# Remove imported VMs without deleting them

**URL:** <https://forum.opennebula.io/t/remove-imported-vms-without-deleting-them/3363>\
**Category:** Product Support\
**Created:** [November 28, 2016, 9:39am UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/remove-imported-vms-without-deleting-them/3363 "2016-11-28T09:39:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![fnic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@fnic](https://forum.opennebula.io/u/fnic)\
**Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 9:39am UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/remove-imported-vms-without-deleting-them/3363/1 "2016-11-28T09:39:55Z")

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Hello there,

we are currently evaluating Open Nebula as a Web-Frontend for our customers to be able to access their vSphere-Hosted VMs.  
We came to the conclusion that it would be better to manage the VMs through vCenter and use OpenNebula only for the enduser VM access. This also means that we need to import all VMs into OpenNebula to be accessible there. However, sometimes we need to remove the VMs from OpenNebula without deleting them entirely. Yet, we have not found a way to do so. The terminate options seems to always delete the VM entirely.  
Is there a way to remove a VM from OpenNebula without deleting it?  
We are using version 5.0.2 currently.

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**Author:** ![mcabrerizo](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.opennebula.io/mcabrerizo/32/4829_2.png) [@mcabrerizo](https://forum.opennebula.io/u/mcabrerizo)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 7:19am UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/remove-imported-vms-without-deleting-them/3363/2 "2016-11-29T07:19:11Z")

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Hi!  
Currently this is the supported behavior. The following resources are deleted in vCenter when deleted in OpenNebula:

- Images
- Virtual Machines

The vCenter storage handling is being redesigned so this behavior may change in next releases. Though is not possible for your scenario, as you’re importing the VMs, there is an option to protect data from deletion like the “KEEP DISKS ON DONE” which you can set to VM templates so OpenNebula doesn’t erase the VM disks after it enters the DONE state.

Cheers