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5.4. Upgrading a RHEV-H-Based Self-Hosted Engine Environment

Upgrading a RHEV-H-based self-hosted engine environment from RHEV 3.6 to RHV 4.0 requires that you install the latest Red Hat Virtualization Host (RHVH) 4.0 and upgrade to Red Hat Virtualization Manager (RHV-M) 4.0. An upgrade utility that is provided with Red Hat Virtualization 4.0 will install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 on the Manager virtual machine and restore a backup of the 3.6 Manager database on the new Manager.

Important

The upgrade utility builds a new Manager based on a template. Manual changes or custom configuration to the original Manager such as custom users, SSH keys, and monitoring will need to be reapplied manually on the new Manager.

Important

All data centers and clusters in the environment must have the cluster compatibility level set to version 3.6 before attempting the procedure.
The upgrade process involves the following key steps:
  • Place the high-availability agents that manage the Manager virtual machine into the global maintenance mode.
  • Add a new RHVH 4.0 host to your environment.
  • Migrate the Manager virtual machine to the new host and set as SPM.
  • Run the upgrade utility to upgrade the Manager. During the upgrade procedure you will be asked to create a backup of the 3.6 Manager and copy it to the host machine where the upgrade is being performed.
  • Update the hosts.
  • After the Manager virtual machine and all hosts in the cluster have been updated, change the cluster compatibility version to 4.0.
The backup created during the upgrade procedure is not automatically deleted. You need to manually delete it after confirming the upgrade has been successful. The backup disks are labeled with hosted-engine-backup-*.

Prerequisites

  • The /var/tmp directory must have at least 5 GB of free space to extract the appliance files. If it does not, you can specify a different directory or mount alternate storage that has the required space. The VDSM user and KVM group must have read, write, and execute permissions on the directory.
  • The self-hosted engine storage domain must have additional free space for the new appliance being deployed (50 GB by default). To increase the storage on iSCSI or Fibre Channel storage, you must manually extend the LUN size on the storage and then extend the storage domain using the Manager. See Increasing iSCSI or FCP Storage in the Administration Guide for more information about resizing a LUN.

Procedure 5.5. Upgrading the Self-Hosted Engine

  1. Install a new RHVH 4.0 host. See the Installation Guide for instructions to install RHVH.
  2. Add the new host to your environment. Run the deployment script on the new host: 
    # hosted-engine --deploy
    Specify the existing shared storage domain when prompted; the script then detects that this is an additional host setup. See Installing Additional Hosts to a Self-Hosted Environment in the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.6 Self-Hosted Engine Guide for more details about the questions asked by the script during an additional host deployment.
  3. Disable the high-availability agents on all the self-hosted engine nodes. To do this run the following command on any host in the cluster. 
    # hosted-engine --set-maintenance --mode=global

    Note

    Run hosted-engine --vm-status to confirm that the environment is in maintenance mode.
  4. Download the RHV-M Virtual Appliance from the Customer Portal and copy it to the new host:
    1. Log in to the Customer Portal at https://access.redhat.com.
    2. Click Downloads in the menu bar.
    3. Click Red Hat Virtualization > Download Latest to access the product download page.
    4. Choose the appliance for Red Hat Virtualization 4.0 and click Download Now.
    Secure copy the OVA file to the Red Hat Virtualization Host: 
    scp rhvm-appliance.ova root@host.example.com:/usr/share
  5. Migrate the Manager virtual machine to the RHVH 4.0 host and set the host as the Storage Pool Manager (SPM).
  6. Run the upgrade script to upgrade the Manager virtual machine. If not already installed, install the screen package. 
    # yum install screen
    # screen
    # hosted-engine --upgrade-appliance

    Note

    The script will ask for the location of the RHV-M Virtual Appliance you copied to the host. It will also prompt you to create a backup of the Manager database and provide its full location.
  7. After the upgrade is complete, disable global maintenance: 
    # hosted-engine --set-maintenance --mode=none
If anything went wrong during the upgrade, power off the Manager by using the hosted-engine --vm-poweroff command, then rollback the upgrade by running hosted-engine --rollback-upgrade.
To upgrade the hosts in the self-hosted engine environment, see Section 5.5, “Upgrading Hosts in a Self-Hosted Engine Environment”.