Image Library

The image library holds Server Images and snapshots. When you create a new server with a particular Image, the build systems retrieve the Image from the Image Library. When you snapshot a server, the resulting Image is uploaded to the Image Library.

FTP access

You can upload new images or download snapshots using TLS encrypted FTP. Firstly, you need to reset your ftp password. So get your account id:

$ brightbox-accounts list

 id         name    cloud_ip_limit  ram_limit  ram_used  ram_free
------------------------------------------------------------------
 acc-xxxxx  example 10              90000      5120      84880   
 ------------------------------------------------------------------

and reset the password:

$ brightbox-accounts reset_ftp_password acc-xxxxx
Resetting ftp password for acc-xxxxx
                  id: acc-xxxxx
                name: example
    library_ftp_host: ftp.library.gb1.brightbox.com
    library_ftp_user: acc-xxxxx
library_ftp_password: mynewpassword

You can now just use your ftp client to access the library:

$ lftp acc-xxxxx@ftp.library.gb1.brightbox.com
Password: 
lftp acc-xxxxx@ftp.library.gb1.brightbox.com:~> ls    
drwxr-sr-x   2 acc-xxxxx library      4096 May 17 11:16 images
drwxr-sr-x   2 acc-xxxxx library      4096 May 17 11:17 incoming

The incoming/ directory is where you should upload new images of your own. You can then register them using the API and they are moved into the images/ directory (which is read-only). Any snapshots you create using the API are also stored in the images/ directory, for convenient access.

Registering a new image

Once you’ve uploaded your new image to the incoming/ directory using ftp, you register it. In this case I’ve uploaded a 32bit image called slackware.img

$ brightbox-images register -a i686 -n Slackware -d "Fresh slackware install" -s slackware.img

 id         owner      type    created_on  status    size  name            
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 img-7geqi  acc-xxxxx  upload  2011-05-19  creating  0     slackware (i686)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once it’s been registered it will be deleted from incoming/ and be available in the images/ directory named by the new images id (img-7geqi in this case). You can see it listed via the API now:

$ brightbox-images list

 id         owner      type      created_on  status   size   name                                       
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 img-hvqt1  brightbox  official  2011-04-18  public   2049   Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 server (i686)            
 img-687qk  brightbox  official  2011-04-18  public   2049   Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 server (x86_64)          
 img-2ab98  brightbox  official  2011-04-18  public   1409   Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 server (i686)           
 img-4gqhs  brightbox  official  2011-05-09  public   1409   Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 server (i686)           
 img-7geqi  acc-xxxxx  upload    2011-05-19  private  3050   Slackware (i686)                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And it can be used to build servers in the usual manner:

$ brightbox-servers create -n "my slackware box" img-7geqi

Compatibility mode

Brightbox Cloud Servers are created by default with what are called virtio devices. virtio devices allow for higher performance but require that the operating system have proper support for them.

If your operating system does not support virtio then it will not be able to access the network or disk devices.

Most modern Linux kernels have virtio support built-in, but many other operating systems, such as FreeBSD or Microsoft Windows, do not.

Compatibility mode disables virtio, which allows a broader range of operating systems to work without modification.

So to use compatibility mode, you set it on a particular image:

$ brightbox-images update --mode=compatibility img-7geqi

From then on, any new servers created with this image are put in compatibility mode and will work without virtio drivers.

Image access

Uploaded images and snapshot images are private by default, which means only the account that owns them can list them or build servers from them.

If you make an image public, other Brightbox Cloud users can see them and build servers from them:

$ brightbox-images update --public=true img-7geqi

Deprecated images

If you’ve got an image that is public and you release a new version of it, you’ll probably want to remove the old version. However, this may affect other users who might have hard-coded your image’s identifier into their build scripts. Rather than remove the old version, you can mark it as deprecated.

A deprecated image is still available for use to those who know the identifier, but it does not show up in image listings so shouldn’t invite any new users.

Deprecated images that you own still shows up in your listings, but are listed with the status deprecated:

brightbox-images update --deprecated=true img-7geqi

Updating image img-7geqi

 id         owner      type    created_on  status      size  name            
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 img-7geqi  acc-xxxxx  upload  2011-05-19  deprecated  3050  slackware (i686)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------