Importing operating-system images

Before you can deploy a licensed operating system to managed servers, you must import the image into the XClarity Administrator OS images repository.

About this task

For information about operating system images that you can import and deploy, see Supported operating systems.

For a list of supported base and custom operating systems, see Supported operating systems.

You can import only one image at a time. Wait until the image is displayed in the OS images repository before attempting to import another image. Importing the operating system might take a while.

For ESXi only, you can import multiple ESXi images with same major/minor version to the OS images repository.

For ESXi only, you can import multiple customized ESXi images with same major/minor version and build number to the OS images repository.

When you import an operating system image, XClarity Administrator:

Ensures that there is sufficient space in the OS images repository before importing the operating system. If you do not have sufficient space to import an image, delete an existing image from the repository and attempt to import the new image again.
Creates one or more profiles of that image and stores the profile in the OS images repository. Each profile includes the OS image and installation options. For more information about predefined OS image profiles, see Operating-system image profiles.

Note

Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge web browsers have an upload limit of 4 GB. If the file that you are importing is greater than 4 GB, consider using another web browser (such as Chrome or Firefox) or copy the file to a remote file server and import using the Remote import option.

Windows 2025 and Windows 11 24H2 have the same OS identifier. When importing these operating systems, the XClarity Administrator needs to further inspect the images to distinguish between them. As a result, importing these operating systems takes more time and consumes a higher processor usage rate.

Procedure

To import an operating-system image into the OS images repository, complete the following steps.

Obtain a licensed ISO image of the operating system.
Note
You are responsible for obtaining applicable licenses for the operating system.
From the XClarity Administrator menu bar, click Provisioning > Manage OS Images to display the Deploy Operating Systems: Manage OS Images page.
Click the Import Files icon () to display the Import OS Images and Files dialog.
Click the Local tab to upload files from the local system, or click the Remote tab to upload files from a remote file server.
Note
To upload a file from a remote file server, you must first create a remote-file-server profile by clicking the Configure File Server icon (). For more information, see Configuring a remote file server.
If you chose to use a remote file server, select the server that you want to use from the Remote File Server list.
Enter the path and ISO-image file name, or click Browse to find the ISO image that you want to import.
If you chose to use the local file server, you must enter the absolute path to the ISO-image file. If you chose to use a remote file server, you must enter the absolute path (for example, /home/user/isos.osimage.iso) or relative path (for example, /isos.osimage.iso) to the ISO-image file (depending on the configuration of the remote file server). If the file is not found, verify that the path to the file is correct, and try again.
Optional: Enter a description for the OS image.
Optional: Select a checksum type to verify that the ISO image being imported into XClarity Administrator is not corrupt, and copy and paste the checksum value in the provided text field.
If you select a checksum type, you must specify a checksum value to check the integrity and security of the uploaded OS image. The value must come from a secure source from an organization that you trust. If the uploaded image matches with the checksum value, it is safe to proceed with deployment. Otherwise, you must upload the image again or check the checksum value.
Three checksum types are supported:
- MD5
- SHA1
- SHA256
Click Import.
Tip
ISO image is uploaded over a secure network connection. Therefore, network reliability and performance affects how long it takes to import the image.
If you close the web browser tab or window in which the operating-system image is being uploaded before the upload completes, the import fails.

Results

XClarity Administrator uploads the OS image and creates an image profile in the OS images repository.
Illustrates the Manage OS Images page with a list of operating-system images that have been imported to the OS images repository.

Illustrates the Manage OS Images page with a list of operating-system images that have been imported to the OS images repository.

From this page, you can perform the following actions.

Create a remote-file-server profile by clicking the Configure File Server icon ().
Customize an OS image by clicking the Create Customized Profile icon ().
Modify an OS image by clicking the Edit icon ().
Import a customized OS image profile and apply to a base OS image by clicking Import/Export Profile > Import Customized Profile Image (see Importing a customized OS image profile).
Delete a selected OS image or customized OS image profile by clicking the Delete icon ().
Export a selected customized OS image profile by clicking Import/Export Profile > Export Customized Profile Image.

Note

When importing Windows Server images, you must also import the associated bundle file. Lenovo bundles the predefined WinPE_64.wim boot file along with a set of device drivers into a single package that can be downloaded from the Lenovo Windows drivers and WinPE Images Repository webpage and then imported into OS-images repository. Because the bundle file contains both device drivers and boot files, you can import the bundle file from the Device Driver or Boot Files tab.. For more information, see Importing boot files and Importing device drivers.

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