There are three different ways to create virtual media in the Virtual Media Repository:

1. 1. Copying a physical CD or DVD.
   2. Copying an existing image, e.g. ISO image.
   3. Creating an empty virtual medium.

In all three cases, the generated virtual medium is created as a file in the Virtual Media Repository (/var/vio/VMLibrary). As with physical optical media, the generated virtual media can either be read-only (ro) or readable and writable (rw, read-write).

The names for the generated virtual media are subject to the following restrictions:

• • The name can have a maximum length of 37 characters.
  • Permitted characters are alphanumeric characters and the two characters “.” (period) and “_” (underscore).
  • A “.” (period) at the beginning of the name is not allowed.

Which virtual media are available via a Virtual Media Repository can be displayed with the “vios lsmedia” command:

$ vios lsmedia ms12-vio1
NAME  FILE SIZE  OPTICAL  ACCESS
-     -          -        -
$

Since the Virtual Media Repository has just been created, it obviously doesn’t yet contain any virtual media!

The creation of virtual media is shown below using a number of examples.