A virtual machine image, referred to in this document simply as an image, is a single file that contains a virtual disk that has a bootable operating system installed on it. Images are used to create virtual machine instances within the cloud. For information about creating image files, see the OpenStack Virtual Machine Image Guide.
Depending on your role, you may have permission to upload and manage virtual machine images. Operators might restrict the upload and management of images to cloud administrators or operators only. If you have the appropriate privileges, you can use the dashboard to upload and manage images in the admin project.
![[Note]](../common/images/admon/note.png) | Note |
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You can also use the glance and nova command-line clients or the Image Service and Compute APIs to manage images. See the section called “Manage images”. |
