Storing Extended Information on Virtual Machines and Containers

Sometimes, it may be difficult to remember the information on certain virtual machines and Containers. The probability of this increases together with the number of virtual machines and Containers and with the time elapsed since their creation. Parallels Cloud Server allows you to set the description of any virtual machine or Container on the physical server and view it later on, if required. The description can be any text containing any virtual machine or Container related information. For example, you can include the following in the virtual machine or Container description:

• the owner of the virtual machine or Container
• the purpose of the virtual machine or Container
• the summary description of the virtual machine or Container

Let us assume that you are asked to create a virtual machine for a Mr. Johnson who is going to use it for hosting the MySQL server. So, you create the MyVM virtual machine and, after that, execute the following command on the physical server:

# prlctl set MyVM --description "MyVM

> owner - John Johnson

> purpose - MySQL server hosting" -

This command saves the following information related to the virtual machine: its name, owner, and the purpose of its creation. At any time, you can display this information by issuing the following command:

# prlctl list -o description MyVM

MyVM

owner - John Johnson

purpose - MySQL server hosting

When working with virtual machine or Container descriptions, keep in mind the following:

• You can use any symbols you like in the virtual machine or Container description (new lines, dashes, underscores, spaces, etc.).
• If the virtual machine or Container description contains one or more spaces or line breaks (as in the example above), it must be put in single or double quotes.
• As distinct from a virtual machine or Container name and ID, a description cannot be used for performing virtual machine or Container related operations (e.g., for starting or stopping) and is meant for reference purposes only.