Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Exporting Custom Images

Export a Compute custom image in an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure compartment.

To perform an image export, you need write access to the Object Storage bucket for the image. For more information, see Overview of Object Storage and Let users write objects to Object Storage buckets.

  • To export an image using the Console

    1. On the Compute custom images list page, select the custom image that you want to export. If you need help finding the custom images list page, see Listing Custom Images.
    2. Select the custom image that you're interested in.
    3. From available actions, select Export.

    4. Specify the Object Storage location to export the image to:

      • Export to an Object Storage bucket: Select a bucket. Then, enter a name for the exported image. Avoid entering confidential information.
      • Export to an Object Storage URL: Enter the Object Storage URL.

    5. In the Image format list, select the format that you want to export the image to. The following formats are available:

      • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure file with a QCOW2 image and OCI metadata (.oci). Use this format to export a custom image that you want to import into other tenancies or regions.
      • QEMU Copy On Write (.qcow2)
      • Virtual Disk Image (.vdi) for Oracle VM VirtualBox
      • Virtual Hard Disk (.vhd) for Hyper-V
      • Virtual Machine Disk (.vmdk)
    6. Select Export image.

    After you select Export image, the image state changes to Exporting. Images are a copy of the VM or BM instance boot volume and metadata when the image is created, capturing the current state of the instance. Exporting a custom image copies the data to the Object Storage location that you specified. You can still launch instances while the image is exporting, but you can't delete the image until the export has finished. To track the progress of the operation and troubleshoot errors that occur during instance creation, use the associated work request.

    When the export is complete, the image state changes to Available. If the image state changes to Available, but you don't see the exported image in the Object Storage location you specified, the export failed, and you need to go through the steps again to export the image.

  • Use the image export command and required parameters to export a custom image:

    oci compute image export to-object --from-json <file://path/to/file.json>

    <file://path/to/file.json> is the path to a JSON file that defines the instance details. For information about how to generate an example of the JSON file, see Advanced JSON Options.

    For a complete list of flags and variable options for the Compute service CLI commands, see the command line reference for Compute.

  • For information about using the API and signing requests, see REST API documentation and Security Credentials. For information about SDKs, see SDKs and the CLI.

    Use this API operation to export an image: