2.2. Installing the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager

Overview

The Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager can be installed under one of two arrangements - a standard setup in which the Manager is installed on an independent physical machine or virtual machine, or a self-hosted engine setup in which the Manager runs on a virtual machine that the Manager itself controls.

Important

While the prerequisites for and basic configuration of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager itself are the same for both standard and self-hosted engine setups, the process for setting up a self-hosted engine is different from that of a standard setup.
Prerequisites

Before installing the Red Hat Virtualization Manager, you must ensure that you meet all the prerequisites. To complete installation of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager successfully, you must also be able to determine:

  1. The ports to be used for HTTP and HTTPS communication. The defaults ports are 80 and 443 respectively.
  2. The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the system on which the Manager is to be installed.
  3. The password you use to secure the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization administration account.
  4. The location of the database server to be used. You can use the setup script to install and configure a local database server or use an existing remote database server. To use a remote database server you must know:
    • The host name of the system on which the remote database server exists.
    • The port on which the remote database server is listening.
    • That the uuid-ossp extension had been loaded by the remote database server.
    You must also know the user name and password of a user that is known to the remote database server. The user must have permission to create databases in PostgreSQL.
  5. The organization name to use when creating the Manager's security certificates.
  6. The storage type to be used for the initial data center attached to the Manager. The default is NFS.
  7. The path to use for the ISO share, if the Manager is being configured to provide one. The display name, which will be used to label the domain in the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager also needs to be provided.
  8. The firewall rules, if any, present on the system that need to be integrated with the rules required for the Manager to function.

Configuration

Before installation is completed the values selected are displayed for confirmation. Once the values have been confirmed they are applied and the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager is ready for use.

Example 2.1. Completed Installation

--== CONFIGURATION PREVIEW ==--
         
Engine database name                    : engine
Engine database secured connection      : False
Engine database host                    : localhost
Engine database user name               : engine
Engine database host name validation    : False
Engine database port                    : 5432
NFS setup                               : True
PKI organization                        : Your Org
Application mode                        : both
Firewall manager                        : iptables
Update Firewall                         : True
Configure WebSocket Proxy               : True
Host FQDN                               : Your Manager's FQDN
NFS export ACL                          : 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0(rw)
NFS mount point                         : /var/lib/exports/iso
Datacenter storage type                 : nfs
Configure local Engine database         : True
Set application as default page         : True
Configure Apache SSL                    : True

Please confirm installation settings (OK, Cancel) [OK]:

Note

Automated installations are created by providing engine-setup with an answer file. An answer file contains answers to the questions asked by the setup command.
  • To create an answer file, use the --generate-answer parameter to specify a path and file name with which to create the answer file. When this option is specified, the engine-setup command records your answers to the questions in the setup process to the answer file. 
    # engine-setup --generate-answer=[ANSWER_FILE]
  • To use an answer file for a new installation, use the --config-append parameter to specify the path and file name of the answer file to be used. The engine-setup command will use the answers stored in the file to complete the installation. 
    # engine-setup --config-append=[ANSWER_FILE]
Run engine-setup --help for a full list of parameters.

Note

Offline installation requires the creation of a software repository local to your Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization environment. This software repository must contain all of the packages required to install Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager, Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualization hosts, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtual machines. To create such a repository, see the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager Offline Installation technical brief, available at https://access.redhat.com/articles/216983.
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