Earler I proposed to donate these templates to the project:
https://github.com/wido/packer-templates
We could have 'cloudstack-templates' as a repository or create a
subdirectory in the main repository.
From there users can build their own templates and we can upload
pre-build ones to download.cloudstack.org for easy use.
Wido
Op 12-10-2026 om 13:27 schreef Daan Hoogland:
I think we should use the same version of Debian for the builtin
template as the system vm template is using. Seems good to standardise
around that. It will lower future update/grade efforts.
On Mon, Oct 12, 2026 at 11:41 AM Rene Peinthor <[email protected]> wrote:
Fully in favor of this.
Actually I recently started replacing this image for testing with an
Alpine Linux image for Linstor integration tests.
The faster booting and shutdown brought down the Linstor test runtime by 2-3x.
On Mon, Oct 12, 2026 at 11:15 AM Kiran Chavala <[email protected]> wrote:
Subject: [DISCUSS] Replacing the default built-in CentOS template in
CloudStack
Hi all,
I'd like to start a discussion on replacing the default built-in template
that ships with every CloudStack installation.
The original GitHub discussion is here, and you're welcome to comment there
as well:
https://github.com/apache/cloudstack/discussions/13797
Today, the built-in templates registered for each hypervisor are quite
outdated:
- KVM: CentOS 5.5 (64-bit) no GUI
http://download.cloudstack.org/releases/2.2.0/eec2209b-9875-3c8d-92be-c001bd8a0faf.qcow2.bz2
- XenServer: CentOS 5.6 (64-bit) no GUI
http://download.cloudstack.org/templates/builtin/centos56-x86_64.vhd.bz2
- vSphere: CentOS 5.3 (64-bit) no GUI
http://download.cloudstack.org/releases/2.2.0/CentOS5.3-x86_64.ova
These templates are no longer practical, even for basic testing:
1. The VM deploys, but the SSH service doesn't work, so it's of little use
for validating a fresh installation.
2. They're starting to break outright on newer hypervisors. On ACS 4.22
with XenServer 8.4, deploying a VM from the default CentOS template fails
with "Cannot find Template CentOS 7 on XenServer host", because XenServer
8.4 has deprecated the CentOS 7 guest template (tracked in
https://github.com/apache/cloudstack/issues/13798).
What I'd like to see is a new default template that is:
- current, and in line with what users actually run today
- small in footprint, so it downloads quickly and can be used for quick
testing right after installation
- functional for the core guest features: root password reset, SSH keys,
user data, and cloud-init
Candidates I've looked at:
- macchinina (https://github.com/NuxRo/macchinina)
- Alpine Linux cloud images (https://alpinelinux.org/cloud/)
- CirrOS (https://github.com/cirros-dev/cirros)
- Debian cloud images (https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/)
- Ubuntu minimal cloud images (
https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/)
- AlmaLinux Generic Cloud (
https://wiki.almalinux.org/cloud/Generic-cloud.html)
- Rocky Linux (https://wiki.rockylinux.org/rocky/image/)
- Fedora Cloud (https://fedoraproject.org/cloud/download/)
My personal preference is between two options:
1. macchinina: built for CloudStack testing, but it needs a refresh and
someone to maintain it going forward.
2. Alpine cloud image: very small and well maintained upstream. We'd need
to run tests to confirm password, SSH key, and user-data behaviour across
hypervisors.
Most of the mainstream distro cloud images are in the 500-600 MB range,
which goes against the "quick test after install" goal.
I'd love to hear the community's views on:
- which image (or images) you'd prefer as the default
- any hypervisor-specific concerns (KVM / XenServer-XCP-ng / VMware)
If there's rough consensus, I'm happy to follow up with a PR and testing
across hypervisors.
Thanks,
Kiran Chavala
