Supported disk image formats

To run a virtual machine (VM) on a RHEL host, you must use a disk image with a supported format. You can also convert certain unsupported disk images to a supported format.

Supported disk image formats for VMs

You can use disk images that use the following formats to run VMs in RHEL:

  • qcow2 - Provides certain additional features, such as compression.
  • raw - Might provide better performance.
  • luks - Disk images encrypted by using the Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) specification.

Supported disk image formats for conversion

  • If required, you can convert your disk images between the raw and qcow2 formats by using the qemu-img convert command.
  • If you require converting a vmdk disk image to a raw or qcow2 format, convert the VM that uses the disk to KVM by using the virt-v2v utility.
  • To convert other disk image formats to raw or qcow2, you can use the qemu-img convert command. For a list of formats that work with this command, see the QEMU documentation.

    Note that in most cases, converting the disk image format of a non-KVM virtual machine to qcow2 or raw is not sufficient for the VM to correctly run on RHEL KVM. In addition to converting the disk image, corresponding drivers must be installed and configured in the guest operating system of the VM. For supported hypervisor conversion, use the virt-v2v utility.