⁠2.2. Overview of 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 firewall rules, if any, present on the system. The default option is to allow the Manager's setup script to configure the firewall automatically; this overwrites any existing settings. To integrate the existing settings with the firewall rules required by the Manager, you must configure the firewall manually. If you choose to manually configure the firewall, the setup script provides a custom list of ports that need to be opened, based on the options selected during setup.
  2. The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the system on which the Manager is to be installed. The default value is the system's current host name.
  3. The password you use to secure the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization administration account.
  4. The location of the database server to be used as the Manager database. You can use the setup script to install and configure a local database server; this is the default setting. Alternatively, use an existing remote database server. This database must be created before the Manager is configured. To use a remote database server you must know:
    • The host name of the system on which the remote database server exists. The default host is localhost.
    • The port on which the remote database server is listening. The default port is 5432.
    • That the uuid-ossp extension had been loaded by the remote database server.
    You must also know the name of the database, and the user name and password of a user that has permissions on the remote database server. The default name for both the database and the user is engine.
  5. The organization name to use when creating the Manager's security certificates. The default value is an automatically-detected domain-based name.
  6. The following details about the local ISO domain, if the Manager is being configured to provide one:
    • The path for the ISO domain. The default path is /var/lib/exports/iso.
    • The networks or specific hosts that require access to the ISO domain. By default, the access control list (ACL) for the ISO domain provides read and write access for only the Manager machine. Virtualization hosts require read and write access to the ISO domain in order to attach the domain to a data center. If network or host details are not available at the time of setup, or you need to update the ACL at any time, see Section 12.5, “Changing the Permissions for the Local ISO Domain”.
    • The display name, which will be used to label the domain in the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager. The default name is ISO_DOMAIN.
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.
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Example 2.1. Completed Installation

--== CONFIGURATION PREVIEW ==--
         
Application mode                        : both
Firewall manager                        : iptables
Update Firewall                         : True
Host FQDN                               : Your Manager's FQDN
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
Engine installation                     : True
NFS setup                               : True
PKI organization                        : Your Org
NFS mount point                         : /var/lib/exports/iso
NFS export ACL                          : localhost(rw)
Configure local Engine database         : True
Set application as default page         : True
Configure Apache SSL                    : True
Configure WebSocket Proxy               : True
Engine Host FQDN                        : Your Manager's FQDN

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.