-image Create vm from OVA/OVF image. from-spec Create vm from another vm spec from-template Create vm from template shell Create empty virtual machine

  3. Pick the method based on requirements.

  4. Detailed examples are found here:

    1. Deploying a Development Environment

    2. Deploy and reconfigure Instance from Clone

    3. Deploy and reconfigure Instance from Template

    4. Deploy Instance from Image

    5. Deploy Instance from Content Library

  5. You will get a confirmation email for the request submission, and when the vm has been created.

Related articles







University of Toronto - Since 1827