The Antsle cloud server is a remarkably easy means of deploying virtual machines for your company. If you’ve recently migrated to an Antsle device, you might find that you have virtual machines that you previously deployed with a different technology that you’d like to migrate to your new bit of tech. But if you go to Import a new template, you soon discover your .vdi or .vbox images simply won’t import. What do you do? You must first convert those files to a supported type. Antsle devices support the following types of VM files:

  • .raw
  • .bochs
  • .cloop
  • .cow
  • .dmg
  • .iso
  • .qcow
  • .qcow2
  • .qed
  • .vmdk
  • .vpc
  • .img
  • .vhd
  • .vhdx

I’m going to show you how to convert a VirtualBox .vdi file into an .img file and then import it into the Antsle cloud server, so you can make use of those previously deployed virtual machines. I will give you this one warning, when you convert the VM files, the image file will grow to full size. So if you created a VM with a max size of 32 GB and it’s only currently using 5 GB, the final size of the file will be 32 GB. Keep this in mind, especially if space is an issue.

Converting the file

We’ll be using the built-in VBoxManage command to convert the image. Say we have a CentOS 7 virtual machine, with a file named CentOS7.vdi and we want to convert it to CentOS7.img (which is supported by Antsle). To do this, the command would be:

VBoxManage clonemedium CentOS7.vdi CentOS7.img --format RAW

The command shouldn’t take too long to run. Remember, the resultant .img file will be quite large.

Importing the file

Now we’re ready to import our file. From the Antman admin page, click the Manage Templates button. In the resulting window (Figure A), click the Import KVM/QEMU image button.

Figure A

In the next window (Figure B), click the Drag your file here area and then locate the newly converted .img file. If your file manager supports it, you can also simply drag and drop the file into the image area.

Figure B

This is the part of the process that will take some time. Remember, the file is probably quite large, so it’s going to take a while to upload it to the device. Step away from the computer and do something else.

Once the upload is complete, give the template a name and click Import. This process won’t take as long as the upload, and will have the added benefit of shrinking the file size. A CentOS 7 image went from 34 GB to 2.09 GB.

When the process completes, you’ll see your newly imported image in the Template listing. Close out the window and you can now deploy a new virtual machine from that template. Go through this process for all of your previously deployed virtual machines to migrate them from the old technology to your new Antsle cloud server. As you successfully import the files, you can then delete the original .img files on your local drive.

Easy deploying

And that’s all there is to importing your old virtual machines as templates into the Antsle device. All of those previously deployed virtual machines can now be more easily deployed and managed from a single, web-based, location. Antsle makes this process painless.