What does this message mean: "This image may not be RightScale-enabled"?
Table of Contents
Background Information
When viewing the Clouds tab of a MultiCloud Image (MCI) to view its underlying machine images that will be used to launch instances into each supported cloud, you see a warning message next to your image. You're not sure why you're seeing this message or the implications of launching a server with an image that has this warning message (view screenshot).
Answer
This warning message will be shown anytime an image does not have appropriate RightScale tags. Perhaps you've created a custom RightScale-enabled RightImage using one of our tutorials (see links below), but you forgot to add the appropriate "RightScale" related machine tags to the image itself. Or maybe you're using a personal image that you created from a bundled instance. Basically, you will see this warning message if we can't validate it as a RightScale-enabled image.
When you see this message, we're trying to warn you that RightScale does not recognize it as RightScale-enabled image because of missing tags. Therefore, we cannot guarantee that an instance will be launched and configured properly if it's used by a ServerTemplate. For example, some RightScale-specific functionality (e.g. monitoring and alerts) may not be supported on an instance launched with this type of image. Although, you may be able to successfully launch an instance that has this warning message, you may need to do some investigating to learn why the warning message is being shown. For example, perhaps the image has not been tagged properly. Be sure to properly test the use of any non RightScale-enabled image before using it in a production environment.
As a best practice, we recommend that you use published ServerTemplates from RightScale that have been properly tested with each supported MCI and its references RightImages. At a minimum, you should at least start with this type of setup before making any customizations.
RightScale uses the machine tags to determine which type of user data should be passed to the instance at boot time. See What is the EC2 User Data Field, and how can I use it? By default, RightScale automatically adds the appropriate machine tags to any newly published RightImages.
- v4 RightImages have the following tag: provides:rs_agent_type=rrs provides:rs_agent_ver=1
- v5 RightImages (RightLink) have the following tag: provides:rs_agent_type=right_link
If you build your own RightScale-enabled image from scratch using one of our tutorials (see links below), you must remember to add the appropriate "RightScale" related machine tags to the image. See MultiCloud Images for a list of supported tags for RightScale-enabled images.
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