itimpi Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 It seems that the unRAID VM Manager GUI only allows for 'raw' and 'qcow2' disk image types. Is there any reason for this restriction? Certainly qemu-img recognises other image formats. In particular I would find it useful if it was also possible to use .vmdk (VMWare) and .vdi (Virtualbox) images via the GUI. Even if they could not be created via the GUI being able to select them via the GUI would be useful. Being able to use other image file types helps a lot if you have images you want to use in multiple virtualisation environments. Link to comment
teedge77 Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 It seems that the unRAID VM Manager GUI only allows for 'raw' and 'qcow2' disk image types. Is there any reason for this restriction? Certainly qemu-img recognises other image formats. In particular I would find it useful if it was also possible to use .vmdk (VMWare) and .vdi (Virtualbox) images via the GUI. Even if they could not be created via the GUI being able to select them via the GUI would be useful. Being able to use other image file types helps a lot if you have images you want to use in multiple virtualisation environments. It can only use qcow2 or raw formats for running as a guest. It can convert numerous others into one of those formats for use as a guest. You can easily convert your vmdk and vdi files into qcow2 or raw formats. You just need to make them a single file with no snapshots. Link to comment
itimpi Posted October 10, 2015 Author Share Posted October 10, 2015 It seems that the unRAID VM Manager GUI only allows for 'raw' and 'qcow2' disk image types. Is there any reason for this restriction? Certainly qemu-img recognises other image formats. In particular I would find it useful if it was also possible to use .vmdk (VMWare) and .vdi (Virtualbox) images via the GUI. Even if they could not be created via the GUI being able to select them via the GUI would be useful. Being able to use other image file types helps a lot if you have images you want to use in multiple virtualisation environments. It can only use qcow2 or raw formats for running as a guest. It can convert numerous others into one of those formats for use as a guest. You can easily convert your vmdk and vdi files into qcow2 or raw formats. You just need to make them a single file with no snapshots. that is a great shame. At the moment I am converting the images, but that adds a large overhead when moving VMs between virtualisation environments. Is that restriction inherent in KVM or just the way it has been built for unRAID? The QEMU documentation says that raw and qcow2 are preferred formats but others are supported. My reading of the documentation suggests that other formats can be used by guests but I could be misinterpreting it. EDIT: I tried a test today using a .vdi file I was using in VirtualBox under Windows and copied it to the unRAID system. I then changed a VM I already had (via the Edit XML option) to use this instead of the .img file I was previously using (changing the type from 'raw' to 'vdi'). It worked fine, so guests are NOT limited to using raw and qcow2 formats. It would be good if the GUI could be changed to reflect this. Link to comment
teedge77 Posted October 10, 2015 Share Posted October 10, 2015 Ah. I misunderstood what I had been reading. That is actually great. Now, I need to figure out how to get the VMs that I already have working. Thanks for updating that. Link to comment
RXWatcher Posted October 11, 2015 Share Posted October 11, 2015 Yeah.. I run other disk formats. I have a request in to add the others. Maybe you can find that and comment so we can get the support added? Link to comment
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