How to use an ISO image for deploying VM instances
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Updated at December 17, 2025
Issue description
You need to deploy a VM instance in Compute Cloud from an ISO image.
Solution
Due to specifics of the Yandex Cloud infrastructure, you cannot deploy a VM instance from an ISO image. Yandex Cloud only supports these disk image formats:
Qcow2VMDKVHD
To learn more, see our guide on how to set up a custom disk image.
If you need to upload a custom VM image, follow these steps:
- Install the OS you need on a local hypervisor. You can use VirtualBox or QEMU for this.
- Set up a custom disk image following this guide.
- Upload your image to Object Storage.
- Create a new image using the link you got in Object Storage.
- Deploy a cloud VM from the image you got.
Alert
The above recommendations apply to VM disk images that use the Linux kernel as a guest operating system.
If you need to deploy an image of a Microsoft Windows® product, this guide is not for you.