Converting images

Please make sure your image is a RAW image before uploading.

While you can use QCOW2 images, they do not support copy-on-write operations. As a result, launching compute instances from these images or taking snapshots will take longer.

Tools for image conversion

Ensure you have the qemu-utils package installed, as it provides the tools required to convert a disk image.

On Debian or Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install qemu-utils

On Fedora or CentOS:

sudo yum install qemu-img

Converting to RAW

From KVM QCOW2 to RAW

On a host with qemu-utils installed, convert the QCOW2 disk to a RAW disk:

qemu-img convert -O raw kvm-image.qcow2 raw-image.raw

From VMWare VMDK to RAW

On a host with qemu-utils installed, convert the VMDK disk to a RAW disk:

qemu-img convert -O raw vmware-image.vmdk raw-image.raw