A template in OpenVZ is a pre-configured virtual machine or container that can be easily and quickly deployed into a fully functional virtual machine or container. Like any normal virtual machine or container, a template contains hardware (virtual disks, peripheral devices) and the operating system. It can also have additional software installed. In fact, the only main difference between a virtual machine or container and a template is that the latter cannot be started.
You can perform the following operations on templates:
- create a new template
- list existing templates
- create a virtual machine or container from a template
These operations are described in the following subsections in detail.
