My images#

An image is an exact copy of a disk file system and its contents, used to deploy virtual servers.

There are two types of images that can be used to create a virtual server:

  • Prebuilt images — images prepared in advance by 3HCloud specialists. Each image includes a preconfigured operating system and environment, with all required parameters set and ready for use.

  • Custom uploaded images — if you need an image that is not available among the prebuilt options, you can upload your own disk image in RAW format and use it to create a virtual server.

Creating a new image#

To create a new image:

  1. In the Control panel go to the Cloud → My images.

  2. Click Create.

  3. Enter a name for the image. Latin letters, numbers, and symbols are allowed (within reasonable limits).

  4. Attach the image file by clicking Attach file. The supported image format is RAW.

  5. Select the region where you plan to create your virtual server later. The image will be available in all availability zones within the selected region.

  • Warsaw, Poland

  • Miami, USA

  • Dallas, USA

  • San Francisco, USA

  • Manila, Philippines

  • Almaty, Kazakhstan

  1. Click Create image to complete the process. The attached file will be uploaded to a temporary storage container and then imported as a new image. The creation time depends on your Internet connection speed and the size of the uploaded file.

  2. After a successful upload, the image will appear in Cloud → My images.

Creating a virtual server using your own image#

Creating a virtual server from a custom image is almost the same as creating a standard virtual server. The only difference is that during the operating system selection step, you choose one of the previously uploaded images.

Deleting an image#

To delete an image:

  1. In the Control panel go to the Cloud → My images.

  2. For the selected image, click the down arrow button and select Delete from the drop-down menu.

  3. In the confirmation dialog, click Confirm to delete the image.

Exporting a server volume image#

To deploy a virtual machine from the cloud on your own hardware, you need to obtain an image of its system volume in RAW format. This requires creating and exporting a copy of the virtual machine volume.

Creating an image on Linux:

  1. Create a backup of the virtual machine’s system volume.

  2. Restore the backup to a separate volume.

  3. Create an additional empty volume intended to store the image file.

  4. Attach both volumes (the volume restored from the backup and the empty volume) to a Linux-based server.

  5. Mount the empty volume to the file system.

  6. Use the dd utility to perform a byte-by-byte copy of the restored volume into an image file on the mounted volume.

    Note: The dd command performs raw byte-by-byte copying without additional checks. Make sure the if and of parameters are specified correctly to avoid data loss.

Example command:

dd if=/dev/sdb of=/mnt/export/image.raw bs=4M conv=notrunc,noerror status=progress

Where:

  • /dev/sdb — the volume restored from the backup.

  • /mnt/export/image.raw — the volume image file in RAW format.

  • image.raw — the resulting image file, which can be downloaded and used to deploy a server on your own hardware.