Edit a VM

Restrictions and guidelines

• If you select a high-speed hard disk for a VM, the high-speed disk can be used after you update its driver.

• If you add or delete a high-speed disk for a running VM, the operation takes effect immediately. If you add or delete other types of disks for the VM, the operation takes effect when the VM starts again.

• When you delete a NIC from a running VM, the NIC is deleted immediately if the operating system of the VM supports online NIC deletion. The NIC is deleted on the next startup if the operating system of the VM does not support online NIC deletion.

• If you delete the USB device on a host that contains a running VM configured with USB devices, that VM cannot access the USB device after it is re-added to the host. To enable the VM to access the USB device, you must restart the VM.

• The VM system memory occupies storage space. Therefore, the used system partition size might be different from the used disk size displayed on the page for editing a VM.

• The number of CPUs set for the VM cannot exceed the maximum number of CPUs in the host. If you change the number of CPUs on a VM that supports CPU hot-adding, the OS of the VM might operate slowly for 3 to 5 seconds.

• Before logging in to the console through HTTPS, you must enable VNC proxy and configure the IP address of Space Console as the proxy server address.

• After you mount an image file to the virtual drive and open the drive from the VM console, display failure might occur. To resolve this issue, eject the drive, and then re-mount the image file to the drive from the VM console or from the VM editing page.

• As a best practice, change the bus type for the disk of a VM as follows:

  • Shut down the VM without powering it off.

  • Delete the disk on the VM editing page.

  • Add a disk with the desired bus type.

  • Select the disk file (block device) of the deleted disk.

  • Start the VM.

Procedure

1. From the left navigation pane, select Data Center >Virtualization > Cluster name > Host name > VM name.

2. Click Edit.

3. Select a tab and configure as needed. Available tabs include: Summary, CPU, Memory, Disk, Network, CD Drive, Console, Advanced Settings, and More.

4. Click Apply after to save your configuration.

5. Click Add Hardware to add hardware to the VM as needed, and then click OK.

6. To remove an unneeded hardware, click Delete Hardware, choose the target hardware and then click OK.

Parameters

Editable parameters on the Summary panel:

• Alias: Enter an alias for the VM. Chinese characters are supported.

• Description: Enter a description for the VM.

• Auto Migration: To enable the VM to automatically migrate in the cluster after the DRS policy takes effect, enable auto migration.

• HA: To enable automatic migration of the VM to a correctly operating host when the VM or the current host malfunctions, enable HA. This option is available only if cluster HA is enabled. By default, VM HA is enabled. The VM with HA disabled cannot be managed by cluster HA.

• Time Sync: Click Yes or No to enable or disable time synchronization between the VM and the host where the VM resides. If you select Yes, the system time of the VM is automatically synchronized with that of the host when their system time is different.

• Auto Driver Upgrade: Enable the VM to upgrade its CAStools when the CAStools version is lower than that of the current management platform. This feature is disabled by default, and the version is not upgraded automatically. By default, the system upgrades CAStools at 1:00 am (VM system time) for the VMs with automatic driver upgrade enabled. For the system to simultaneously upgrade CAStools for VMs, enable time synchronization.

• Clock Type: Select a clock type. Options include World Clock and Local Clock. To set the local system time, select the local clock. To set the UTC time, select the world clock.

• I/O Priority: Select the priority for the VM to read and write disks of the host on which the VM resides. Options include Low, Medium, and High. When multiple VMs are accessing the disks of the host to perform read and write operations, VMs with a high I/O priority take precedence.

• Boot Priority: Select a startup priority for the VM. Options include Default, Low, Medium, and High. When a host in an HA-enabled cluster fails, the system migrates the VMs on the host based on their startup priorities. This parameter is available only when the host to which the VM is attached is in an HA-enabled cluster.

• Blue Screen Processing Priority: Select the action to take on the VM after the VM fails. To use the blue screen policy, you must enable HA and install CAStools for the VM.

  • No processing—Not take any action.

  • Restart—Restart the VM.

  • Migration—Migrate the VM to another host in the cluster.

• Driver Type: Select a driver type. Options include Virtio Port and Serial Port.

• Hardware Version: Select the QEMU version used by the VM. The larger the value, the later the version. After the management platform is upgraded, the hardware version of the VM is also upgraded. After the upgrade, the hardware of the VM might be incompatible with its OS, and a blue screen or boot failure might occur. To solve this issue, roll back the hardware version of the VM to the original version.

• Integrity Check: Configure whether to enable integrity check. Integrity check verifies integrity of the disks of a VM when the VM starts. If integrity check fails, the VM cannot start. Disk integrity check might cost a long time.

Editable parameters on the CPU panel:

• CPUs: Set the number of CPUs for the VM, which cannot be more than the maximum number of CPUs on the host. If you change the number of CPUs on a VM that supports CPU hot-adding, the operating system of the VM might operate slowly for 3 to 5 seconds. For a Linux VM, do not perform CPU hot-add during VM startup. Windows 7 supports a maximum of two CPUs. To improve processing performance, you can set multiple cores for each CPU.

• CPU Cores: Specify the number of CPU cores.

• Host CPUs: Bind the vCPU of the VM to one or more physical CPUs. A VM bound with a physical CPU does not use other physical CPUs. You cannot bind a physical CPU of another NUMA node to a vCPU. With a physical CPU specified, make sure that the source host and destination host have exactly the same NUMA architecture for any inter-host operations, such as VM migration, clone, or import. If you do not do so, the operation might fail or the VM performance might be affected.

• Operating Mode: Select a CPU operating mode.

  • Compatible—Virtualizes physical CPUs of different models into vCPUs of the same model. This mode features good migration compatibility.

  • Host Matching—Virtualizes physical CPUs of different models into vCPUs of different models. This mode features bad compatibility but provides better performance for OSs of VMs than the Compatible mode.

  • Passthrough—Enables the VM to access the physical CPUs directly. This mode features bad compatibility but provides better performance for OSs of VMs than the Compatible and Host Matching modes. To migrate a VM that uses the passthrough CPU operating mode, the source and destination hosts must use CPUs of the same model. ARM hosts do not support this parameter.

• Simulate Physical Host: Enable physical host simulation, which allows applications to identify the VM as a physical host. This parameter is available only in host matching mode. ARM hosts do not support this parameter.

• Architecture: Select a CPU architecture. This parameter is available only when you select Compatible as the CPU operating mode. The 32-bit architecture supports only 32-bit operating systems. If you select the 32-bit architecture for a VM using a 64-bit operating system, the VM cannot be started after being shut down.

• Scheduling Priority: Select a priority for the processes on the VM to preempt physical CPU resources. Options include Low, Medium, and High. You can modify the scheduling priority for an online VM.

• Reserve: Enter the number of CPUs on the host to reserve for the VM.

• Limit: Enter the maximum host CPU frequency that a single CPU core of the VM can use.

• Overall CPU Limit: Select whether to enable overall CPU limit. For example, if you set maximum host CPU frequency that a single CPU core can use to 200 MHz and enable overall CPU limit for a VM has 4 CPU cores, the maximum host CPU frequency is 800 MHz for both the VM and a single CPU core of the VM.

• Online Scale Down: Select whether to enable online CPU scale-down. A VM supports online CPU scale-down only when its operating system supports online CPU scale-down. Only hardware version 2.7 or later supports this parameter.

Editable parameters on the Memory panel:

• Assigned: Set the memory size assigned to the VM. This value cannot exceed the memory size of the host. If the guest OS supports hot-adding memory, the memory added to the VM takes effect immediately without rebooting. If the guest OS does not support hot-adding memory, you must shut down the VM first before you modify the memory size.

• Reserve: Enter the ratio of memory reserved for the VM to the available memory of the host in percentage. The host allocates specific memory to a VM based on the actual memory usage of the VM. You can reserve memory for a VM in case the VM needs more memory after the host memory is exhausted.

• Resource Priority: Select the priority for the VM to request memory resources. Options include Low, Medium, and High.

• Memory Ballooning: Enable or do not enable ballooning. With ballooning enabled, the system dynamically allocates host memory to VMs without shutting down VMs. After you perform memory hot-add for a VM, you cannot configure memory ballooning for the VM directly. Before configuring memory ballooning for the VM, you must shut down the VM, modify its memory, and restarts the VM.

• HugePages: Configure whether the VM can use HugePages memory of the host.

Editable parameters on the Disk panel:

• Storage Format: Select a storage format. Options include High Speed (raw) and Intelligent (qcow2). You cannot modify the storage format if the VM is running, has snapshots, or has multi-level image files in disk.

• Storage: Modify the storage size of the VM. Select MB, GB, or TB as the unit of storage size based on the available capacity of the storage pool.

  • The storage size you specified in this field defines the size of the user data space. The VM disk image file also contains system space. The used space equals the VM disk image file size, which is the system space size plus the user data space size. Therefore, the used space size might be larger than the configured storage size.

  • You cannot modify the disk size of a VM if the VM has snapshots or multi-level image files or the provision mode is eager zeroed or lazy zeroed.

  • To avoid data input/output failure when you expand the high-speed disk of a running VM, make sure no data is being transmitted.

• Provision: Storage volume provision mode. This parameter cannot be modified if the VM is in running state, the VM has snapshots, or the disk of the VM has multi-level image files. This parameter is not available if the disk type is block device.

• Disk Cluster Size: Set the smallest amount of disk space that can be used to store a file. If a file is larger than a disk cluster, it is stored in multiple disk clusters. If a file is smaller than a disk cluster, it is stored in a dedicated disk cluster. A shared file system is mainly used to store VM image files. As a best practice, set the value of this parameter as large as possible to enhance disk read performance and save disk space. This parameter cannot be modified if the VM is in running state, the VM has snapshots, or the disk of the VM has multi-level image files. This parameter is not available if the disk type is block device.

• I/O Limit: Enter the I/O read and write rate limits in KBps. By default, the I/O read and write rate is unlimited.

• IOPS Limit: Enter the IOPS read and write limits. By default, the I/O read and write rate is unlimited.

• Cache Mode: Select a VM data cache mode.

  • Directsync—The VM reads and writes through the physical disk.

  • Writethrough—The VM writes data to the host cache, and then to the physical disk.

  • Writeback—The VM writes data to the VM cache, then to the host cache, and finally to the physical disk.

  • None—The VM writes data to the VM cache, and then to the physical disk. By default, the cache mode is none when the disk format is raw or block (including RBD).

• Hot Swappable: Configure whether to enable hot swapping for the disk or not. This parameter is available if the bus type is High-Speed.

Editable parameters on the Network panel:

• vSwitches: Select a virtual switch for the VM.

• Port Profile: Select a port profile for the VM.

• Virtual Firewall: Select a virtual firewall for the VM. The incoming and outgoing data packets of the VM will be filtered based on the firewall rules.

• MAC: Configure the MAC address of the VM.

• IPv4 Info/IPv6 Info: Configure the network parameters for the VM. The IPv6 information is displayed only when VM IPv6 Address Management is enabled.

  • IP-MAC Binding: Specify an IP address for the VM's NIC. If the IP address specified for the VM's NIC is different from the bound IP address, the NIC cannot communicate correctly.

  • Manual: Manually specify network parameters for the VM. Make sure CAStools has been installed on the VM or you cannot perform this task.

  • DHCP: Specify network parameters for the VM through CAStools. Make sure CAStools has been installed on the VM and does not conflict with other services or you cannot perform this task. For example, you must disable NetworkManage before specifying network parameters.

• Device Type: Select a NIC type. This parameter can be modified if the current NIC type is common, high-speed, or Intel e1000. This parameter cannot be modified if the current NIC type is SR-IOV passthrough.

• Fast Forwarding: Enable fast forwarding to improve the network performance of the VM. This feature is available only for high-speed NICs.

• Queue Count: Specify the number of queues for the vNIC. Setting multiple queues improves the data processing performance of the vNIC. The maximum value is the number of vCPUs multiplied by the number of cores. By default, the value is 1. This parameter is available for high-speed NICs when fast forwarding is enabled.

• Hot Swappable: Configure whether to enable hot swapping for the NIC or not. This parameter is available only for high-speed NICs.

• MTU: Set the MTU for the VM NIC.

• Driver Type: Select a driver type for the SR-IOV passthrough NIC. ARM hosts do not support SR-IOV.

• VLAN ID: Specify a VLAN ID for the SR-IOV passthrough NIC. ARM hosts do not support SR-IOV.

Editable parameters on the Console VNC panel:

• Password: Set the console password. Only VNC consoles support configuring this parameter.

• Enable VNC Proxy: Enable or disable VNC proxy for the VM. If the VNC proxy server is on a host managed by Space Console, the login name and password do not take effect. Only VNC consoles support configuring this parameter.

• Enable Image Compression: Enable or disable image compression for the VM. Only SPICE consoles support configuring this parameter.

Editable parameters on the Advanced Settings panel:

• Enable Anti-Virus: This feature takes effect on only the VMs that have correctly installed CAStools and run a Windows OS. Before enabling this feature, make sure the anti-virus patch has been installed on the host. For more information, see "Anti-virus service." ARM hosts do not support anti-virus.

• USB Redirection: Use this feature to enable the VM to use the USB devices of the client in remote desktop sessions. ARM hosts do not support this parameter.

  • USB Redirections: Specify the number of USB devices on the client that the VM can use in remote desktop sessions. ARM hosts do not support this parameter.

• Enable SSL: Use this feature to enable SSL encryption for SPICE clients. ARM hosts do not support this parameter.

• SSL-Encrypted Channels: Select one or multiple channels. ARM hosts do not support this parameter.

Editable parameters on the More panel:

• Graphics Card

  By default, VMs deployed in bulk in VDI desktop pools contain dual graphics cards. This parameter has two options for the graphics card modification.

  • Device Model: Select a graphics card model. Options include Cirrus, Vga, and Qxl (ARM hosts do not support Qxl.).

  • Video Memory: Set the video memory size for the graphics card.

• Serial Port

  • Port Monitoring: Enable or disable port monitoring.

• Boot Device

  • Auto Start: Enable this feature to configure the VM to start immediately after its host starts. This feature does not take effect when HA is enabled.

  • Boot Firmware: Select the boot mode. Options include BIOS and UEFI. If you select UEFI and multiple CD-COM drives are mounted with different Windows system installation files, the VM might not be booted from the boot device with the highest priority. ARM hosts do not support this parameter.

  • Order of bootable devices: Set the order of bootable devices by dragging them in the list, with the top one having the highest priority.

Add Hardware:

• Hardware type: Select a hardware type.

• Parameters for adding storage:

  • Bus Type: Select a bus type for the disk. The system supports USB 3.0 controller by default. If the system cannot recognize a USB device, you must manually install a driver.

  • Type: Select a disk type.

  • File Path: Select a storage volume path.

  • Block Device Path: Select a block device path.

  • Size: Disk size.

  • Cache Mode: Select a cache mode. Options include Directsync, Writethrough, Writeback, and None.

  • I/O:Rate Limit: Specify the maximum read/write rate in KBps for the disk. By default, the read/write rate of the disk is unlimited.

  • IOPS Limit: Specify the maximum IOPS. By default, the IOPS is unlimited.

  • Hot Swappable: Configure whether to enable hot swapping for the disk. This parameter is available only for high-speed hard disks.

• Parameters for adding a network:

  • Device Type: Select a NIC type. Options include Command NIC, High-Speed NIC, Intel e1000 NIC, and SR-IOV Passthrough NIC. ARM hosts support only the high-speed NIC type.

  • Fast Forwarding: Enable fast forwarding to improve the network performance of the VM. This feature is available only for high-speed NICs.

  • Hot Swappable: Configure whether to enable hot swapping for the NIC. This parameter is available for high-speed NICs. ARM hosts do not support this parameter.

  • vSwitch: Select a virtual switch for the VM.

  • Port Profile: Select a port profile for the VM.

  • Virtual Firewall: Select a virtual firewall for the VM. The incoming and outgoing data packets of the VM will be filtered based on the firewall rules.

  • MAC Assignment: Select a MAC address assignment mode.

  • MAC: Enter the MAC address of the VM's NIC. This parameter can be configured only when you select the manual MAC address assignment mode.

  • Bound IPv4 Address: Enter the IPv4 address bound to the MAC address of the VM’s NIC. If the IPv4 address specified for the VM's NIC is different from the bound IPv4 address, the NIC cannot communicate correctly.

  • Driver Type: Select a driver type for the SR-IOV passthrough NIC. ARM hosts do not support SR-IOV passthrough NIC.

  • MTU: Set the MTU for the VM NIC. This parameter is applicable only to common, high-speed, and Intel e1000 NICs.

  • Physical NIC: Select a physical NIC for the SR-IOV passthrough NIC.

  • VLAN ID: Specify a VLAN for an SR-IOV passthrough NIC. ARM hosts do not support SR-IOV passthrough NIC.

• Parameters for adding an input device:

  • Type: Select a device type. Options include Notepad and Mouse.

  • Bus: Bus used by the input device. Only USB is supported.

• Parameters for adding a console:

  • Type: Select a console type. Options include VNC and SPICE. To avoid cloud desktop connection failure, do not add SPICT console in Kylin-OS VMs.

  • Enable VNC Proxy: Enable or disable VNC proxy.

  • Enable Image Compression: Enable or disable image compression for the VM. Only SPICE consoles support configuring this parameter.

  • Port Assignment: Select a port assignment mode.

  • Port: Specify the console port number. This parameter is available when you select the manual port assignment mode.

  • Use Host Keyboard Mapping: Configure whether the disk mapping mode of the console is the same as that of the host.

  • Other: Select a keyboard mapping mode.

• Parameters for adding an:audio card:

  • Type: Select an audio card type. Options include AC97 and ICH6.

• Parameters for adding a USB device (ARM hosts do not support these parameters.):

  • Type: Select a controller type.

• Parameters for adding a PCI device:

  • Type: Select a driver type for the PCI device. Only VFIO is supported.

• Parameters for adding a graphics card:

  • Type: Type of the graphics card. This field is Qxl. If a VM has multiple graphics cards, the system will set the type of all the graphics cards to Qxl.

  • Video Memory: Set the video memory size for the graphics card.

• Parameters for adding a GPU device (ARM hosts do not support these parameters.):Before you add a GPU or vGPU to the VM, make sure a compatible NVIDIA driver and a VdiAgent matching the Space Console version have been installed on the VM. If you fail to do so, a black screen happens after the VM is accessed from the console.

  • Resource Pool: Select a resource pool, which contains all available GPUs in the cluster. If you select a GPU resource pool, the VM accesses the physical GPU resources of the host through GPU passthrough. If you select a vGPU resource pool, the VM accesses the vGPU resources of the host.

  • Service Template: Select a service template. The service template defines the rule that how VMs use the GPU resources on the host. The host allocates these resources to VMs based on the priorities of the VMs.

  • Driver Type: Select a driver type.

  • Exclusive Mode: Select whether the VM can exclusively use the specified GPU/vGPU resources. If you select Yes, the GPU/vGPU resources cannot be used by any other VMs. This feature is available only when the host has available GPU/vGPU resources that have been added to the selected GPU resource pool. To migrate a VM when this feature is enabled, make sure sufficient GPU/vGPU resources are available on the target host and the VM is powered off.

  • Resource Count: Set the maximum number of GPU/vGPU resources that can be used by the VM. The value depends on the resource pool type and state of the exclusive mode feature:

    • If you select a vGPU resource pool, only 1 is available.

    • If you select a GPU resource pool and exclusive mode is disabled, the value is the maximum number of GPUs on a single host in the resource pool. For example, if the resource pool has three hosts, and the hosts have three, two, and two GPUs, respectively, the value is 3.

    • If you select a GPU resource pool and exclusive mode is enabled, the value is the number of available GPUs on the host attached to the VM.

• Parameters for adding a serial port:

  • Type: Select a serial port type. Options include Physical Host Character Device (dev) and Pseudo TTy (pty).

  • Serial Port: Specify the serial port number.

  • Path: Enter the serial port path. If you are adding a dev serial port, make sure the file path (for example, /dev/ttyS0) exists so the VM can start up.

• Parameters for adding a watchdog (ARM hosts do not support these parameters.):

  • Action: Select the action to take on VMs upon receipt of interrupt requests. Options include Restart, Shut Down, and Migrate.