Virtual Machines

Configure and manage virtual machines running on appliance-based nodes using KVM

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virtual machines

4 minute read

Trustgrid nodes can deploy virtual machines (if supported) using the open source virtualization technology Kernel-base Virtual Machine (KVM)which allows the node to act as a hypervisor to run multiple, isolated virtual guests.

The virtual machine can be attached to both the local and virtual network space which allows both local and remote resources to communicate with the virtual machine. For example an API could be deployed on a Trustgrid Gateway which sends API calls via the virtual network space to a virtual machine running on a Trustgrid Edge Node. The API call could then be translated to make a call to a database running on the local network and passed back up to the gateway host.

Before being able to deploy a virtual machine to a node, an image needs to be created.

Management

Navigate to VM Management > Virtual Machines on a node.

Field Name	Description
Name	Name of the virtual machine.
Description	Description for the virtual machine.
Image	Image selected from the ones available.
Firmware	Boot firmware for the virtual machine. BIOS UEFI
Device Bus	Device Bus used for deployment of the virtual machine. VirtIO IDE SATA

Overview

Navigating into a virtual machine, the overview section allows editing basic information about the virtual machine’s execution environment.

Field Name	Description
Name	Name of the virtual machine.
Description	Description for the virtual machine.
Image	Image selected from the ones available.
Guest OS (read-only)	Operating System of the Image.
Hostname (Optional)	Hostname given to the virtual machine on deploy.
Stop Timeout (Optional)	Denotes how long to wait for the virtual machine to gracefully stop before killing the process. Default is 2 minutes.
Firmware (read-only)	Boot firmware of the virtual machine.
Device Bus (read-only)	Device Bus used for deployment of the virtual machine.
Auto Start (Optional)	Indicates the virtual machine should automatically start after deploy.

CPU

Virtual machine CPU allocation.

Memory

Virtual machine Memory allocation in GB, MB, KB, or Bytes.

Network

The networking section allows you to configure the virtual machine’s VRF, its port mappings, and its virtual networks and interfaces.

Host Port Mappings

Host port mappings allow you to expose a port on the host to the virtual machine. This is useful for exposing a service running in the container to the local network.

Field Name	Description
Protocol	The protocol to listen for. If not specified, all traffic is forwarded to the virtual machine.
Host Interface	The host interface to listen on.
Host Port	The host port to listen on.
Virtual Machine Port	The virtual machine port that will receive the mapped traffic.

Virtual Networks

Attaching a virtual network to a virtual machine allows virtual network traffic to reach it.

Field Name	Description
Virtual Network	The virtual network to attach.
Virtual IP	The virtual IP to assign to the virtual machine.
Allow Outbound	Whether the virtual machine should be allowed to make outbound connections into the virtual network.

Virtual Interfaces

A virtual interface can be mapped to a virtual machine to forward all traffic.

Field Name	Description
Name	The virtual interface name.
Destination	The interface destination inside the virtual machine.

Volumes

Allows mapping disks or cd-roms to a virtual machine.

Snapshots

Allows the creation, restoration, and deletion of virtual machine snapshots.

Field Name	Description
Name	The snapshot name.
Creation Time	The timestamp when the snapshot was created.
VM State	The state of the virtual machine when the snapshot was created.
Snapshot Mode	Extenal Disk Only - Mode applied to the snapshot when the firmware of the virtual machine is UEFI. Internal - Mode applied to the snapshot when the firmware of the virtual machine is BIOS. This mode includes the guest virtual machine state.
Parent Snapshot	If this is a child snapshot, this references the parent snapshot.
Description	The snapshot description.

Every snapshot operation is tracked asynchronously. You can keep track of the status of every snapshot creation, restoration, and deletion via the Recent Tasks table.

Cloud Init

Cloud-init is a simple and powerful way to configure virtual machines during deployment. You can manage user creation, install updates, configure network, etc.

You can find the full cloud-init documentation here