Transferring files to a VM
Skytap allows you to upload and share multiple file types with a virtual machine, including applications to be installed, software patches, builds, or data files.
Contents
Supported file sharing methods
Skytap has two supported ways to move files on and off your VMs: the Assets page and the shared drive.
- The Assets page is a private file repository available in your Skytap account at https://cloud.skytap.com/assets.
- The shared drive is a fixed-size drive that is shared across all of your account’s VMs in a region.
Comparison of the Assets page and Skytap shared drive
Description
The Assets page is a private file repository available in your Skytap account at https://cloud.skytap.com/assets.
The shared drive is a fixed-size drive that is shared across all of the VMs owned by your organization in a region.
There is one shared drive per region in your account.
The shared drive may not be available for your account.
How to use it
Sign in to Skytap from a browser on your local machine or from a browser in a VM. You can then upload files to the Assets page, or download files from it.
For detailed instructions, see Adding and sharing files with the Assets page
Your Skytap account includes FTP credentials that let you access the shared drive from your local machine or a VM. You can also mount the shared drive as a remote folder on a VM.
Skytap recommends that you use SFTP for file transfers to and from the shared drive.
For detailed instructions, see Adding and sharing files with the shared drive
Active FTPS connections from a VM aren’t supported.
Access controls and file sharing
By default, uploaded files are visible only to you and your Skytap administrators.
To share assets with other users, use projects.
Anyone can read and write files to the shared drive from a VM in that region.
This makes it easy to share files across users and VMs, but it means you should not put private files on this drive.
ISO loading
ISO files stored on the Assets page can be mounted via the Skytap web interface.
See Using ISO files.
ISO files added to the shared drive can’t be used with the built-in Skytap ISO loader.
To mount ISOs from the shared drive, use the VM guest operating system.
Size limitations
By default, there is no separate size limit for the Assets page.
The storage space consumed by assets counts against storage limits for your user account, department, or total customer account.
The shared drive is 10 GB by default. If you want a larger shared drive, contact Skytap Support at support@skytap.com.
The shared drive size counts against the account-wide storage limit for your customer account.
Other ways to transfer files to and from a VM
AIX LPARs in Skytap can’t mount ISO files from the Assets library. You can transfer ISO files to the LPAR using FTP, SCP, or Rsync, and then mount and read the ISO from the LPAR.
If the VM is connected to a VPN, or if the VM has an open port on the public Internet (from a published service or public IP address), you may be able to copy files to the VM using direct RDP or secure copy over SSH.
The VM must be running an SSH or RDP server, and the operating system firewall must allow for incoming connections over the SSH or RDP port. For more information, see Accessing VMs with SSH or Accessing VMs with direct RDP.