Appendix A. Image Configuration Parameters

All

architecture

The CPU architecture that must be supported by the hypervisor. For example, x86_64, arm, or ppc64. 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.

All

hypervisor_type

The hypervisor type.

kvm, vmware

All

instance_uuid

For snapshot images, this is the UUID of the server used to create this image.

Valid server UUID

All

kernel_id

The ID of an image stored in the Image Service that should be used as the kernel when booting an AMI-style image.

Valid image ID

All

os_distro

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.

All

os_version

The operating system version as specified by the distributor.

Version number (for example, "11.10")

All

ramdisk_id

The ID of image stored in the Image Service that should be used as the ramdisk when booting an AMI-style image.

Valid image ID

All

vm_mode

The virtual machine mode. This represents the host/guest ABI (application binary interface) used for the virtual machine.

hvm-Fully virtualized. This is the mode used by QEMU and KVM.

libvirt API driver

hw_disk_bus

Specifies the type of disk controller to attach disk devices to.

scsi, virtio, ide, or usb. Note that if using iscsi, the hw_scsi_model needs to be set to virtio-scsi.

libvirt API driver

hw_numa_nodes

Number of NUMA nodes to expose to the instance (does not override flavor definition).

Integer. For a detailed example of NUMA-topology definition, see the hw:NUMA_def key in Add Metadata.

libvirt API driver

hw_numa_cpus.0

Mapping of vCPUs N-M to NUMA node 0 (does not override flavor definition).

Comma-separated list of integers.

libvirt API driver

hw_numa_cpus.1

Mapping of vCPUs N-M to NUMA node 1 (does not override flavor definition).

Comma-separated list of integers.

libvirt API driver

hw_numa_mem.0

Mapping N MB of RAM to NUMA node 0 (does not override flavor definition).

Integer

libvirt API driver

hw_numa_mem.1

Mapping N MB of RAM to NUMA node 1 (does not override flavor definition).

Integer

libvirt API driver

hw_qemu_guest_agent

Guest agent support. If set to yes, and if qemu-ga is also installed, file systems can be quiesced (frozen) and snapshots created automatically.

yes / no

libvirt API driver

hw_rng_model

Adds a random-number generator device to the image’s instances. The cloud administrator can enable and control device behavior by configuring the instance’s flavor. By default:

virtio, or other supported device.

libvirt API driver

hw_scsi_model

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.

virtio-scsi

libvirt API driver

hw_video_model

The video image driver used.

vga, cirrus, vmvga, xen, or qxl

libvirt API driver

hw_video_ram

Maximum RAM 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 in hw_video_ram.

Integer in MB (for example, 64)

libvirt API driver

hw_watchdog_action

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). If hw_watchdog_action is not specified, the watchdog is disabled.

libvirt API driver

os_command_line

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, or ami).

libvirt API driver and VMware API driver

hw_vif_model

Specifies the model of virtual network interface device to use.

The valid options depend on the configured hypervisor.

VMware API driver

vmware_adaptertype

The virtual SCSI or IDE controller used by the hypervisor.

lsiLogic, busLogic, or ide

VMware API driver

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.

For more information, see Images with VMware vSphere.

VMware API driver

vmware_image_version

Currently unused.

1

XenAPI driver

auto_disk_config

If true, the root partition on the disk is automatically resized before the instance boots. This value is only taken into account by the Compute service when using a Xen-based hypervisor with the XenAPI driver. The Compute service will only attempt to resize if there is a single partition on the image, and only if the partition is in ext3 or ext4 format.

true / false

libvirt API driver and XenAPI driver

os_type

The operating system installed on the image. The XenAPI driver contains logic that takes different actions depending on the value of the os_type parameter of the image. For example, for os_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.

linux or windows