Deploy a VM

This page reviews the different components, workflows, and decisions related to deploying a VM with VM Operator:

The VirtualMachine API

apiVersion: vmoperator.vmware.com/v1alpha3 # (1)
kind: VirtualMachine # (2)
metadata:
  name:      my-vm # (3)
  namespace: my-namespace # (4)
spec:
  className:    my-vm-class # (5)
  imageName:    vmi-0a0044d7c690bcbea # (6)
  storageClass: my-storage-class # (7)
  bootstrap: # (8)
    cloudInit:
      cloudConfig: {}

The field apiVersion indicates the resource's schema, ex. vmoperator.vmware.com, and version, ex.v1alpha2.
The field kind specifies the kind of resource, ex. VirtualMachine.
The field metadata.name is used to uniquely identify an instance of an API resource in a given Kubernetes namespace.
The field metadata.namespace denotes in which Kubernetes namespace the API resource is located.
The field spec.className refers to the name of the VirtualMachineClass resource that provides the hardware configuration when deploying a VM.

The VirtualMachineClass API is cluster-scoped, and the following command may be used to print all of the VM classes on a cluster:
```
kubectl get vmclass
```
However, access to these resources is per-namespace. To determine the names of the VM classes that may be used in a given namespace, use the following command:
```
kubectl get -n <NAMESPACE> vmclassbinding
```
The field spec.imageName refers to the name of the ClusterVirtualMachineImage or VirtualMachineImage resource that provides the disk(s) when deploying a VM.
- If there is a ClusterVirtualMachineImage resource with the specified name, the cluster-scoped resource is used, otherwise...
- If there is a VirtualMachineImage resource in the same namespace as the VM being deployed, the namespace-scoped resource is used.
The following command may be used to print a list of the images available to the entire cluster:
```
kubectl get clustervmimage
```
Whereas this command may be used to print a list of images available to a given namespace:
```
kubectl get -n <NAMESPACE> vmimage
```
The field spec.storageClass refers to the Kubernetes storage class used to configure the storage for the VM.

The following command may be used to print a list of the storage classes available to the entire cluster:
```
kubectl get storageclass
```
The field spec.bootstrap, and the fields inside of it, are used to configure the VM's bootstrap provider.

Bootstrap Provider

There are a number of methods that may be used to bootstrap a virtual machine's (VM) guest operating system:

Provider	Network Config	Linux	Windows	Description
Cloud-Init	Cloud-Init Network v2	✓	✓	The industry standard, multi-distro method for cross-platform, cloud instance initialization with modern, VM images
Sysprep	Guest OS Customization (GOSC)		✓	Microsoft Sysprep is used by VMware to customize Windows images on first-boot
vAppConfig	Bespoke	✓		For images with bespoke, bootstrap engines driven by vAppConfig properties

Please refer to the documentation for bootstrap providers for more information.