Glance ships with a command-line tool for querying and managing Glance It has a fairly simple but powerful interface of the form: Usage: glance <command> [options] [args] Where <command> is one of the following: help Show detailed help information about a specific command add Adds an image to Glance update Updates an image's stored metadata in Glance delete Deletes an image and its metadata from Glance index Lists brief information about public images that Glance knows about details Lists detailed information about public images that Glance knows about show Lists detailed information about a specific image clear Destroys all public images and their associated metadata This document describes how to use the glance tool for each of the above commands.

Issuing the help command with a <COMMAND> argument shows detailed help about a specific command. Running glance without any arguments shows a brief help message, like so: $> glance Usage: glance <command> [options] [args] Commands: help <command> Output help for one of the commands below add Adds a new image to Glance update Updates an image's metadata in Glance delete Deletes an image from Glance index Return brief information about images in Glance details Return detailed information about images in Glance show Show detailed information about an image in Glance clear Removes all images and metadata from Glance Options: --version show program's version number and exit -h, --help show this help message and exit -v, --verbose Print more verbose output -H ADDRESS, --host=ADDRESS Address of Glance API host. Default: example.com -p PORT, --port=PORT Port the Glance API host listens on. Default: 9292 --limit=LIMIT Page size to use while requesting image metadata --marker=MARKER Image index after which to begin pagination --sort_key=KEY Sort results by this image attribute. --sort_dir=[desc|asc] Sort results in this direction. -f, --force Prevent select actions from requesting user confirmation --dry-run Don't actually execute the command, just print output showing what WOULD happen. With a <COMMAND> argument, more information on the command is shown, like so: $> glance help update glance update [options] <ID> <field1=value1 field2=value2 ...> Updates an image's metadata in Glance. Specify metadata fields as arguments. All field/value pairs are converted into a mapping that is passed to Glance that represents the metadata for an image. Field names that can be specified: name A name for the image. is_public If specified, interpreted as a boolean value and sets or unsets the image's availability to the public. disk_format Format of the disk image container_format Format of the container All other field names are considered to be custom properties so be careful to spell field names correctly. :)

The add command is used to do both of the following: Store virtual machine image data and metadata about that image in Glance Let Glance know about an existing virtual machine image that may be stored somewhere else We cover both use cases below.

Before we go over the commands for adding an image to Glance, it is important to understand that Glance does not currently inspect the image files you add to it. In other words, Glance only understands what you tell it, via attributes and custom properties. If the file extension of the file you upload to Glance ends in '.vhd', Glance does not know that the image you are uploading has a disk format of vhd. You have to tell Glance that the image you are uploading has a disk format by using the disk_format=vhd on the command line (see more below). By the same token, Glance does not currently allow you to upload "multi-part" disk images at once. The common operation of bundling a kernel image and ramdisk image into a machine image is not done automagically by Glance.

When adding an actual virtual machine image to Glance, you use the add command. You will pass metadata about the VM image on the command line, and you will use a standard shell redirect to stream the image data file to glance. Let's walk through a simple example. Suppose we have a virtual disk image stored on our local filesystem that we wish to "upload" to Glance. This image is stored on our local filesystem in /tmp/images/myimage.iso. We'd also like to tell Glance that this image should be called "My Image", and that the image should be public -- anyone should be able to fetch it. Here is how we'd upload this image to Glance. Change example ip number to your server ip number.: $> glance add name="My Image" is_public=true < /tmp/images/myimage.iso --host=65.114.169.29 If Glance was able to successfully upload and store your VM image data and metadata attributes, you would see something like this: $> glance add name="My Image" is_public=true < /tmp/images/myimage.iso --host=65.114.169.29 Added new image with ID: 2 You can use the --verbose (or -v) command-line option to print some more information about the metadata that was saved with the image: $> glance --verbose add name="My Image" is_public=true < /tmp/images/myimage.iso --host=65.114.169.29 Added new image with ID: 4 Returned the following metadata for the new image: container_format => ovf created_at => 2011-02-22T19:20:53.298556 deleted => False deleted_at => None disk_format => raw id => 4 is_public => True location => file:///tmp/images/4 name => My Image properties => {} size => 58520278 status => active updated_at => None Completed in 0.6141 sec. If you are unsure about what will be added, you can use the --dry-run command-line option, which will simply show you what would have happened: $> glance --dry-run add name="Foo" distro="Ubuntu" is_publi=True < /tmp/images/myimage.iso --host=65.114.169.29 Dry run. We would have done the following: Add new image with metadata: container_format => ovf disk_format => raw is_public => False name => Foo properties => {'is_publi': 'True', 'distro': 'Ubuntu'} This is useful for detecting problems and for seeing what the default field values supplied by glance are. For instance, there was a typo in the command above (the is_public field was incorrectly spelled is_publi which resulted in the image having an is_publi custom property added to the image and the real is_public field value being `False` (the default) and not `True`...

Sometimes, you already have stored the virtual machine image in some non-Glance location -- perhaps even a location you have no write access to -- and you want to tell Glance where this virtual machine image is located and some metadata about it. The add command can do this for you. When registering an image in this way, the only difference is that you do not use a shell redirect to stream a virtual machine image file into Glance, but instead, you tell Glance where to find the existing virtual machine image by setting the location field. Below is an example of doing this. Let's assume that there is a virtual machine image located at the URL http://example.com/images/myimage.vhd. We can register this image with Glance using the following: $> glance --verbose add name="Some web image" disk_format=vhd container_format=ovf\ location="http://example.com/images/myimage.vhd" Added new image with ID: 1 Returned the following metadata for the new image: container_format => ovf created_at => 2011-02-23T00:42:04.688890 deleted => False deleted_at => None disk_format => vhd id => 1 is_public => True location => http://example.com/images/myimage.vhd name => Some web image properties => {} size => 0 status => active updated_at => None Completed in 0.0356 sec.

After uploading/adding a virtual machine image to Glance, it is not possible to modify the actual virtual machine image -- images are read-only after all --however, it is possible to update any metadata about the image after you add it to Glance. The update command allows you to update the metadata fields of a stored image. You use this command like so: glance update <ID> [field1=value1 field2=value2 ...] Let's say we have an image with identifier 5 that we wish to change the is_public attribute of the image from False to True. The following would accomplish this: $> glance update 5 is_public=true --host=65.114.169.29 Updated image 5 Using the --verbose flag will show you all the updated data about the image: $> glance --verbose update 5 is_public=true --host=65.114.169.29 Updated image 5 Updated image metadata for image 5: URI: http://example.com/images/5 Id: 5 Public? Yes Name: My Image Size: 58520278 Location: file:///tmp/images/5 Disk format: raw Container format: ovf Completed in 0.0596 sec.

You can delete an image by using the delete command, shown below: $> glance --verbose delete 5 --host=65.114.169.29 Deleted image 5

The index command displays brief information about the public images available in Glance, as shown below: $> glance index --host=65.114.169.29 ID Name Disk Format Container Format Size ---------------- ------------------------------ -------------------- -------------------- -------------- 1 Ubuntu 10.10 vhd ovf 58520278 2 Ubuntu 10.04 ami ami 58520278 3 Fedora 9 vdi bare 3040 4 Vanilla Linux 2.6.22 qcow2 bare 0 Image metadata such as 'name', 'disk_format', 'container_format' and 'status' may be used to filter the results of an index or details command. These commands also accept 'size_min' and 'size_max' as lower and upper bounds of the image metadata 'size.' Any unrecognized fields are handled as custom image properties. The 'limit' and 'marker' options are used by the index and details commands to control pagination. The 'marker' indicates the last record that was seen by the user. The page of results returned will begin after the provided image ID. The 'limit' param indicates the page size. Each request to the api will be restricted to returning a maximum number of results. Without the 'force' option, the user will be prompted before each page of results is fetched from the API. Results from index and details commands may be ordered using the 'sort_key' and 'sort_dir' options. Any image attribute may be used for 'sort_key', while only 'asc' or 'desc' are allowed for 'sort_dir'.

The details command displays detailed information about the public images available in Glance, as shown below: $> glance details --host=65.114.169.29 ================================================================================ URI: http://example.com/images/1 Id: 1 Public? Yes Name: Ubuntu 10.10 Status: active Size: 58520278 Location: file:///tmp/images/1 Disk format: vhd Container format: ovf Property 'distro_version': 10.10 Property 'distro': Ubuntu ================================================================================ URI: http://example.com/images/2 Id: 2 Public? Yes Name: Ubuntu 10.04 Status: active Size: 58520278 Location: file:///tmp/images/2 Disk format: ami Container format: ami Property 'distro_version': 10.04 Property 'distro': Ubuntu ================================================================================ URI: http://example.com/images/3 Id: 3 Public? Yes Name: Fedora 9 Status: active Size: 3040 Location: file:///tmp/images/3 Disk format: vdi Container format: bare Property 'distro_version': 9 Property 'distro': Fedora ================================================================================ URI: http://example.com/images/4 Id: 4 Public? Yes Name: Vanilla Linux 2.6.22 Status: active Size: 0 Location: http://example.com/images/vanilla.iso Disk format: qcow2 Container format: bare ================================================================================

The show command displays detailed information about a specific image, specified with <ID>, as shown below: $> glance show 3 --host=65.114.169.29 URI: http://example.com/images/3 Id: 3 Public? Yes Name: Fedora 9 Status: active Size: 3040 Location: file:///tmp/images/3 Disk format: vdi Container format: bare Property 'distro_version': 9 Property 'distro': Fedora

The clear command is an administrative command that deletes ALL images and all image metadata. Passing the --verbose command will print brief information about all the images that were deleted, as shown below: $> glance --verbose clear --host=65.114.169.29 Deleting image 1 "Some web image" ... done Deleting image 2 "Some other web image" ... done Completed in 0.0328 sec.

The image-members command displays the list of members with which a specific image, specified with <ID>, is shared, as shown below: $> glance image-members 3 --host=65.114.169.29 tenant1 tenant2 * (*: Can share image)

The member-images command displays the list of images which are shared with a specific member, specified with <MEMBER>, as shown below: $> glance member-images tenant1 --host=65.114.169.29 1 2 * (*: Can share image)

The member-add command grants a member, specified with <MEMBER>, access to a private image, specified with <ID>. The --can-share flag can be given to allow the member to share the image, as shown below: $> glance member-add 1 tenant1 --host=65.114.169.29 $> glance member-add 1 tenant2 --can-share --host=65.114.169.29

The member-delete command revokes the access of a member, specified with <MEMBER>, to a private image, specified with <ID>, as shown below: $> glance member-delete 1 tenant1 $> glance member-delete 1 tenant2

The members-replace command revokes all existing memberships on a private image, specified with <ID>, and replaces them with a membership for one member, specified with <MEMBER>. The --can-share flag can be given to allow the member to share the image, as shown below: $> glance members-replace 1 tenant1 --can-share --host=65.114.169.29 The command is given in plural form to make it clear that all existing memberships are affected by the command.