3.3 Provisioning a VM from a NAS Repository

The Network Attached Storage (NAS) repository represents VMs stored on a NAS. This is a storage area where VMs are visible to multiple VM hosts, so they can be run by any one of the connected hosts.

The following procedure shows an example of setting up a NAS repository. For the example, assume you have a Xen setup where the /vms directory is auto-mounted on multiple VM hosts as the shared storage location for your VMs.

  1. To create a new Repository object, go to the Orchestration Console, then click Actions > Create Repository.

  2. Specify a new name and choose which adapter group this repository is used for.

    This example is for Xen VMs, so choose the xen30 adapter.

  3. Close the dialog box to display the Info/Groups tab for the new repository.

  4. Set the location path.

    This is the root path for the repository. It is usually /.

  5. Set the search path and preferred path.

    In this example, the VMs are all in /vms, so leave searchpath empty and set the preferredpath == "vms".

  6. Select the VM Host objects that have visibility to the shared directory and add the new repository to the VM hosts list of available repositories.

    To find a VM host, either select VM Hosts to open the VM Hosts admin view or open the Physical tree under Resources and open the physical host representing the VM host.

  7. Run Provision > Discover VM Images on the new repository.