Catalogue Management

How to work with the virtual machine templates and ISO images available to a tenant, including uploading your own ISOs.

The catalogue holds the virtual machine templates and ISO images a tenant can build machines from. Public items are supplied by Hosted Network and are available to every tenant. Private items are ones you add yourself, and are only visible in the Virtual Data Center you upload them to.

The Catalogue menu only appears at tenant level, so impersonate the tenant administrator before you start. See Tenant Impersonation.

Templates

• Go to Catalogue > Templates to see every template the tenant can use.

• The list shows the CPU cores, memory and storage each template will build with, whether it is public, and the data centre it lives in.

• Click a template name to open it and check the operating system family and specification.

• Public templates are maintained by Hosted Network. Templates you make yourself from an existing machine show against your own Virtual Data Center, and are covered in Creating VM templates.

ISO images

• Go to Catalogue > ISOs to see the images the tenant can attach to a machine.

• The list shows the display name, the file name, the data centre, whether the image is public or tied to one of your Virtual Data Centers, the file size and an upload status.

• A green tick means the image is ready to use. A Failed status means the upload did not complete and the image needs to be uploaded again.

• The public list already covers the common builds, including current Windows Server, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS Stream, VyOS, pfSense and the VirtIO driver images, so most builds need no upload at all.

How to upload an ISO

Use this when you need an operating system or utility image that is not already in the public list.

• Go to Catalogue > ISOs and click Upload.

• Choose the Data Center, then choose the Virtual Data Center the image belongs to. The image is private to that Virtual Data Center.

• Click Next Step.

• Choose Upload via local computer and pick the file, or choose Upload via URL and paste a direct download link. Check URL Metadata confirms the file name and size before you commit to the transfer.

• Click Next Step, give the image the display name you want to see in the list, then confirm on the last screen to start the upload.

Large images take a while to transfer. The image appears in the list straight away, and can be used once its status shows a green tick.

Using catalogue items

• ISOs are attached through a machine's CD/DVD drive, either while you are building it or afterwards. See Creating VMs and Changing VM hardware.

• Templates are used with the From Template option on the Virtual Data Center. See Creating VMs from templates.

• Attach the VirtIO driver ISO as well when you install Windows onto VirtIO storage or network devices, otherwise the installer will not see the disk.

Things worth knowing

• Public templates and ISOs are managed by Hosted Network and cannot be edited or removed from your side.

• Images you upload count against the storage in the Virtual Data Center you upload them to, so remove anything you no longer need.

• Raise a request with Hosted Network support if you want an image added to the public list for all of your tenants, or if an upload keeps failing.