Exporting a boot image

IBM Power Virtual Server in IBM data center

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud in Client location

You can export a custom boot image from your image catalog to IBM Cloud Object Storage.

Image export requires Hash-Based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) access and secret keys to access your IBM Cloud Object Storage bucket. To generate HMAC keys for your storage bucket, see Using HMAC credentials.

The maximum image size that you can export is 10 TB.

Exporting a boot image by using the Power Virtual Server user interface

To export a boot image from your image catalog by using the Power Virtual Server user interface, complete the following steps:

  1. Log in to the IBM Cloud catalog with your IBM credentials.

  2. In the search box, type Power Virtual Server and click the Power Virtual Server tile.

  3. Click Workspaces in the navigation panel. The Workspaces page with a list of existing workspaces is displayed.

  4. Select the workspace which contains the boot image that you want to export. The Virtual server instances page of the selected workspace is displayed.

  5. Click Boot images in the navigation panel.

  6. Click the options menu (3 vertical dots) for the boot image you want to export and select Export. The Export boot image panel is displayed.

  7. In the Export boot image panel, complete the following steps:

    1. Select the Region where your IBM Cloud Object Storage bucket is located.

    2. In the Bucket name field, enter the name of the bucket where you want to export the image. Optionally, you can specify folder paths within the bucket using the format <bucketName>/optional/folders.

    3. In the HMAC access key field, provide your HMAC access key.

      To identify your access key, click the menu icon Menu icon > Resource list > Storage > Cloud Object Storage name > Service credentials > View credentials. Copy the access_key_id value and paste it into the HMAC access key field.

    4. In the HMAC secret access key field, provide your HMAC secret access key.

      To identify your secret key, click the menu icon Menu icon > Resource list > Storage > Cloud Object Storage name > Service credentials > View credentials. Copy the secret_access_key value and paste it into the HMAC secret access key field.

    5. Set Generate checksum file to On to generate a checksum file.

      The checksum file is created and placed in the IBM Cloud Object Storage bucket along with the exported image. The checksum file name is based on the name of the image file and uses the .sha256 file extension. Use the shasum -a 256 command to verify the integrity of the exported image file.

  8. Click Export. The Export boot image dialog is displayed with information about the export operation. Review the information and click Export to begin exporting the image.

Exporting a boot image by using the Power Virtual Server CLI

You can use the ibmcloud pi image export command to export an image to IBM Cloud Object Storage.

Example command syntax:

ibmcloud pi image export IMAGE_ID --bucket BUCKET_NAME --region REGION_NAME --access-key KEY --secret-key KEY [--json]

Where:

IMAGE_ID
The ID of the image to export.
BUCKET_NAME
The Cloud Object Storage bucket name.
REGION_NAME
The region where your bucket resides.
KEY
Your HMAC access and secret keys.

To view details of an image export job, use the ibmcloud pi image export-show command.

Exporting a boot image by using the Power Virtual Server API

To export a boot image to IBM Cloud Object Storage by using the API, use the Add image export job to the jobs queue method.

Viewing boot image export results

After you start a boot image export operation, the Status column on the Boot images page shows the export progress. To view more details, click View details to open the Ongoing job status dialog. The following information is displayed:

  • Job ID
  • Operation type
  • Input resource
  • Creation time
  • Steps completed

To view details of an image export job by using the CLI, use the ibmcloud pi image-export-show command.

To view the image export status by using the API, use the Get detail of last image export job method.