Introduction

I have been using OLVM for home lab purposes since 2021, and in this blog post I will show you how to properly register a new ISO image using command line directly the OLVM host. I will show all the steps you need to identify the correct location to put your ISO files, but after you know the environment you are working on, you could go directly to the copy and fix permissions steps.

Steps

1) Identify the ISO Domain PATH

Connect in the OLVM Engine Manager, then click on Storage -> Domains:

Look for a Domain with Domain Type = ISO:

Click on that domain and check the Path and ID properties:

2) Identify the Full Path Location

Now, connect in the OLVM host using SSH.

ssh root@olvm-host

The target directory shoud be something like that:

<DOMAIN PATH>/<DOMAIN ID>/images/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111

To find the correct directory, execute a tree command for the domain PATH (in my case is “/home/iso”) :

root@olvm:~# tree /home/iso/
/home/iso/
└── 2f83d165-2cd0-44a1-b1a4-f0fb48fec197
    ├── dom_md
    │   ├── ids
    │   ├── inbox
    │   ├── leases
    │   ├── metadata
    │   └── outbox
    └── images
        └── 11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111
            ├── CentOS-10-x86_64.iso
            ├── oel7.iso
            ├── oel8.7.iso
            ├── oel9.5.iso
            ├── OKV_21.9.iso
            ├── rhel8_boot.iso
            ├── rhel9_boot.iso
            ├── TrueNAS-SCALE-24.10.2.iso
            ├── ubuntu-24.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso
            ├── V979535-01.iso
            ├── Win2019_1748.rs5.iso
            └── windows-10-22h2-build-19041.iso

4 directories, 17 files

we can see we have a folder named with the Domain ID, which have dom_md and images sub-directories.

3) Copy the ISO file

We need to put your ISO files under the images folder:

cd /home/iso/2f83d165-2cd0-44a1-b1a4-f0fb48fec197/images/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111

Now we can copy the ISO file for this location, we can just copy the file from the other folder using the “cp” command,

cp /home/medias/ISO/vmware_ESXi_8.0Ue.iso .

or copy the file from other machine using “scp” command as well:

scp vmware_ESXi_8.0Ue.iso root@olvm:/home/iso/2f83d165-2cd0-44a1-b1a4-f0fb48fec197/images/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111
vmware_ESXi_8.0Ue.iso

4) Set File Permissions

Since the ISO file is copied to the correct directory, we need make sure the owner is defined to vdsm.kvm user. The simplest way to do this is use the user and group ID, that is always 36.36:

chown 36.36 vmware_ESXi_8.0Ue.iso

Example:

root@olvm:/home/iso/2f83d165-2cd0-44a1-b1a4-f0fb48fec197/images/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111# chown 36.36 vmware_ESXi_8.0Ue.iso
root@olvm:/home/iso/2f83d165-2cd0-44a1-b1a4-f0fb48fec197/images/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111#
root@olvm:/home/iso/2f83d165-2cd0-44a1-b1a4-f0fb48fec197/images/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111# ls -lrt
total 76262168
-rw-r--r--. 1 vdsm kvm   741826560 Jun 24  2020 V979535-01.iso
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 vdsm kvm 12062818304 Apr 14  2024 oel8.7.iso
-rw-r--r--. 1 vdsm kvm  1070596096 May 20  2024 rhel8_boot.iso
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 vdsm kvm  5652088832 Jul 10  2024 Win2019_1748.rs5.iso
-rw-r--r--. 1 vdsm kvm 21238906880 Sep  3  2024 OKV_21.9.iso
-rw-r--r--. 1 vdsm kvm  1110900736 Oct 11  2024 rhel9_boot.iso
-rw-r--r--. 1 vdsm kvm  4857004032 Oct 14  2024 oel7.iso
-rw-r--r--. 1 vdsm kvm 12600737792 Nov 18  2024 oel9.5.iso
-rw-r--r--. 1 vdsm kvm  3213064192 Feb 16  2025 ubuntu-24.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso
-rw-r--r--. 1 vdsm kvm  1874262016 Mar  2  2025 TrueNAS-SCALE-24.10.2.iso
-rw-r--r--. 1 vdsm kvm  4810539008 Mar 31  2025 windows-10-22h2-build-19041.iso
-rw-r--r--. 1 vdsm kvm  8211333120 Aug  6 21:46 CentOS-10-x86_64.iso
-rw-r--r--. 1 vdsm kvm   648374272 Jan 18 15:20 vmware_ESXi_8.0Ue.iso

Check the new ISO in the Web console

Now if we go back to Engine manager web console, and click in “Images” link in the ISO Domain, we should see the new ISO file:

And also in the Create or Edit virtual machine, we should see the ISO listed for the “Attach CD” option under “Boot Options”:

Conclusion

At this point you should be able to create new VM using booting trom your new ISO files.

A final tip: Sometimes I just download a new ISO directly from the OLVM host using curl command if the download don’t require special authentication.