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There are several advanced options for each image that can be modified. Normally, they can be left alonethese options do not need to be modified. However, there are times where it is useful to set modify them. These are the advanced options and their descriptions. They are listed in the same order they appear in the Edit Image dialog.

When a reservation is made, the VCL scheduler compares the following image settings to the corresponding settings of VCL computers in order to select a suitable computer for the image.  Configuring the following image settings allows you to restrict which computers may be assigned to reservations for the image.  Care should be taken when modifying these settings.  If any of these settings is configured to be so restrictive that none of the computers meet the image requirements, it will not be possible to make a reservation for the image.  When this is the case, users will be presented with a message stating There are no available times that the selected image can be used when attempting to make a reservation for the image:

Image AddedThe following advanced options are compared directly to corresponding computer attributes of the VCL computers. Configuring these fields restricts which computers can be assigned to run the image based on computer specs.

Required RAM (MB)

This is the minimum amount of RAM required for the image to function and is specified in megabytes (MB).  This is useful if the image has software installed that will not function without at least some specific amount of RAM. The VCL properly unless the computer the image is loaded on contains a minimum amount of RAM.

When a reservation is made, the VCL scheduler compares the image's Required RAM setting to the RAM setting of available computers.  Computers having a RAM setting less than the image's Required RAM setting are ignored.  The scheduler will not assign a user reservation to a computer to run the image that has less a smaller RAM than what is specified here. For Virtual Images, this is the image's Required RAM setting.

For virtual machine images, a new virtual machine is instantiated when an image is loaded. This setting determines the amount of RAM that a VM will be created with when reserved with this image.the virtual machine will be configured to have.  There are cases where the virutual machine may be configured with more RAM than is configured for the image.  If the Required RAM setting of an image is less than the minimum required for the image's operating system, VCL ensures that the operating system's minimum RAM requirement is met.

Required Cores

This is the minimum number of processor cores processors required for the image to function properly.  This is useful if the image has software installed that will not function without at least some specific properly without a minimum number of processors.  The VCL scheduler will not assign a user reservation to a computer to run the image that has fewer cores than what is specified here. NOTE: It is up to the VCL site administrators to determine if this field and the corresponding No. Cores computer field mean actual processors or processor cores. Most often, it makes the most sense to have it mean processor coresif the computer's No. Cores setting is less than the image's Required Cores setting.

For virtual machine images, this setting determines the number of processors a virtual machine is configured to have.  Whether the virtual machine is assigned this number of sockets, cores, or logical processors depends on the type of hypervisor being used and on the operating system of the image.

Note: The image Required Cores setting and corresponding computer No. Cores setting should be aligned – they should refer to the same thing.  It is recommended that these settings refer to logical processors rather than sockets or physical cores.  For example, if a physical computer has dual 4-core processors with hyperthreading enabled, the computer's No. Cores setting should be 16 (2 sockets * 4 cores * 2 logical processors per core).

Processor Speed (MHz)

This is the minimum processor speed required for the image to function and is specified in megahertz (MHz). This is useful if the image has software installed that will not function properly without at least a specific minimum processor speed. The VCL scheduler will not assign a user a computer to run the image that has a slower processor speed than what is specified herereservation to a computer if the computer's Processor Speed (MHz) setting is less than the image's Processor Speed (MHz) setting specified here.

Changing this setting is rarely required.  It is primarily useful for bare-metal images when you have heterogenius physical computers with different processors.  Unless you know the image requires a certain processor speed, it is recommended that the image Processor Speed (MHz) setting be set less than or equal to the Processor Speed (MHz) setting for all of the computers you intend the image to be loaded on.

Although the VCL scheduler will compare this setting when selecting a valid virtual machine computer, neither the image nor the computer Processor Speed (MHz) settings are used when a virtual machine is instantiated.  The processor speed of the virtual machine will be identical to the speed of the physical host in most cases.

Minimum Network Speed (Mbps)

This is the minimum network speed required for the image to function properly and is specified in megabits per second (Mbps).  The VCL scheduler will not assign a reservation to a computers which have a lower Network setting than the image's Minimum Network Speed (Mbps. This ) setting.

Changing this setting is rarely required.  It is useful if the image has software installed that will not function without at least a specific you have sets of computers with heterogenius networking characteristics and the image should only be loaded on computers with a minimum network speed.

The VCL scheduler will not assign a user a computer to run the image that has a slower network speed than what is specified here. This only refers Minimum Network Speed (Mbps) setting is fairly arbitrary.  It is up to the VCL administrator to determine if it should refer to the private, public, or some other network.  It should only refer to the speed at which the VCL computer is connected to the network.  It is not related to the end user's network connection.

This setting is only used by the VCL scheduler.  It is not considered when images are loaded on computers.

 

These following These advanced options are only related to the image itself.  There is no corresponding computer setting to which these relate.

Maximum Concurrent Usage

This field allows the concurrent usage of the image to be limited.  It is very useful if to enforce software licensing when you only have a fixed number of licenses for an application installed in the image , but no network license manager to limit concurrent use.

Set this field Maximum Concurrent Usage to 0 for unlimited use. Enter

Set Maximum Concurrent Usage to a number greater than 0 to limit concurrent use of the image to that number.  The VCL scheduler will limit the number of concurrent reservations to the number specified.

Estimated Reload Time

This is the estimated amount of time ( in minutes ) it will take the image to be loaded.  It is only relevant for the first few reservations of an a new image.  After that, historical data is used VCL dynamically adjusts this value to estimate the load time.

Available for checkout

This field setting controls whether this image can show up the image is included in the list of environments on the Reservations page when selecting to make a new reservation (if .

If set to yes, the image will be included in the list.  Appropriate privileges, grouping, and mapping are still required. 

If set to no, the image is not included in the list and users are not able to make reservations for the image directly.  The is useful for cluster environments which consist of a parent image and one or more child images.  In some appropriate permissions still need to be set for it to show up). The intended use of this field is for cluster environments where an image will have several sub images. In some of those cases, it doesn't make sense for end users to be able to make a reservation for the sub child images directly. In those cases, set this field   If Available for checkout is set to No. Otherwise, you should leave it as Yes, the child image is still available to be reserved but only if it is a sub-image of another image.

Check for logged in user

If set to yes, VCL will perform periodic checks to see determine if a user is connected to a reservation for this the image.  If a user has connected, but disconnects makes an initial connection, subsequently disconnects, and stays disconnected for 15 minutes, then the amount of time specified by the Reconnect To Reservatoin Timeout value on the Site Configuration page, VCL will consider the reservation to be inactive. It   The reservation will time out the reservation and VCL will reclaim the machine for someone else to use. Setting this option to no disables this check, causing the reservation to exist until its end time, even if no one is connected to itcomputer for other users.

Setting Check for logged in user to no prevents reservations for the image from timing out. Reservations for the image will persist until the reservation end time whether or not the user is connected.

Users have administrative access

Normally, it is desirable for This setting controls whether or not users to have administrative access inside their reservations. Set or root access to the operating system of the computer assigned to the reservation.  Setting this to No if prevents the user should from having such access.  For Linux images, users will not have administrative accesssudo access.  For Windows images, user accounts will not be added to the Administrators group.

Set computer hostname

If set to Yes, VCL will

attempt to resolve the public IP address

set the name of the computer

(whether from DHCP or the database) to a hostname and set the hostname of the computer to that. If the IP

when it is loaded to the hostname which resolves to the computer's public IP address.  If the computer's public IP address does not resolve,

it will set

the hostname

of the computer to the hostname

stored in the VCL database will be used.

The default value

for this field

is Yes for Linux images and No for Windows and OS X images.

For Windows images, the computer must be rebooted in order to change the computer name.  This lenghens the amount of time it takes for the image to load and become available for the user to connect.  Because of this, it should only be set to Yes for Windows images if the computer name needs to be set for the software within the image to function properly.

Connect MethodsThese are the ways by which users can

The setting controls which methods will be configured and presented to the user for which to connect to the

image

computer.  See the page describing Connect Methods

explains

for more information

about them

.

Subimages

This is used to create configure Cluster Environments.  Any subimages listed here added to an image will be reserved loaded in addition to this image when a reservation is made for this image.