Image Rotation¶
What is it ?¶
Image rotation in our cloud is a mechanism that keeps all official images up-to-date with their upstream versions.
Why is it done?¶
The latest image versions have up-to-date security patches.
How does it work ?¶
Every 2 months, the mechanism checks all official images and compares them with their upstream version.
If any image is not up-to-date, it is "rotated", i.e., its latest version takes its place under the same name.
The older image is renamed. Its name is in the format: {OFFICIAL_IMAGE_NAME}-{ROTATION_DATE}
The official image is named:
```
centos-7-x86_64
```
Mechanism swapped this image and saved its latest version under the same name centos-7-x86_64. The older version was renamed to :
```
centos-7-x86_64-2021-12-15
```
where a suffix 2021-12-15 represents the date image was rotated.
Older images are later still available under new name or its original ID.
You can find image ID by using command:
```
openstack image show <IMAGE_NAME | IMAGE_ID>
```
or
you can find it in Horizon dashboard by clicking at specific image.
Older images are kept for another 2 months as public. After that their visibility is changed to community.
Community images are still available in OpenStack. You can list all community images via command:
```
openstack image list --community
```
They will not appear in your dashboard however. To use them you have to use CLI command:
```
openstack server create --image <IMAGE_NAME | IMAGE_ID> [ADDITIONAL_PARAMS] <SERVER_NAME>
```
After 1 year community images are deleted if they are not used anymore.