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Uploading local disk images by using the virtctl tool

You can upload a locally stored disk image to a new or existing DataVolume by using the virtctl command-line utility.

Prerequisites

About DataVolumes

DataVolume objects are custom resources that are provided by the Containerized Data Importer (CDI) project. DataVolumes orchestrate import, clone, and upload operations that are associated with an underlying PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC). DataVolumes are integrated with KubeVirt, and they prevent a virtual machine from being started before the PVC has been prepared.

Creating an upload DataVolume

You can manually create a DataVolume with an upload data source to use for uploading local disk images.

Procedure

  1. Create a DataVolume configuration that specifies spec: source: upload{}:

    apiVersion: cdi.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1
kind: DataVolume
metadata:
  name: <upload-datavolume> (1)
spec:
  source:
      upload: {}
  pvc:
    accessModes:
      - ReadWriteOnce
    resources:
      requests:
        storage: <2Gi> (2)
    1 The name of the DataVolume.
    2 The size of the DataVolume. Ensure that this value is greater than or equal to the size of the disk that you upload.

  2. Create the DataVolume by running the following command:

    $ oc create -f <upload-datavolume>.yaml

Uploading a local disk image to a DataVolume

You can use the virtctl CLI utility to upload a local disk image from a client machine to a DataVolume (DV) in your cluster. You can use a DV that already exists in your cluster or create a new DV during this procedure.

After you upload a local disk image, you can add it to a virtual machine.
Prerequisites

  • A virtual machine disk image, in RAW, ISO, or QCOW2 format, optionally compressed by using xz or gz.

  • The kubevirt-virtctl package must be installed on the client machine.

  • The client machine must be configured to trust the OpenShift Container Platform router’s certificate.

Procedure

  1. Identify the following items:

    • The name of the upload DataVolume that you want to use. If this DataVolume does not exist, it is created automatically.

    • The size of the DataVolume, if you want it to be created during the upload procedure. The size must be greater than or equal to the size of the disk image.

    • The file location of the virtual machine disk image that you want to upload.

  2. Upload the disk image by running the virtctl image-upload command. Specify the parameters that you identified in the previous step. For example:

    $ virtctl image-upload dv <datavolume_name> \ (1)
--size=<datavolume_size> \ (2)
--image-path=</path/to/image> \ (3)
    1 The name of the DataVolume.
    2 The size of the DataVolume. For example: --size=500Mi, --size=1G
    3 The file path of the virtual machine disk image.

    • If you do not want to create a new DataVolume, omit the --size parameter and include the --no-create flag.

    • When uploading a disk image to a PVC, the PVC size must be larger than the size of the uncompressed virtual disk.

    • To allow insecure server connections when using HTTPS, use the --insecure parameter. Be aware that when you use the --insecure flag, the authenticity of the upload endpoint is not verified.

  3. Optional. To verify that a DataVolume was created, view all DataVolume objects by running the following command:

    $ oc get dvs

CDI supported operations matrix

This matrix shows the supported CDI operations for content types against endpoints, and which of these operations requires scratch space.

Content types HTTP HTTPS HTTP basic auth Registry Upload

KubeVirt(QCOW2)

✓ QCOW2
✓ GZ*
✓ XZ*

✓ QCOW2**
✓ GZ*
✓ XZ*

✓ QCOW2
✓ GZ*
✓ XZ*

✓ QCOW2*
□ GZ
□ XZ

✓ QCOW2*
✓ GZ*
✓ XZ*

KubeVirt (RAW)

✓ RAW
✓ GZ
✓ XZ

✓ RAW
✓ GZ
✓ XZ

✓ RAW
✓ GZ
✓ XZ

✓ RAW*
□ GZ
□ XZ

✓ RAW*
✓ GZ*
✓ XZ*

✓ Supported operation

□ Unsupported operation

* Requires scratch space

** Requires scratch space if a custom certificate authority is required