How to Manage ISO Images for Vultr Instances

[Suhitha]

Question: How to Manage ISO Images for Vultr Instances


The process of setting up and configuring a new server or service to make it ready for use.

ISO Images for Vultr instances are compressed copies of an operating system's installer. These images allow you to install custom operating systems on Cloud Compute instances. The ISO files may contain pre-configured settings and software according to specific needs to streamline server setup. The Vultr library also allows you to choose and install various public standard ISOs including Finnix, GParted, Hiren's BootCD PE, and SystemRescue.

Follow this guide to manage ISO Images for Vultr instances using the Vultr Customer Portal, API, CLI, or Terraform.


Vultr Customer Portal

1.Navigate to Products and select Orchestration. Then, choose ISOs.

2.Click Add ISO.

3.Enter the remote URL of your ISO file and click Upload.


Vultr API

1.Send a POST request to the Create ISO endpoint and specify the remote ISO file URL.

Code Select Expand

console


$ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/iso" \
    -X POST \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data '{
        "url" : "https://example.com/remote_iso_file_url.iso"
    }'

Visit the Create ISO endpoint to view additional attributes to add to your request.

2.Send a GET request to the List ISOs endpoint to list all ISOs.

Code Select Expand

console


$ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/iso" \
    -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"

Vultr CLI

1.Create an ISO from an URL by defining the URL where you want to download the ISO file.

Code Select Expand

console


$ vultr-cli iso create --url https://releases.ubuntu.com/24.04/ubuntu-24.04-live-server-amd64.iso

2.List all ISOs.

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console


$ vultr-cli iso list

3.List specific details about an ISO by specifying the ISO ID.

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console


$ vultr-cli iso get iso_id

Run vultr-cli iso create --help to view all options.


Terraform

1.Define a custom ISO by URL and apply.

Code Select Expand

terraform


resource "vultr_iso" "custom_iso" {
    url = "https://example.com/remote_iso_file_url.iso"
}

2.Attach the ISO when creating an instance. Remember to set os_id = 159 for custom ISO boot.

Code Select Expand

terraform


resource "vultr_instance" "server" {
    region = "ewr"
    plan   = "vc2-2c-4gb"
    label  = "iso-boot"

    os_id = 159          # required for custom ISO
    iso_id = vultr_iso.custom_iso.id
}

3.Apply the configuration and observe the following output:

Apply complete! Resources: 2 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.