How to create an OS template repository

This is the documentation for the deprecated product VMmanager 5. It is no longer updated and may be irrelevant. Documentation for the current version of VMmanager can be found in the VMmanager 6 section.

A template of an operating system is a set of disk images and installation scripts that consist of a distribution and other data for OS deployment. This article describes how to create a custom repository of OS templates.

The repository directory must contain the following files:

the metadata.xml file is the main file describing a repository. It is used for getting information about templates.
A tar.gz file with template archives. the file also includes the metainfo.xml template description file.

metadata.xml — the XML-file with the elem elements for each template. Every elem contains a simplified description from metainfo.xml from the template.

The elements within the elem element:

osname — a template name ;
support — a group of elem elements with names of software products that can use this template;
tags — template tags;
version — template API version required for this template;
filename — a template file name;
utcmtime — template modification time.

Example of the metadata.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<doc>
  <elem>
    <osname>FreeBSD-9-amd64</osname>
    <support>
      <elem>VMmgr</elem>
      <elem>DCImgr</elem>
    </support>
    <tags>freebsd,unix,freebsd9</tags>
    <version>5.57</version>
    <type>ostemplate</type>
    <filename>FreeBSD-9-amd64-5.57.tar.gz</filename>
    <utcmtime>2016-12-27 05:12:25</utcmtime>
  </elem>
  <elem create-metainfo="yes">
    <osname>Ubuntu-16.04-x86_64</osname>
    <support>
      <elem>VEmgr</elem>
    </support>
    <tags>ubuntu,linux,unix,ubuntu1604,xenial</tags>
    <version>5</version>
    <externals>
      <elem>
        <url>http://mirror.yandex.ru/mirrors/download.openvz.org/template/precreated/ubuntu-16.04-x86_64.tar.gz</url>
      </elem>
    </externals>
    <utcmtime>2016-11-27 05:08:59</utcmtime>
  </elem>
    <osname>Windows-Server-2008-R2</osname>
    <support>
      <elem>VMmgr</elem>
    </support>
    <tags>windows,windows2008r2</tags>
    <version>5</version>
    <type>ostemplate</type>
    <filename>Windows-Server-2008-R2-Web.tar.gz</filename>
    <utcmtime>2016-07-14 03:48:32</utcmtime>
  </elem>
  <elem>
    <osname>Windows Server 2012 R2 Clean</osname>
    <support>
      <elem>DCImgr</elem>
    </support>
    <tags>windows,windows2012r2</tags>
    <version>5</version>
    <type>ostemplate</type>
    <filename>WindowsServer-2012-R2-Clean.tar.gz</filename>
    <utcmtime>2016-08-23 04:58:23</utcmtime>
  </elem>
  <elem>
    <osname>CentOS-7-amd64</osname>
    <support>
      <elem>VMmgr</elem>
      <elem>DCImgr</elem>
    </support>
    <tags>centos,linux,unix,centos7</tags>
    <version>5.57</version>
    <type>ostemplate</type>
    <filename>CentOS-7-amd64-5.57.tar.gz</filename>
    <utcmtime>2016-12-27 06:44:33</utcmtime>
  </elem>
</doc>