VM Configurations
A VM configuration is a saved, named specification for a virtual machine: a hardware setup, an owning team, an optional project tag, a list of co-owners, a home drive, and any extra drives. A configuration is not a machine. It is the blueprint the platform assembles a machine from. Starting a configuration spawns a running VM, a live instance with its own RDP session and its own VM Controller. You can create a configuration and never start it, start it and shut it down every evening, or start it again next month. The configuration is unchanged by any of that.
Why configurations are separate from running VMs
The running VM is deliberately disposable; the configuration is what persists. A tiCrypt VM boots from a clean image that resets on every restart, so nothing installed or changed in the guest operating system survives a shutdown. Only two things carry state across restarts: your encrypted drives, which hold the data, and the VM configuration, which holds the assembly. If the configuration were fused into the running instance, shutting a VM down would destroy the record of how it was built. Separating them is what makes "shut the VM down at night, get the same machine back tomorrow" a safe default rather than a rebuild.
The configuration is where access is declared before the machine exists. Co-owners listed in the configuration are added to the running VM with the Co-Owner role automatically when it starts, and the home drive, which is the first attached drive, carries the VM's user database, so accounts, roles, and permissions travel with it. Whoever actually starts the VM becomes its Owner for that session. Access to a VM is granted by its Owner and is never inherited from a system-wide admin role, so it has to be written down somewhere the platform can read before the first boot. See VM Roles and Permissions.
A project tag is a compliance decision, not a label. The project tag is applied when the machine's encrypted drives are mounted at boot. That is why changing the project of a running VM has no effect until it is restarted, and why editing a configuration requires the VM to be powered off first. tiCrypt is enforcing the rule that a machine's regulatory classification is fixed for the life of a session: you cannot reclassify a live machine out from under the data already open on it.
Configurations are free; instances are not. A stopped configuration consumes no CPU or memory from your team's allocation, only the storage of its drives. Keeping several configurations around costs you nothing.
When to create more than one configuration
- Different operating systems: drive format determines which VMs a drive can attach to (NTFS for Windows, EXT4, BTRFS, XFS, or ZFS for Linux), so a Windows analysis machine and a Linux pipeline machine must be separate configurations.
- Different resource sizes: keep a small configuration for interactive editing and a large one for a memory-heavy run, both pointed at the same home drive, and start only the one you need.
- Different projects: a machine that touches regulated data under one project and a machine for unrestricted work should be separate configurations with separate tags and separate drives, so classification is never ambiguous in the audit trail.
- Different collaborators: co-owners gain access to the VM's drives. If two colleagues need different subsets of your data, give them separate configurations rather than adding everyone to one.
- Debug versus production: a hardware setup in Active Debug mode lets admins reach into the VM to diagnose the controller. Keep debug work in its own configuration and never point production work at it.
Before you begin
- You have the Create (and edit) VM configs permission. If you do not, ask your admin.
- You are a member of an active team.
- Your admin has published at least one hardware setup you can use.
- You know which drive will be the home drive, or you are ready to create one.
Create a New Virtual Machine
- Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
- Click the VMs section on the top left panel.
- Click Create configuration in the top left panel.
- In the pop-up, enter the VM name, team, project, optional VM co-owners, and description.
- Next, enter the VM hardware setup to allocate resources.
- Then, select an existing drive or click the Create new drive button to create a new drive to store the virtual machine data.
- Finally, tick the box Launch a VM from this configuration immediately.
- Click Create.
The configuration appears in the VMs list. If you ticked Launch a VM from this configuration immediately, tiCrypt spawns an instance, you become its Owner, and the co-owners you listed are added automatically with the Co-Owner role.
- Information about RAM disk size and mounting slot location is displayed under the Extra Drives section upon VM creation.
- To clone another virtual machine, type
cloneand the name of the virtual machine in the Hardware Setup field upon creation.
Edit a Virtual Machine
- Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
- Click the VMs section on the top left panel.
- In the left panel, click the Open Full Menu button by the stopped virtual machine to edit.
- Select Edit.
- In the pop-up, edit the VM name, team, project, VM owners, description, hardware setup, and drives.
- Once done, click Save.
The configuration is updated and its drives are re-shared with any new co-owners. The change takes effect the next time the VM starts.
Delete a Virtual Machine
- Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
- Click the VMs section on the top left panel.
- In the left panel, click the Open Full Menu button by the stopped virtual machine to delete.
- Select Delete.
- In the pop-up, click Delete.
The configuration is removed from the VMs list. Its drives are not deleted: they remain in your account and can be attached to another configuration. Deleting a configuration destroys the assembly, never the data.