openstack-manuals/doc/image-guide/source/share-images.rst

Image sharing

Image producers and consumers are both OpenStack users, or projects. Image producers create and share images with image consumers, allowing the consumers to use the shared image when booting a server. The producer shares an image with the consumer by making the consumer a member of that image. The consumer then accepts or rejects the image by changing the image member status. After it is accepted, the image appears in the consumer's image list. As long as the consumer is a member of the image, the consumer can use the image, regardless of the image member status, if the consumer knows the image ID.

Note

In the OpenStack Image API, the image member status serves three purposes:

• The member status controls whether image appears in the consumer's image list. If the image member status is accepted, the image appears in the consumer's image list. Otherwise, the image does not appear in the image list. The image may still be used as long as the consumer knows the image ID.
• The member status can be used to filter the consumer's image list.
• The member status lets the producer know whether the consumer has seen and acted on the shared image. If the status is accepted or rejected, the consumer has definitely seen the shared image. If the status is pending, the consumer may not be aware that an image was shared.

Image producers and consumers have different abilities and responsibilities regarding image sharing, which the following list shows.

• Image producers add members to images, or remove members from images, but they may not modify the member status of an image member.
• Image producers and consumers view the status of image members. When listing image members, the producers see all the image members, and the consumers see only themselves.
• Image consumers change their own member status, but they may not add or remove themselves as an image member.
• Image consumers can boot from any image shared by the image producer, regardless of the member status, as long as the consumer knows the image ID.

Sharing an image

The following procedure is a workflow for image sharing after image creation.

Communications between the image producer and the consumer, such as those described in this example, must be arranged independently of the OpenStack Image API. The consumer and producer can send notifications by using email, phone, Twitter, or other channels.

1. The producer posts the availability of specific images for consumers to review.
2. A potential consumer provides the producer with the consumer's tenant ID. Optionally, the producer might request the consumer's email address for notification purposes, but this is outside the scope of the API.
3. The producer shares the image with the consumer, by using the Create image member API operation.
4. Optionally, the producer notifies the consumer that the image has been shared and provides the image's ID (UUID).
5. If the consumer wants the image to appear in the image list, the consumer uses the OpenStack Image API to change the image member status to accepted, by using the Update image member API operation.
6. If the consumer subsequently wants to hide the image, the consumer uses the OpenStack Image API to change the image member status to rejected. If the consumer wants to hide the image, but is open to the possibility of being reminded by the producer that the image is available, the consumer uses the OpenStack Image API to change the image member status back to pending, by using the Update image member API operation.