Creating a new VM (with persistent disk) also creates new template with same name

Hi

I am currently evaluating OpenNebula 5.4 on CentOS 7 and followed the deployment instructions. Datastores are presented on a NFS share.
One use case for my scenario needs the use of persistent disks. I can perfectly create a new VM from Sunstone with a persistent disk.
The only thing I don’t understand is that at the same time a new VM Template is created with the same name.
I can safely delete this template (without deleting the image of course).

Questions:

  1. Is this template creation on purpose? If yes, please enlighten me, because I cannot fine one :wink:

If you need more details or explanation, please let me know.

Thanks
Uli

Are you using the Instantiate as Persistent option?

Yes, I do.

That is the default behaviour. When you instantiate a VM to persistent, you are explicitly asking OpenNebula to create a VM Template to instantiate VMs with the changes made to the original, instantiated to persistent VM.

Ok, thanks for the clarification, Tino.
My goal was to instantiate a new VM with a persistent (copy) of the image assigned to the template using Sunstone. I might test a little bit more.

I tested the different possibilities to instantiate new VMs and still find it confusing to mix “real” templates (=base templates from where the lifecycle of new VMs start) with templates which can only (re-)instantiate one dedicated VM.

I think the reason of this implementation is to give the end user the possibility to reinstantiate a VM after it has been terminated. Am I right here?
If so, in my oppinion a better and less confusing workflow would be to let the user choose a (persisent and unused) OS Image during the instantiation of a new VM in Sunstone. Using the CLI this is possible, but most of my user base uses graphical interfaces.
What do you think about this approach?

Thanks for your oppinion
Uli

The image approach is totally valid if you prefer. You can offer you users the more advance “user” view so they can tinker with images.