7.3. Preparing Installation Media

⁠7.3. Preparing Installation Media

7.3.1. Preparing a USB Storage Device
7.3.2. Preparing USB Installation Media Using livecd-iso-to-disk
7.3.3. Preparing USB Installation Media Using dd
7.3.4. Preparing USB Installation Media Using dd on Linux Systems
7.3.5. Preparing USB Installation Media Using dd on Windows Systems
7.3.6. Preparing Optical Hypervisor Installation Media

⁠7.3.1. Preparing a USB Storage Device

You can write the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor disk image to a USB storage device such as a flash drive or external hard drive. You can then use that USB device to start the machine on which the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor will be installed and install the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor operating system.

Note

Not all systems support booting from a USB storage device. Ensure the BIOS on the system on which you will install the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor supports this feature.

⁠7.3.2. Preparing USB Installation Media Using livecd-iso-to-disk

You can use the livecd-iso-to-disk utility included in the livecd-tools package to write a Hypervisor or other disk image to a USB storage device. You can then use that USB storage device to start systems that support booting via USB and install the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor.

⁠

Procedure 7.2. Preparing USB Installation Media Using livecd-iso-to-disk

Ensure you have the latest version of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor disk image:
```
# yum update rhev-hypervisor6
```

Write the disk image to a USB storage device.

# livecd-iso-to-disk --format --reset-mbr /usr/share/rhev-hypervisor/rhev-hypervisor.iso /dev/sdc

⁠7.3.3. Preparing USB Installation Media Using dd

The dd utility can also be used to write a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor disk image to a USB storage device. The dd utility is available from the coreutils package, and versions of the dd utility are available on a wide variety of Linux and Unix operating systems. Windows users can obtain the dd utility by installing Red Hat Cygwin, a free Linux-like environment for Windows.

The basic syntax for the dd utility is as follows:

# dd if=[image] of=[device]

The [device] parameter is the path to the USB storage device on which the disk image will be written. The [image] parameter is the path and file name of the disk image to write to the USB storage device. By default, the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor disk image is located at /usr/share/rhev-hypervisor/rhev-hypervisor.iso on the machine on which the rhev-hypervisor6 package is installed. The dd command does not make assumptions as to the format of the device because it performs a low-level copy of the raw data in the selected image.

⁠7.3.4. Preparing USB Installation Media Using dd on Linux Systems

You can use the dd utility to write a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor disk image to a USB storage device.

⁠

Procedure 7.3. Preparing USB Installation Media using dd on Linux Systems

Run the following command to ensure you have the latest version of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor disk image:
```
# yum update rhev-hypervisor6
```
Use the dd utility to write the disk image to a USB storage device.
⁠
Example 7.1. Use of dd
This example uses a USB storage device named /dev/sdc.
```
# dd if=/usr/share/rhev-hypervisor/rhev-hypervisor.iso of=/dev/sdc
243712+0 records in
243712+0 records out
124780544 bytes (125 MB) copied, 56.3009 s, 2.2 MB/s
```
Warning
The dd utility will overwrite all data on the device specified by the of parameter. Ensure you have specified the correct device and that the device contains no valuable data before using the dd utility.

⁠7.3.5. Preparing USB Installation Media Using dd on Windows Systems

You can use the dd utility to write a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor disk image to a USB storage device. To use this utility in Windows, you must download and install Red Hat Cygwin.

⁠

Procedure 7.4. Preparing USB Installation Media using dd on Windows Systems

Open http://www.redhat.com/services/custom/cygwin/ in a web browser and click 32-bit Cygwin to download the 32-bit version of Red Hat Cygwin, or 64-bit Cygwin to download the 64-bit version of Red Hat Cygwin.
Run the downloaded executable as a user with administrator privileges to open the Red Hat Cygwin installation program.
Follow the prompts to install Red Hat Cygwin. The Coreutils package in the Base package group provides the dd utility. This package is automatically selected for installation.
Copy the rhev-hypervisor.iso file downloaded from the Content Delivery Network to C:\rhev-hypervisor.iso.
Run the Red Hat Cygwin application from the desktop as a user with administrative privileges.
Important
On the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, you must right-click the Red Hat Cygwin icon and select the Run as Administrator option to ensure the application runs with the correct permissions.

In the terminal, run the following command to view the drives and partitions currently visible to the system:

$ cat /proc/partitions

⁠

Example 7.2. View of Disk Partitions Attached to System

Administrator@test /
$ cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name
    8     0  15728640 sda
    8     1    102400 sda1
    8     2  15624192 sda2

Attach the USB storage device to which the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor disk image will be written to the system. Run the cat /proc/partitions command again and compare the output to that of the previous output. A new entry will appear that designates the USB storage device.
⁠
Example 7.3. View of Disk Partitions Attached to System
```
Administrator@test /
$ cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name
    8     0  15728640 sda
    8     1    102400 sda1
    8     2  15624192 sda2
    8    16    524288 sdb
```
Use the dd utility to write the rhev-hypervisor.iso file to the USB storage device. The following example uses a USB storage device named /dev/sdb. Replace sdb with the correct device name for the USB storage device to be used.
⁠
Example 7.4. Use of dd Utility Under Red Hat Cygwin
```
Administrator@test /
$ dd if=/cygdrive/c/rhev-hypervisor.iso of=/dev/sdb& pid=$!
```
Warning
The dd utility will overwrite all data on the device specified by the of parameter. Ensure you have specified the correct device and that the device contains no valuable data before using the dd utility.
Note
Writing disk images to USB storage devices with the version of the dd utility included with Red Hat Cygwin can take significantly longer than the equivalent on other platforms. You can run the following command to view the progress of the operation:
```
$ kill -USR1 $pid
```

⁠7.3.6. Preparing Optical Hypervisor Installation Media

Summary

You can write a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor disk image to a CD-ROM or DVD with the wodim utility. The wodim utility is provided by the wodim package.

⁠

Procedure 7.5. Preparing Optical Hypervisor Installation Media

Run the following command to install the wodim package and dependencies:
```
# yum install wodim
```
Insert a blank CD-ROM or DVD into your CD or DVD writer.
Run the following command to write the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor disk image to the disc:
```
wodim dev=[device] [image]
```
⁠
Example 7.5. Use of the wodim Utility
This example uses the first CD-RW (/dev/cdrw) device available and the default Hypervisor image location.
```
# wodim dev=/dev/cdrw /usr/share/rhev-hypervisor/rhev-hypervisor.iso
```

Important

The Hypervisor uses a program (isomd5sum) to verify the integrity of the installation media every time the Hypervisor is booted. If media errors are reported in the boot sequence you have a bad CD-ROM. Follow the procedure above to create a new CD-ROM or DVD.

Result

You have written a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor disk image to a CD-ROM or DVD.