Virtual Lab Templates

A Lab Template is a baseline virtual machine or container image that includes the basic operating system and the required tools for your virtual classroom. A lab template is prepared by the instructor and then linked to a course or units. Once available, all learners’ virtual desktops are created from the template already prepared by the instructor.  All virtual desktops have the same tools, policies and configurations as the template. A lab template can be used many times over for the purposes of template cloning.

To create and manage a lab template, select Template on the left menu.

On the right side of your dashboard, the list of all created lab templates appears. This list would be empty for the first use of the Clover software.

Clover supports two kinds of templates:

• Basic template imported from the Clover’s Catalog including basic pre-built operating system images.
• Extended template already created from a basic template which includes additional tools, softwares and configurations. Extended templates are either created by instructors or offered in the Clover’s catalog.

To differentiate between these two kinds of templates, the basic template name includes the suffix basic-OS. As shown in the Template List above, Centos-7-basic-OS, Ubuntu-18-04-basic-OS and Windows-server-2016-basic-OS (listed in the template name column) are basic templates that offer native Operating systems like Centos-7, Ubuntu18 and WS-2016, respectively.

Three types of templates are distinguished (see Type column in the template list):

• VM Persistent:  The disks of all desktops created from the template are not destroyed when stopped by learners. The user’s settings and data are saved and appear each time at login.
• VM Non-Persistent (stateless):   Desktops created from the template are automatically destroyed when stopped by learners. When users access a nonpersistent desktop, none of their settings or data is saved once they log out.
• Docker: Virtual labs instanciated from the template are based on Docker containers rather than virtual machines (VM).

The template list shows also the Status of the templates:

• Active: the template is ready. You can link it to your course for further Lab instanciation.
• In progress: the template is being imported or an instance of the template is being created.
• WaitingForConfirmation: When you create a lab template, the last step consists in instanciating a virtual machine based on the template’s image. You can access the VM and set up your tools and settings. Meanwhile, the template is still waiting for your confirmation to achieve the template creation process.