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Managing Providers

Red Hat CloudForms 4.2

Managing your infrastructure, cloud, and containers providers

Red Hat CloudForms Documentation Team

Abstract

This guide covers managing your infrastructure, cloud, and containers providers and system managers in Red Hat CloudForms.
If you have a suggestion for improving this guide or have found an error, please submit a Bugzilla report at http://bugzilla.redhat.com against Red Hat CloudForms Management Engine for the Documentation component. Please provide specific details, such as the section number, guide name, and CloudForms version so we can easily locate the content.

Preface

Red Hat CloudForms can manage a variety of external environments, known as providers and managers. A provider or manager is any system that CloudForms integrates with for the purpose of collecting data and performing operations.

In CloudForms, a provider is an external virtualization, cloud, or containers environment that manages multiple virtual machines or instances residing on multiple hosts. One example is Red Hat Virtualization, a platform that manages multiple hosts and virtual machines.

In CloudForms, a manager is an external management environment that manages more than one type of resource. One example of a manager is OpenStack, which manages infrastucture, cloud, network, and storage resources.

This guide covers working with providers and managers in CloudForms, which include:

  • Infrastructure providers
  • Configuration management providers
  • Automation management providers
  • Cloud providers
  • Networking management providers
  • Middleware management providers
  • Container providers
  • Storage managers

For information on working with the resources contained by a provider or manager, see Managing Infrastructure and Inventory.

Chapter 1. Infrastructure Providers

In Red Hat CloudForms, an infrastructure provider is a virtual infrastructure environment that you can add to a CloudForms appliance to manage and interact with the resources in that environment. This chapter describes the different types of infrastructure providers that you can add to CloudForms, and how to manage them. Infrastructure providers can be either discovered automatically by CloudForms, or added individually.

The web interface uses virtual thumbnails to represent infrastructure providers. Each thumbnail contains four quadrants by default, which display basic information about each provider:

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  1. Number of hosts
  2. Management system software
  3. Currently unused
  4. Authentication status

Table 1.1. Provider authentication status

IconDescription

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Validated: Valid authentication credentials have been added.

2191

Invalid: Authentication credentials are invalid.

2192

Unknown: Authentication status is unknown or no credentials have been entered.

1.1. Discovering Infrastructure Providers

In addition to individually adding providers, you can also discover all infrastructure providers in a given subnet range.

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Discover Infrastructure Providers (Discover Infrastructure Providers).
  3. Select the types of provider to discover.
  4. Enter a Subnet Range of IP addresses starting with a From Address and ending with a To Address. The cursor automatically advances as you complete each octet.
  5. Click Start.

The appliance searches for all infrastructure providers in the specified subnet range, and adds them to the user interface. However, before you can manage the providers added via discovery, you must edit each provider and specify authentication details.

1.2. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager Providers

To use a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager provider, add it to the appliance and authenticate its hosts.

1.2.1. Adding a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Provider

After initial installation and creation of a Red Hat CloudForms environment, add a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization provider to the appliance.

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Click 1847 (Configuration), then click 1862 (Add a New Infrastructure Provider).
  3. Enter the Name of the provider to add. The Name is how the device is labeled in the console.
  4. Select Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager from the Type list.
  5. Enter the Host Name or IP address(IPv4 or IPv6) of the provider.

    Important

    The Host Name must use a unique fully qualified domain name.

  6. Enter the API Port if your provider uses a non-standard port for access.
  7. Select the appropriate Zone for the provider. By default, the zone is set to default.
  8. In the Credentials area, under Default, provide the login credentials required for the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization administrative user:

    • Enter the user name, admin@internal, in the Username field.
    • Enter the password in the Password field.
    • Confirm the password in the Confirm Password field.
    • Click Validate to confirm Red Hat CloudForms can connect to the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager.
  9. Under C & U Database tab, provide the login credentials for the Red Hat CloudForms user of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Data Warehouse database:

    Important

    To collect capacity and utilization data, you must enable the capacity and utilization server roles available from the settings menu, ConfigurationServerServer Control. For more information on capacity and utilization collection, see "Assigning the Capacity and Utilization Server Roles" in the Deployment Planning Guide.

    Important

    To collect capacity and utilization data for a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization environment, the Data Warehouse and Reports components must be installed in that environment, and you must create a Red Hat CloudForms user in the Data Warehouse database.

    To install the Data Warehouse and Reports components in a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization environment, see the Red Hat Virtualization Installation Guide.

    To create a Red Hat CloudForms user in the Data Warehouse database, see Data Collection for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.3 and 3.4 in the Deployment Planning Guide. `

    • Enter the database user name in the Username field.
    • Enter the user password in the Password field.
    • Confirm the user password in the Confirm Password field.
    • Click Validate to confirm Red Hat CloudForms can connect to the database.
  10. Click Save.

1.2.2. Authenticating Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hosts

After adding a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization infrastructure provider, you must authenticate its hosts to enable full functionality.

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Click on a provider to display its summary screen.
  3. On the summary screen, click Hosts in the Relationships information box to display the hosts on that provider.
  4. Select the hosts to authenticate. You can select all hosts using the Check All option.
  5. Click Configuration (Configuration).
  6. Click Edit this item (Edit this item).
  7. In the Credentials area, enter credentials for the following, as required:

    1. Default: This field is mandatory. Users should have privileged access such as, root or administrator.
    2. Remote Login: Credentials for this field are required if SSH login is disabled for the Default account.
    3. Web Services: This tab is used for access to Web Services in Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization.
    4. IPMI: This tab is used for access to IPMI.
  8. Click Validate.
  9. If editing multiple hosts:

    1. Select a host from the Select Host to validate against list.
    2. If required, enter credentials for Remote Login, Web Services, and IPMI in their respective tabs; click Validate.
    3. Select another host to validate each of these credentials against.
  10. Click Add.

1.3. OpenStack Infrastructure Providers

Enable an OpenStack Infrastructure provider by adding it to the appliance.

1.3.1. Adding an OpenStack Infrastructure Provider

After initial installation and creation of a Red Hat CloudForms environment, add an OpenStack infrastructure provider to the appliance. Red Hat CloudForms supports operating with the OpenStack admin tenant. When creating an OpenStack infrastructure provider in Red Hat CloudForms, select the OpenStack infrastructure provider’s admin user because it is the default administrator of the OpenStack admin tenant. When using the admin credentials, a user in Red Hat CloudForms provisions into the admin tenant, and sees images, networks, and instances that are associated with the admin tenant.

Note

You can set whether Red Hat CloudForms should use the Telemetry service or Advanced Message Queueing Protocol (AMQP) for event monitoring. If you choose Telemetry, you should first configure the ceilometer service on the undercloud to store events. See Section 1.3.1.1, “Configuring the Undercloud to Store Events” for instructions.

For more information, see OpenStack Telemetry (ceilometer) in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Architecture Guide.

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Add a New Infrastructure Provider (Add a New Infrastructure Provider).
  3. Enter the Name of the provider to add. The Name is how the device is labeled in the console.
  4. Select OpenStack Platform Director from the Type list.
  5. Select the API Version of your OpenStack provider’s Keystone service from the list. The default is Keystone v2.

    Note
    • With Keystone API v3, domains are used to determine administrative boundaries of service entities in OpenStack. Domains allow you to group users together for various purposes, such as setting domain-specific configuration or security options. For more information, see OpenStack Identity (keystone) in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Architecture Guide.
    • The provider you are creating will be able to see projects for the given domain only. To see projects for other domains, add it as another cloud provider. For more information on domain management in OpenStack, see Domain Management in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Users and Identity Management Guide.
  6. Select the appropriate Zone for the provider. By default, the zone is set to default.

    Note

    For more information, see the definition of host aggregates and availability zones in OpenStack Compute (nova) in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Architecture Guide.

  7. In the Default tab, under Endpoints, configure the host and authentication details of your OpenStack provider:

    1. Enter the Host Name or IP address(IPv4 or IPv6) of the provider. If your provider is an undercloud, use its hostname (see Setting the Hostname for the System in Red Hat OpenStack Platform Director Installation and Usage for more details)
    2. In API Port, set the public port used by the OpenStack Keystone service. By default, OpenStack uses port 5000 for this.
    3. Select the appropriate Security Protocol used for authenticating with your OpenStack provider.
    4. In the Username field, enter the name of an OpenStack user with privileged access (for example, admin). Then, provide its corresponding password in the Password and Confirm Password fields.
    5. Click Validate to confirm Red Hat CloudForms can connect to the OpenStack provider.
  8. Next, configure how Red Hat CloudForms should receive events from the OpenStack provider. Click the Events tab in the Endpoints section to start.

    • To use the Telemetry service of the OpenStack provider, select Ceilometer. Before you do so, the provider must first be configured accordingly. See Section 1.3.1.1, “Configuring the Undercloud to Store Events” for details.
    • If you prefer to use the AMQP Messaging bus instead, select AMQP. When you do: In Hostname (or IPv4 or IPv6 address) (of the Events tab, under Endpoints), enter the public IP or fully qualified domain name of the AMQP host.

      • In the API Port, set the public port used by AMQP. By default, OpenStack uses port 5672 for this.
      • In the Username field, enter the name of an OpenStack user with privileged access (for example, admin). Then, provide its corresponding password in the Password and Confirm Password fields.
      • Click Validate to confirm the credentials.
  9. You can also configure SSH access to all hosts managed by the OpenStack infrastructure provider. To do so, click on the RSA key pair tab in the Endpoints section.

    1. From there, enter the Username of an account with privileged access.
    2. If you selected SSL in Endpoints > Default > Security Protocol earlier, use the Browse button to find and set a private key.
  10. Click Add after configuring the infrastructure provider.
Note

Red Hat CloudForms requires that the adminURL endpoint for all OpenStack services be on a non-private network. Accordingly, assign the adminURL endpoint an IP address of something other than 192.168.x.x. The adminURL endpoint must be accessible to the Red Hat CloudForms appliance that is responsible for collecting inventory and gathering metrics from the OpenStack environment. Additionally, all the Keystone endpoints must be accessible, otherwise refresh will fail.

1.3.1.1. Configuring the Undercloud to Store Events

To allow Red Hat CloudForms to receive events from a Red Hat OpenStack Platform environment, you must configure the notification_driver option for the Compute service and Orchestration service in that environment. To do so, edit undercloud.conf, and set store_events to true before installing the undercloud. See Installing the Undercloud and Configuring the Director in Red Hat OpenStack Platform Director Installation and Usage for related details.

1.4. VMware vCenter Providers

To use a VMware vCenter provider, add it to the appliance and authenticate its hosts.

1.4.1. Adding a VMware vCenter Provider

After initial installation and creation of a Red Hat CloudForms environment, add a VMware vCenter provider to the appliance.

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Add a New Infrastructure Provider (Add a New Infrastructure Provider).
  3. Enter the Name of the provider to add. The Name is how the device is labeled in the console.
  4. Select VMware vCenter from the Type list.
  5. Enter the Host Name or IP address(IPv4 or IPv6) of the provider.

    Important

    The Host Name must use a unique fully qualified domain name.

  6. Select the appropriate Zone for the provider. By default, the zone is set to default.
  7. In the Credentials area, under Default, provide the login credentials required for the VMware vCenter administrative user:

    • Enter the user name in the Username field.
    • Enter the password in the Password field.
    • Confirm the password in the Confirm Password field.
    • Click Validate to confirm Red Hat CloudForms can connect to the VMware vCenter.
  8. Click Add.

1.4.2. Authenticating VMware vCenter Hosts

The procedure below describes how to authenticate the VMware vCenter hosts.

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Click on a provider to display its summary screen.
  3. On the summary screen, click Hosts in the Relationships information box to display the hosts on that provider.
  4. Select the hosts to authenticate. You can select all hosts using the Check All option.
  5. Click Configuration (Configuration)
  6. Click Edit Selected items (Edit Selected items).
  7. In the Credentials area, under Default, provide the VMware ESXi login credentials:

    • Enter the user name in the Username field.
    • Enter the password in the Password field.
    • Confirm the password in the Confirm Password field.
    • Click Validate to confirm Red Hat CloudForms can connect to the VMware vCenter host.
  8. If editing multiple hosts, select a host from the Select Host to validate against list; provide the VMware ESXi login credentials and click Validate.
  9. Click Save.

1.4.2.1. Using a Non-Administrator Account for Host Credentials

After adding a VMware vCenter infrastructure provider, you must authenticate its hosts to enable full functionality. You can use administrator credentials, or create another user assigned to a role (See the VMware documentation for instructions on how to create a role) created for Red Hat CloudForms. The following privileges should be enabled for the non-administrator user:

From the Global group, check:

  • Cancel task
  • Diagnostics
  • Log Event
  • Set custom attribute
  • Settings

The entire set of privileges for the following groups should be checked:

  • Alarms
  • Datastores
  • dvPort Group
  • Host
  • Network
  • Resource
  • Scheduled Task
  • Tasks
  • Virtual Machine
  • vSphere Distributed Switch

Additionally, you must assign the new role to the following objects:

  • Datacenter: At the Datacenter the Red Hat CloudForms user/group must have at least the read-only role at the Datacenter level (Not Propagated) to be able to see the datacenter. Without this access, relationships cannot be made. Specifically, the datastores will not show up.
  • Cluster: Each Cluster that the Red Hat CloudForms needs access to must have the new role assigned and propagated.
  • Folders: Each Folder that Red Hat CloudForms needs access to must have the new role assigned and propagated.
  • Datastores: Each Datastore that Red Hat CloudForms needs access to must have the new role assigned and propagated.
  • Networking: Each vLAN or Port Group that Red Hat CloudForms needs access to must have the new role assigned and propagated.

1.5. Microsoft SCVMM Providers

To use a Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) provider, add it to the appliance and set up the SCVMM server for authentication.

Note

To use a SCVMM provider, you must have at least one network adapter available for communication between the host and the SCVMM management server. Make sure that Used by Management is checked for this network adapter in the SCVMM host properties.

1.5.1. Authenticating to Microsoft SCVMM

Before you can add a Microsoft SCVMM provider to your Red Hat CloudForms environment, you must enable WinRM to listen for HTTP traffic on Microsoft SCVMM servers. You must also set the appropriate execution policy on the Microsoft SCVMM server to allow PowerShell scripts from the appliance to run remotely.

  1. Log in to the Microsoft SCVMM server.
  2. Enable WinRM for configuration.

    winrm quickconfig
  3. Set the following options:

    winrm set winrm/config/client/auth @{Basic="true"}
    winrm set winrm/config/service/auth @{Basic="true"}
    winrm set winrm/config/service @{AllowUnencrypted="true"}
  4. For Windows 2012 R2 with PowerShell 4.0, use the following syntax to set these options:

    winrm set winrm/config/client/auth '@{Basic="true"}'
    winrm set winrm/config/service/auth '@{Basic="true"}'
    winrm set winrm/config/service '@{AllowUnencrypted="true"}'
  5. Enable remote script execution on the SCVMM server using the Set-ExecutionPolicy cmdlet.

    Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

    For more information on SCVMM remote script execution policies, see Using the Set-ExecutionPolicy Cmdlet.

If PowerShell returns an error, search for log_dos_error_results in the evm.log and scvmm.log files for information.

1.5.2. Adding a Microsoft SCVMM Provider

After initial installation and creation of a Red Hat CloudForms environment, add a Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) provider to the appliance.

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Click 1847 (Configuration), then click 1862 (Add a New Infrastructure Provider).
  3. Enter the Name of the provider to add. The Name is how the device is labeled in the console.
  4. Select Microsoft System Center VMM from the Type list.
  5. Enter the Host Name or IP address(IPv4 or IPv6) of the provider.

    Important

    The Host Name must use a unique fully qualified domain name.

  6. Select Kerberos or Basic (SSL) from the Security Protocol list.

    1. For Kerberos:

      1. Enter the user name and realm in the Username field.
      2. Enter the password in the Password field.
      3. Enter the password again in the Confirm Password field.
    2. For Basic (SSL):

      1. Enter the user name in the Username field.
      2. Enter the password in the Password field.
      3. Enter the password again in the Confirm Password field.
  7. Click Validate to confirm that Red Hat CloudForms can connect to the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
  8. Click Add.

1.6. Refreshing Providers

Refresh a provider to find other resources related to it. Use Refresh after initial discovery to get the latest data about the provider and the virtual machines it can access. Ensure the provider has credentials to do this. If the providers were added using Discovery, add credentials using Edit Selected Infrastructure Provider (Edit Selected Infrastructure Provider).

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Select the providers to refresh.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Refresh Relationships and Power States (Refresh Relationships and Power States).
  4. Click OK.

1.7. Tagging Multiple Providers

Apply tags to all providers to categorize them together at the same time.

  1. Navigate to InfrastructureProviders.
  2. Check the providers to tag.
  3. Click Policy (Policy), and then Edit Tags (Edit Tags).
  4. In the Tag Assignment area, select a customer tag to assign from the first list, then select a value to assign from the second list.

    2194

  5. Select more tags as required; click (Save).

1.8. Viewing a Provider

From a list of providers, you can review a specific provider by clicking on it. This displays various options to access provider information.

There are two methods of viewing an infrastructure provider’s details: the summary screen (default) and the dashboard screen. Use the summary Summary and dashboard Dashboard buttons to toggle between views.

Both the summary and dashboard screens contain a taskbar with Reload, Configuration, Policy, Monitoring, and Authentication buttons to manage the selected provider.

Provider Summary Screen

providers summary screen

The provider summary screen displays information about the provider in table format.

  • Provider accordion: Displays details about the provider’s Properties and Relationships on the sidebar. Click to expand these lists.
  • Provider summary: Displays a provider’s Properties, Status, Relationships, and Smart Management. Click on an item in the Relationships table to see more information about that entity.

Provider Dashboard Screen

providers summary dashboard

From the dashboard, you can view:

  • Number of clusters, hosts, virtual machines, templates, datastores, resource pools, and other entities on the provider. Click on an entity to see more information about that item.
  • Aggregate utilization for CPU, memory, and storage
  • Network I/O statistics
  • Trends for hosts and virtual machines discovered

To view the dashboard:

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Click the infrastructure provider to view.
  3. To access the dashboard view, click Dashboard (Dashboard view).

To return to the summary view, click Summary (Summary view).

1.9. Removing a Provider

If a provider has been decommissioned or requires some troubleshooting, it might require deletion from the VMDB.

Deleting a provider removes the account information from Red Hat CloudForms console. You will no longer be able to view any associated history including chargeback reports generated for the deleted provider. Additionally, if Red Hat CloudForms is the database of record, deleting providers would become a major problem for the other systems relying on it for accurate and consistent billing information. Review all the dependencies carefully before deleting a provider.

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Select the check box for the provider to delete.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then Remove Infrastructure Providers from the VMDB (Remove Infrastructure Providers from the VMDB).
  4. Click (OK).

1.10. Viewing the Provider Timeline

View the timeline of events for the virtual machines registered to a provider.

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Click a provider.
  3. Click Monitoring (Monitoring), and then Timelines (Timelines)from the taskbar, or from the provider accordion, click PropertiesTimeline.
  4. From Options, customize the period of time to display and the types of events to see.

    provider timeline

    • Use Show to select regular Management Events or Policy Events.
    • Use the Interval dropdown to select hourly or daily data points.
    • Use Date to type the date for the timeline to display.
    • If you select to view a daily timeline, use Show to set how many days back to go. The maximum history is 31 days.
    • The three Event Groups lists allow you to select different groups of events to display. Each has its own color.
    • From the Level list, select a Summary event, or a Detail list of events. For example, the detail level of a Power On event might include the power on request, the starting event, and the actual Power On event. If you select Summary, only the Power On event displays in the timeline.

1.11. Viewing Hosts and Clusters

Access a tree view of the hosts and clusters for a provider from the Provider Summary.

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Click the provider to view the hosts and clusters.
  3. Click on the Relationships accordion, then click Hosts & Clusters.

hostsandclusters

1.12. Viewing Virtual Machines and Templates

Access a tree view of the virtual machines and templates for a provider from the Provider Summary.

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureProviders.
  2. Click the provider to view the virtual machines and templates.
  3. From accordion menu, click Relationships, then click VMs & Templates.

Chapter 2. Configuration Management Providers

In CloudForms, a configuration management provider is a systems management product that you can add to a CloudForms appliance to manage the lifecycle of your resources. Configuration management providers are useful for uniformly applying changes and updates across providers, and for recording and reporting status and change activity. They can also help eliminate the confusion and error brought about by the existence of different providers.

This chapter describes the different types of configuration management providers available to CloudForms, and how to manage them. Configuration management providers must be added individually to CloudForms.

2.1. Red Hat Satellite 6

Satellite 6 is a subscription and system management tool that provides a way to provision hosts (both virtual and bare metal) and configure them using a set of Puppet modules. Red Hat CloudForms provides functionality to integrate with a Red Hat Satellite 6 server and take advantage of its features. This includes:

  • Monitoring the inventory of your Red Hat Satellite 6 server, including independent hosts and hosts provisioned using hostgroups.
  • Reprovisioning existing bare metal system hosts to new host groups.
  • Applying Red Hat CloudForms policy tags to hosts.
Important

Red Hat CloudForms only reprovisions existing systems in a Red Hat Satellite 6 environment. Provisioning systems from Red Hat Satellite 6’s bare metal discovery service is planned for a future release.

2.1.1. Defining the Workflow

This section uses the following workflow:

  1. Add Red Hat Satellite 6 server details to Red Hat CloudForms.
  2. Refresh the state of your Red Hat Satellite 6 provider in Red Hat CloudForms.
  3. Select an existing bare metal host from Red Hat Satellite 6 for reprovisioning.
  4. Apply policy tags to Red Hat Satellite 6 hosts.

2.1.2. Defining the Hostgroup Hierarchy

Red Hat CloudForms displays the Red Hat Satellite 6 infrastructure in a host group and host relationship. A host group defines a set of default values that hosts inherit when placed in that group. Hosts can belong to only one host group, but host groups can be nested in hierarchies. You can create a "base" or "parent" host group that represents all hosts in your organization, and then create nested or "child" host groups under that parent to provide specific settings.

2.1.3. Adding a Satellite 6 Provider

To start provisioning bare metal machines, you need at least one Red Hat Satelllite 6 provider added to Red Hat CloudForms.

  1. Navigate to ConfigurationManagement.
  2. Select ConfigurationAdd a new Provider.
  3. Enter a Name for the provider.
  4. Enter a URL for the provider. This is the root URL for the Satellite 6 server and can be either an IP address or a hostname. For example, http://satellite6.example.com.
  5. Select Verify Peer Certificate to use encrypted communication with the provider. This requires the SSL certificates from your Red Hat Satellite 6 provider.
  6. Enter a Username for a user on the provider. Ideally, this would be a user in Satellite 6 with administrative access.
  7. Enter a Password, and then enter it again in Confirm Password.
  8. Click Validate to test your connection with the Red Hat Satellite 6 server.
  9. Click Add to confirm your settings and save the provider.

Red Hat CloudForms saves the Satellite 6 provider in its database and triggers a refresh of resources detected in the provider.

2.1.4. Triggering a Refresh of a Satellite 6 Provider

Your Satellite 6 provider can still create new hosts independently of Red Hat CloudForms. Your Red Hat CloudForms appliance detects these changes after an automatic refresh period. However, you can trigger a manual refresh to avoid waiting for the automatic refresh.

  1. Navigate to ConfigurationManagement.
  2. Select your Red Hat Satellite 6 provider using the checkbox, and click ConfigurationRefresh Relationships and Power States. This triggers the refresh.
  3. When the refresh is complete, select the Red Hat Satellite 6 provider to check the updated list of hosts groups in the provider.

2.1.5. Displaying Red Hat Satellite 6 Contents

Red Hat CloudForms provides two methods for viewing the contents of a Red Hat Satellite 6 provider:

  • Providers - This presents the Red Hat Satellite 6 contents as a hierarchy of host groups belonging to a provider, and then individual hosts belonging to each provider.
  • Configured Systems - This presents a list of all hosts on your Red Hat Satellite 6 server. This also provides a method to apply predefined filters to organized specific machines.

Change between these two views using the accordion menu on the left of the user interface.

2.1.6. Reprovisioning a Bare Metal Host

This procedure provides an example of reprovisioning an existing bare metal system into a new hostgroup. For this example, your Red Hat Satellite 6 environment requires the following:

  • An existing bare metal system stored as a host object in your Red Hat Satellite 6 server. This system can be one of the following:

    • A standalone system previously provisioned without a host group.
    • A system previously provisioned using a host group.
  • A target host group. This host group contains the system configuration to apply to the host when reprovisioning it. This includes:

    • A new operating system installation, including a new partition table.
    • A new networking configuration that the Red Hat Satellite 6 server defines and manages.
    • Registration to any Red Hat subscriptions and repositories assigned to the host group.
    • Application of any Puppet modules assigned to the host group.
  1. Navigate to ConfigurationManagement.
  2. Select Configured Systems from the accordion menu on the left. This displays the system list.
  3. Select one or more hosts to reprovision.
  4. Select LifecycleProvision Configured Systems.
  5. Under the Request tab, enter the following details:

    1. E-Mail address
    2. First Name
    3. Last Name
    4. This form also contains optional fields for users to enter a plain text Note to inform Red Hat CloudForms administrators of any special details, and a field to provide a manager’s name in case administrators require approval from a user’s manager.
  6. Select the Purpose tab and select any Red Hat CloudForms policy tags that apply to the system.
  7. Select the Catalog tab. This screen displays the list of chosen machines to reprovision and their current details. Select a target host group from the Configuration Profile list. Red Hat CloudForms communicates with Red Hat Satellite to apply the configuration from this host group to the selected host and reprovision the system.
  8. Select the Customize tab. This screen displays some customizable fields for the selected system. You can change the Root Password or change the Hostname and IP Address. Note that these fields are optional, because the host group in Red Hat Satellite 6 contains this information. The fields here will override the settings from the host group.

    Important

    Provisioning bare metal systems still requires access to the network that Red Hat Satellite 6 manages. This is because Red Hat Satellite controls PXE booting, kickstarts, and Puppet configuration for bare metal systems. Ensure the IP address you enter in Red Hat CloudForms can access a DHCP service that Red Hat Satellite 6 provides either through the main server or through a Red Hat Satellite 6 Capsule server.

  9. Select the Customize tab. This screen allows you to either launch the provisioning process immediately on approval or using a schedule. Click Schedule to show the date and time fields used to schedule the provisioning.
  10. Click Submit.

Depending on the request settings on your Red Hat CloudForms appliance, this provisioning request might require approval from an administrator. If not, the provisioning request launches depending on your choice for the schedule.

Note

Previously provisioned hosts might require manual selection of PXE boot from the boot menu, otherwise they might boot to hard disk and not reprovision.

2.1.7. Tagging a Bare Metal Host

Red Hat CloudForms can also control policy settings of bare metal systems from Red Hat Satellite 6 through tagging. Tagging attaches levels of metadata to help define the policy rules required for a set of systems.

  1. Navigate to ConfigurationManagement.
  2. Select Configured Systems from the accordion menu on the left. This displays the system list.
  3. Select one or more hosts to tag.
  4. Select PolicyEdit Tags.
  5. Under Tag Assignment, select a tag from Select a customer tag to assign and then choose a value from Select a value to assign. For example, you can tag this system as located in Chicago by selecting Location as the tag and Chicago as the value. Once selected, the user interface automatically adds this tag and value to the table below.
  6. Click Save.

The bare metal system is now configured with a set of policy tags.

2.2. Ansible Tower

Ansible Tower is a management tool integrated with Red Hat CloudForms, designed to help automate infrastructure operations. Red Hat CloudForms allows you to execute Ansible Tower jobs using service catalogs and Automate. No custom configuration or Ruby scripting is needed in Red Hat CloudForms, as configuration is done in Ansible Tower using playbooks.

You can use the large library of existing Ansible playbooks as Red Hat CloudForms state machines to automate tasks such as backups, package updates, and maintenance in your Red Hat CloudForms environment. This also includes deploying Red Hat Satellite agents on bare metal machines as required. This can be particularly useful for quickly applying changes across large environments with many virtual machines or instances. Using Ansible Tower, you can schedule Ansible playbook runs and monitor current and historical results, allowing for troubleshooting or identification of issues before they occur.

The basic workflow when using Red Hat CloudForms with an Ansible Tower provider is as follows:

  1. Create an Ansible playbook which performs a specific task.
  2. A new Ansible Tower job template is created from the playbook, which is then retrieved by Red Hat CloudForms.
  3. From the Ansible Tower job template, create a new catalog item in Red Hat CloudForms, optionally with a service dialog that allows the user to enter parameters if needed.
  4. The user orders the service from the Red Hat CloudForms user interface, and fills out any additional arguments (for example, limiting the task to run on a specific set of virtual machines).
  5. The job executes.
Note

For more information on Ansible playbooks, see the Ansible playbook documentation.

2.2.1. Adding an Ansible Tower Provider

To access your Ansible Tower inventory from Red Hat CloudForms, you must add Ansible Tower as a provider.

  1. Navigate to ConfigurationManagementProviders.
  2. Under Configuration Configuration, click Add a new Provider Add a new Provider.
  3. In the Add a new Configuration Management Provider area:

    Add_Ansible_Provider

    1. Enter a Name for the new provider.
    2. In the Type field, select Ansible Tower from the list.
    3. Enter the URL location or IP address to the Ansible Tower server.
  4. Select the Verify Peer Certificate checkbox if desired.
  5. In the Credentials area, provide the Username and Password, and Confirm Password.
  6. Click Add.

After adding the Ansible Tower provider, refresh its relationships and power states in order to view the current inventory.

2.2.2. Refreshing an Ansible Tower Provider

Refresh relationships of all items related to an existing Ansible Tower configuration management provider including inventory, hosts, virtual machines, and clusters.

You can refresh inventory from Red Hat CloudForms, or by enabling the Update on Launch option for inventory groups in Ansible Tower. The Update on Launch option allows Ansible Tower to automatically update inventory using a dynamic inventory script before launching an Ansible Tower job from a playbook. See the Ansible Tower documentation for more information.

Important

It can take a long time to retrieve information from providers containing many virtual machines or instances. The Ansible Tower dynamic inventory script can be modified to limit updates to specific items and reduce refresh time.

To refresh an Ansible Tower provider’s inventory in Red Hat CloudForms:

  1. Navigate to ConfigurationManagementProviders.
  2. Select the checkboxes for the Ansible Tower providers to refresh under All Ansible Tower Providers.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Refresh Relationships and Power States (Refresh Relationships and Power States).
  4. Click OK.

Red Hat CloudForms then queries the Ansible Tower API and obtains an inventory of all available hosts and job templates.

2.2.3. Viewing Ansible Tower Providers and Inventory

Red Hat CloudForms automatically updates its inventory from Ansible Tower. This includes system groups (known as Inventories in Ansible Tower), basic information about individual systems, and available Ansible Tower job templates to be executed from the service catalog or Automate.

Note

To view and access Ansible Tower inventories and job templates in Red Hat CloudForms, you must first create them in Ansible Tower.

To view a list of Ansible Tower providers and inventory:

  1. Navigate to ConfigurationManagementProviders.
  2. Under All Configuration Manager Providers, select the Ansible Tower Providers accordion menu to display a list of providers.
  3. Select your Ansible Tower provider to expand and list the inventory groups on that Ansible Tower system. The inventory groups can be expanded to view the systems contained within each group, as well as configuration details for these systems.

Similarly, all discovered job templates are accessed under the provider by expanding the ConfigurationManagementAnsible Tower Job Templates accordion menu.

2.2.4. Viewing Ansible Tower Configured Systems

To view the systems in your Ansible Tower inventory:

  1. Navigate to ConfigurationManagementConfigured Systems.
  2. Under All Configured Systems, select Ansible Tower Configured Systems to display a list.

2.2.5. Executing an Ansible Tower Job Template from a Service Catalog

You can execute an Ansible Tower playbook from Red Hat CloudForms by creating a service catalog item from an Ansible Tower job template.

Important

You must first create the job template in Ansible Tower. The job templates are automatically discovered by Red Hat CloudForms when refreshing your Ansible Tower provider’s inventory.

First, create a catalog:

  1. Navigate to ServicesCatalogs.
  2. Click Configuration (Configuration), then Add a New Catalog (Add a New Catalog)
  3. Enter a Name and Description for the catalog.
  4. Click Add.

Then, create an Ansible Tower service catalog item:

  1. Navigate to ConfigurationManagement.
  2. Click Ansible Tower Job Templates and select an Ansible Tower job template.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then Create Service Dialog from this Job Template (Create Service Dialog from this Job Template).
  4. Enter a Service Dialog Name (for example, ansible_tower_job)and click Save.
  5. Navigate to ServicesCatalogs. Click Catalog Items.
  6. Click Configuration (Configuration), then Add a New Catalog Item (Add a New Catalog Item) to create a new catalog item with the following details, at minimum:

    • For Catalog Item type, select Ansible Tower.
    • Enter a Name for the service catalog item.
    • Select Display in Catalog.
    • In Catalog, select the catalog you created previously.
    • In Dialog, select the service dialog you created previously (in this example, ansible_tower_job). No Dialog can be selected if the playbook does not require extra variables from the user. To ask the user to enter extra information when running the task, Service Dialog must be selected.
    • In Provider, select your Ansible Tower provider. This brings up the Ansible Tower Job Template option and configures the Provisioning Entry Point State Machine automatically.
    • Select your desired Ansible Tower Job Template from the list. Generally, this is the Ansible Tower job template previously used to create the service dialog.

      Add AT Service Catalog Item

  7. Click Add. The catalog item you created will appear in the All Service Catalog Items list.

To execute the Ansible Tower job:

  1. Navigate to Service CatalogsAnsible Tower catalog.

    Order AT Catalog Item

  2. Click Order for the catalog item.
  3. Enter any variables requested and click Submit.

Red Hat CloudForms takes you to the Requests queue page and show the status of the job.

The service item’s details can be viewed in ServicesMy Services in Red Hat CloudForms.

Note

Instead of running a single job at a time, multiple service catalog items can also be grouped together as a catalog bundle to create one deployment with multiple job templates. See Catalogs and Services in Provisioning Virtual Machines and Hosts for more information.

2.2.6. Executing an Ansible Tower Job Using a Custom Automate Button

Red Hat CloudForms can execute Ansible Tower jobs on virtual machines or instances using custom buttons in Automate.

Ansible Tower jobs can either be non-customizable, which do not require any extra configuration from the user, or alternatively, they can allow the user to specify a parameter (for example, a package name to install). In Ansible Tower jobs containing a dialog, Red Hat CloudForms accepts additional information from the user and adds it to the appropriate API call in Automate, and then sends it into Ansible Tower.

Prerequisites

Before creating an Automate button to execute an Ansible Tower job, the following must be configured:

  • An Ansible playbook in Ansible Tower. See the Ansible Tower documentation for instructions.
  • Ansible Tower must be able reach virtual machines or instances deployed by Red Hat CloudForms at the IP level.
  • The virtual machine template must have the Ansible Tower environment’s public SSH key injected. For cloud instances, cloud-init can be used and the public SSH key can be passed without rebuilding the image.
  • Any dynamic inventory scripts used must be configured to return the virtual machine names exactly as they are stored in Red Hat CloudForms, without the UUID appended.

Executing an Ansible Tower Job using a Custom Automate Button

To configure a custom button to execute an Ansible Tower job on a virtual machine or instance, first create the button:

  1. Navigate to AutomateCustomization.
  2. Click the Buttons accordion menu.
  3. Click VM and InstanceUnassigned Buttons. This configures the button to run on virtual machines or instances.
  4. Click 1847 (Configuration), then click 1862 (Add a new Button).

    • In the Adding a new Button screen, configure the Action parameters as desired. Dialog can be left blank if the playbook does not require extra variables. To ask the user to enter extra information when running the task, Service Dialog must be selected.
    • Configure Object Details fields with the following request details:

      • For System/Process, select Request.
      • For Message, enter create.
      • For Request, enter Ansible_Tower_Job.
    • Configure Attribute/Value Pairs with the following parameters:

      • job_template_name is the Ansible Tower job template name to associate with the button. The job_template_name field is mandatory; other parameters are provided by the Tower job dialog.
    • Configure Visibility to all users, or limit visibility by role as desired.

      Add button

    • Click Add.

If you do not have an existing button group to assign the new button to, create a new button group:

  1. From AutomateCustomization, navigate to ButtonsVM and InstanceAdd a new Button Group, and configure the following:

    • Configure Basic Info as desired. For example, name the button group VM Actions.
    • In Assign Buttons, select the button you just created from the Unassigned list and click 1876 to assign it to Selected.

      Create button group

    • Click Add.

To assign the button to an existing button group:

  1. Navigate to ButtonsVM and InstanceVM ActionsEdit this Button Group.
  2. In Assign Buttons, select the button you just created from the Unassigned list and click 1876 to assign it to Selected.
  3. Click Add.

To use the button to run an Ansible Tower job on a virtual machine:

  1. Navigate to ComputeInfrastructureVirtual Machines.
  2. Select the virtual machine to run the Ansible Tower job template on.
  3. Click the VM Actions button to show the button you created, and click the button from the list to run the Ansible Tower job template.

    Run Update Button

  4. Click Submit to execute the job.

Red Hat CloudForms then confirms the job has been executed.

If you selected a service dialog to run when creating the button, Red Hat CloudForms will then prompt you to enter variables to complete the task. After entering your desired parameters, Red Hat CloudForms takes you to the Requests page.

The service item’s details can be viewed in ServicesMy Services in Red Hat CloudForms.

Chapter 3. Cloud Providers

In CloudForms, a cloud provider is a cloud computing environment that you can add to a CloudForms appliance to manage and interact with the resources in that environment. This chapter describes the different types of cloud providers that you can add to CloudForms, and how to manage them. Most cloud providers are added individually to CloudForms. Additionally, Amazon EC2 and Azure cloud providers can be discovered automatically by CloudForms.

The web interface uses virtual thumbnails to represent cloud providers. Each thumbnail contains four quadrants by default, which display basic information about each provider:

Cloudthumbnail1

  1. Number of instances
  2. Management system software
  3. Number of images
  4. Authentication status

Table 3.1. Provider authentication status

IconDescription

2190

Validated: Valid authentication credentials have been added.

2191

Invalid: Authentication credentials are invalid.

2192

Unknown: Authentication status is unknown or no credentials have been entered.

3.1. OpenStack Providers

3.1.1. Adding OpenStack Providers

Red Hat CloudForms supports operating with the OpenStack admin tenant. When creating an OpenStack provider in Red Hat CloudForms, select the OpenStack provider’s admin user because it is the default administrator of the OpenStack admin tenant. When using the admin credentials, a user in Red Hat CloudForms provisions into the admin tenant, and sees images, networks, and instances that are associated with the admin tenant.

Note

In OpenStack, you must add admin as a member of all tenants that users want to access and use in CloudForms.

When adding an OpenStack cloud or infrastructure provider, you can enable tenant mapping in Red Hat CloudForms to map any existing tenants from that provider. This means Red Hat CloudForms will create new cloud tenants to match each of existing OpenStack tenants; each new cloud tenant and its corresponding OpenStack tenant will have identical user memberships, quotas, access/security rules, and resources assignments.

During a provider refresh, Red Hat CloudForms will also check for any changes to the tenant list in OpenStack. Red Hat CloudForms will create new cloud tenants to match any new tenants, and delete any cloud tenants whose corresponding OpenStack tenants no longer exist. Red Hat CloudForms will also replicate any changes to OpenStack tenants to their corresponding cloud tenants.

Note

You can set whether Red Hat CloudForms should use the Telemetry service or Advanced Message Queueing Protocol (AMQP) for event monitoring. If you choose Telemetry, you should first configure the ceilometer service on the overcloud to store events. See Section 3.1.1.1, “Configuring the Overcloud to Store Events” for instructions.

For more information, see OpenStack Telemetry (ceilometer) in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Architecture Guide.

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders.
  2. Click 1847 (Configuration), then click 1848 (Add a New Cloud Provider).
  3. Enter a Name for the provider.
  4. From the Type drop down menu select OpenStack.
  5. Select the appropriate API Version from the list. The default is Keystone v2.

    If you select Keystone v3, enter the Keystone V3 Domain ID that Red Hat CloudForms should use. This is the domain of the user account you will be specifying later in the Default tab. If domains are not configured in the provider, enter default.

    Note
    • With Keystone API v3, domains are used to determine administrative boundaries of service entities in OpenStack. Domains allow you to group users together for various purposes, such as setting domain-specific configuration or security options. For more information, see OpenStack Identity (keystone) in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Architecture Guide.
    • The provider you are creating will be able to see projects for the given domain only. To see projects for other domains, add it as another cloud provider. For more information on domain management in OpenStack, see Domain Management in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Users and Identity Management Guide.
  6. By default, tenant mapping is disabled. To enable it, set Tenant Mapping Enabled to Yes.
  7. Select the appropriate Zone for the provider. By default, the zone is set to default.

    Note

    For more information, see the definition of host aggregates and availability zones in OpenStack Compute (nova) in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Architecture Guide.

  8. In the Default tab, under Endpoints, configure the host and authentication details of your OpenStack provider:

    1. In Hostname (or IPv4 or IPv6 address), enter the public IP or fully qualified domain name of the OpenStack Keystone service.

      Note

      The hostname required here is also the OS_AUTH_URL value in the ~/overcloudrc file generated by the director (see Accessing the Overcloud in Red Hat OpenStack Platform Director Installation and Usage), or the ~/keystonerc_admin file generated by Packstack (see Evaluating OpenStack: Single-Node Deployment).

    2. In API Port, set the public port used by the OpenStack Keystone service. By default, OpenStack uses port 5000 for this.
    3. Select the appropriate Security Protocol used for authenticating with your OpenStack provider.
    4. In the Username field, enter the name of a user in the OpenStack environment.

      Important

      In environments that use Keystone v3 authentication, the user must have the admin role for the relevant domain.

    5. In the Password and Confirm Password fields, enter the password for the user.
    6. Click Validate to confirm Red Hat CloudForms can connect to the OpenStack provider.
  9. Next, configure how Red Hat CloudForms should receive events from the OpenStack provider. Click the Events tab in the Endpoints section to start.

    • To use the Telemetry service of the OpenStack provider, select Ceilometer. Before you do so, the provider must first be configured accordingly. See Section 3.1.1.1, “Configuring the Overcloud to Store Events” for details.
    • If you prefer to use the AMQP Messaging bus instead, select AMQP. When you do: In Hostname (or IPv4 or IPv6 address) (of the Events tab, under Endpoints), enter the public IP or fully qualified domain name of the AMQP host.

      • In the API Port, set the public port used by AMQP. By default, OpenStack uses port 5672 for this.
      • In the Username field, enter the name of an OpenStack user with privileged access (for example, admin). Then, provide its corresponding password in the Password and Confirm Password fields.
      • Click Validate to confirm the credentials.
  10. Click Add after configuring the cloud provider.
Note

To collect inventory and metrics from an OpenStack environment, the Red Hat CloudForms appliance requires that the adminURL endpoint for the OpenStack environment be on a non-private network. Hence, the OpenStack adminURL endpoint should be assigned an IP address other than 192.168.x.x. Additionally, all the Keystone endpoints must be accessible, otherwise refresh will fail.

3.1.1.1. Configuring the Overcloud to Store Events

By default, the Telemetry service does not store events emitted by other services in a Red Hat OpenStack Platform environment. The following procedure outlines how to enable the Telemetry service on your OpenStack cloud provider to store such events. This ensures that events are exposed to Red Hat CloudForms when a Red Hat OpenStack Platform environment is added as a cloud provider.

  1. Log in to the undercloud host.
  2. Create an environment file called ceilometer.yaml, and add the following contents:

    parameter_defaults:
      CeilometerStoreEvents: true
  3. Please see the below NOTE.

If your OpenStack cloud provider was not deployed through the undercloud, you can also set this manually. To do so:

  1. Log in to your Controller node.
  2. Edit /etc/ceilometer/ceilometer.conf, and specify the following option:

    store_events = True
Note

Passing the newly created environment file to the overcloud deployment is environment specific and requires executing commands in particular order depending on use of variables. For further information please see Director Installation and Usage in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform documentation.

3.2. Azure Providers

3.2.1. Adding Azure Providers

Red Hat CloudForms supports Microsoft Azure providers. Before CloudForms can be authenticated to Microsoft Azure, you must complete a series of prerequisite steps using the Azure portal; see Create Active Directory application and service principal account using the Azure portal. Follow the steps to set up an Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and assign the required permissions to it, then create an Azure Active Directory application, and obtain the Application ID (Client ID), Directory ID (Tenant ID), Subscription ID, and Key Value (Client Key) that are required to add and connect to the Azure instance as a provider in CloudForms. Currently, all of these steps can be performed using either the Azure Resource Manager or Service Manager (Classic) mode.

Note

In the steps described in Create Active Directory application and service principal account using the Azure portal:

  • The Application ID obtained during Get Application ID and Authentication Key is your Client ID. In the same section, after providing a description and a duration for the key, the VALUE displayed after clicking Save is your Client Key. If you choose an expiring key, make sure to note the expiration date, as you will need to generate a new key before that day in order to avoid an interruption.
  • The Directory ID obtained during Get Tenant ID is your Tenant ID. In Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), a tenant is a dedicated instance of the Azure AD service and is representative of an organization. It houses the users in a company and the information about them - their user profile data, permissions, groups, applications, and other information related to an organization and its security. To allow Azure AD users to sign in to your application, you must register your application in a tenant of your own which is assigned a Tenant ID (Directory ID).
  • During Assign Application to Role, select the Contributor role and not the Reader role.
  • To obtain your Subscription ID, log in to the Azure portal and click Subscriptions on the slide-out menu on the left. Find the appropriate subscription and see your Azure Subscription ID associated with it. Note that if the Subscriptions tab is not visible, then click on More services > to find it. The Azure Subscription ID is like a billing unit for all of the services consumed in your Azure account, including virtual machines and storage. The Subscription ID is in the form of a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID).

So, after a service principal account (instance of an application in a directory) has been created using the Azure portal, the following four pieces of information will be available within the Azure AD module.

  • Directory ID (Tenant ID)
  • Subscription ID
  • Application ID (Client ID)
  • Client Key

You can now use these values in the procedure below to add an Azure cloud instance as a provider to CloudForms.

To Add an Azure Cloud Provider:

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders.
  2. Click 1847 (Configuration), then click 1862 (Add a New Cloud Provider).
  3. Enter a Name for the provider.
  4. From the Type list, select Azure.
  5. Select a region from the Region list. One provider will be created for the selected region.
  6. Enter Tenant ID.
  7. Enter Subscription ID.
  8. Enter Zone.
  9. In the Credentials section, enter the Client ID and Client Key; click Validate.
  10. Click Add.

3.2.2. Discovering Azure Providers

Red Hat CloudForms provides the ability to discover a set of Microsoft Azure providers across all regions.

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders.
  2. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Discover Cloud Providers (Discover Cloud Providers).
  3. Select Azure from the Discover Type list.
  4. In the Credentials section, enter your Azure Client ID, Client Key, Azure Tenant ID, and the Subscription ID for that tenant.
  5. Click Start.

3.3. Amazon EC2 Providers

3.3.1. Permissions for Amazon EC2 Providers

Red Hat recommends using Amazon EC2’s Power User Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy when adding Amazon EC2 as a cloud provider in CloudForms. This policy allows those in the Power User group full access to AWS services except for user administration, meaning a CloudForms API user can access all of the API functionality, but cannot access or change user permissions.

Further limiting API access limitations can limit Automate capabilities, as Automate scripts directly access the AWS SDK to create brand new application functionality.

The AWS services primarily accessed by the CloudForms API include:

  • Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
  • CloudFormation
  • CloudWatch
  • Elastic Load Balancing
  • Simple Notification Service (SNS)
  • Simple Queue Service (SQS)

3.3.2. Adding Amazon EC2 Providers

After initial installation and creation of a Red Hat CloudForms environment, add an Amazon EC2 cloud provider by following this procedure:

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders.
  2. Click 1847 (Configuration), then click 1862 (Add a New Cloud Provider).
  3. Enter a Name for the provider.
  4. From the Type list, select Amazon EC2.
  5. Select an Amazon Region.
  6. Select the appropriate Zone if you have more than one available.
  7. Generate an Access Key in the Security Credentials of your Amazon AWS account. The Access Key ID acts as your User ID, and your Secret Access Key acts as your Password.
  8. Click Validate to validate the credentials.
  9. Click Add.

3.3.3. Discovering Amazon EC2 Cloud Providers

Red Hat CloudForms provides the ability to discover cloud providers associated with a particular set of Amazon EC2 account details.

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders.
  2. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Discover Cloud Providers (Discover Cloud Providers).
  3. Select Amazon EC2 from the Discover Type list.
  4. Enter your Amazon EC2 User ID and Password. Reenter your password in the Verify Password field.
  5. Click Start.

3.3.4. Enabling Public AMIs from Amazon EC2

By default, public AMIs from an Amazon EC2 provider are not viewable in Red Hat CloudForms. To make these images viewable, you must edit the main configuration file for the appliance.

  1. Navigate to the settings menu, then ConfigurationZoneAdvanced.
  2. Select the configuration file to edit from the File list. If not already automatically selected, select EVM Server Main Configuration.
  3. Set the get_public_images parameter:

    1. Set the parameter to get_public_images: true to make public images viewable.
    2. Set the parameter to get_public_images: false to make public images not viewable.

3.3.5. Enabling AWS Config Notifications

Amazon’s AWS Config notifies subscribers of changes in a region through its Simple Notification Service (SNS). Red Hat CloudForms subscribes to the SNS service for AWS Config deltas and converts the deltas into Red Hat CloudForms events.

  1. Enable the AWS Config service in the AWS Management Console. See the AWS Config Developer Guide for more information.
  2. Create a new Amazon SNS topic named AWSConfig_topic. Red Hat CloudForms automatically connects to this topic.
  3. (Optional) Configure the frequency of delta creation in the AWS Management Console.

You can assign Red Hat CloudForms policies to the AWS events listed below. The appliance performs a provider refresh on all these events except for AWS_EC2_Instance_UPDATE.

EventPoliciesRefresh

AWS_EC2_Instance_CREATE

src_vm

vm_create

ems

AWS_EC2_Instance_UPDATE

N/A

ems

AWS_EC2_Instance_running

src_vm

vm_start

ems

AWS_EC2_Instance_stopped

src_vm

vm_power_off

ems

AWS_EC2_Instance_shutting-down

src_vm

vm_power_off

ems

3.4. Google Compute Engine Providers

3.4.1. Adding Google Compute Engine Providers

After initial installation and creation of a Red Hat CloudForms environment, add a Google Compute Engine provider by following this procedure.

Prerequisites

To add a Google Compute Engine provider to Red Hat CloudForms, you need:

  • A Google Cloud Platform account
  • A Google Compute Engine project with the Google Compute Engine API enabled
  • A service account JSON key for your project

    Note

    You can generate a private JSON key for your project in IAM & AdminService Accounts in Google Cloud Platform. This key is used to authenticate against your provider.

    For additional information, see the Google Cloud Platform documentation at https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/authentication.

To add a Google Compute Engine provider:

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders.
  2. Click 1847 (Configuration), then click 1862 (Add a New Cloud Provider).
  3. Enter a Name for the provider.
  4. From the Type list, select Google Compute Engine.
  5. Select your Preferred Region from the list.
  6. Enter your Google Compute Engine Project ID for Project.
  7. Select the appropriate Zone if you have more than one available. Red Hat recommends creating a new zone for your Google Compute Engine provider.
  8. Copy your project’s Service Account JSON key contents to the Service Account JSON field.
  9. Click Validate to validate the credentials.
  10. Click Add.
Note

Make sure that NTP synchronization is enabled and working. When clocks are not synchronized, the following error will be raised:

Credential validation was not successful: Authorization failed. Server message: { "error" : "invalid_grant", "error_description" : "Invalid JWT: Token must be a short-lived token and in a reasonable timeframe" }

3.4.2. Enabling Google Compute Engine Events

After adding Google Compute Engine as a provider in Red Hat CloudForms, enable events for the provider so that you can monitor the system from Red Hat CloudForms.

Events are set up on a per-project basis by using Google Stackdriver logging combined with Google Pub/Sub. Stackdriver logging is a service that aggregates and exposes log events from Google services and applications. Stackdriver exports the log events to Google Pub/Sub, a messaging service. This section describes how to export activity log entries for a Google Compute Engine project so that events are captured in Red Hat CloudForms.

Prerequisites for Exporting Google Compute Engine Events

  • You must have owner permission on the project you are exporting.
  • The Google Cloud Pub/Sub API must be enabled for your project. To enable the API:
  1. In Google Cloud Platform, select your project from the top menu bar.
  2. Click GCE products services to show the Products and Services menu. Click API Manager to go to https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/library/.
  3. In the API Manager Overview tab, search for Pub/Sub in the Google APIs search bar and select Google Cloud Pub/Sub API from the results. Click the Enable button.
  4. If Google Cloud Pub/Sub API is already enabled, the Enable button will not show, and instead Google Cloud Pub/Sub API will be listed under Enabled APIs.
  • The Stackdriver logging service must have permission to publish to your project’s Pub/Sub service. To add the required permissions:
  1. In Google Cloud Platform, select your project and navigate to GCE products services Products and ServicesIAM & AdminIAM to go to https://console.cloud.google.com/iam-admin/iam/.
  2. Assign Logs Configuration Writer permissions to your project:

    1. If the cloud-logs@system.gserviceaccount.com account is already listed under Members, ensure Logs Configuration Writer is selected under Role(s).
    2. If the cloud-logs@system.gserviceaccount.com account is not listed under Members:

      1. Click Add to add the permissions.
      2. In the dialog box, enter cloud-logs@system.gserviceaccount.com in Members to add the Google APIs service account to the permissions list.
      3. In the Select a Role dropdown, select LoggingLogs Configuration Writer and click Add.

3.4.2.1. Configuring Google Compute Engine to Export Events

After you have completed the steps from Prerequisites for Exporting Google Compute Engine Events, set up your Google Compute Engine project to export events to Red Hat CloudForms with the following steps:

  1. In Google Cloud Platform, click GCE products services to show the Products and Services menu, and click Logging to go to https://console.cloud.google.com/logs/.
  2. Select your project from the top menu bar.
  3. Click Exports from the Logging menu.
  4. In the Select service list, select Compute Engine.
  5. Under Export these sources, click Add item, and select compute.googleapis.com/activity_log from the list.
  6. Under Select export destinations, click the Publish to Cloud Pub/Sub topic dropdown and click Add new topic…​
  7. In the Create Cloud Pub/Sub Topic dialog, enter manageiq-activity-log as the Name. Click Create.

    GCE exports

  8. Click Save.

When changes occur to Google Compute Engine instances, Red Hat CloudForms is now notified and reports these changes as events.

Note

For additional information about Google Compute Engine, see the Google Cloud Platform documentation:

3.4.2.2. Viewing Google Compute Engine Events in Red Hat CloudForms

In Red Hat CloudForms, view events for your Google Compute Engine project by following these steps:

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders and select your Google Compute Engine project.
  2. Click MonitoringTimelines on the provider summary page to see an events timeline for the project.

3.5. Refreshing Cloud Providers

Refresh a cloud provider to find other resources related to it. Ensure the chosen cloud providers have the correct credentials before refreshing.

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders.
  2. Select the checkboxes for the cloud providers to refresh.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Refresh Relationships and Power States (Refresh Relationships and Power States).
  4. Click OK.

3.6. Tagging Cloud Providers

Apply tags to all cloud providers to categorize them together at the same time.

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders.
  2. Select the checkboxes for the Cloud Providers to tag.
  3. Click Policy (Policy), and then Edit Tags (Edit Tags).
  4. Select a customer tag to assign from the first list.

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  5. Select a value to assign from the second list.
  6. Click Save.

3.7. Removing Cloud Providers

A cloud provider might require removal from the VMDB if it is no longer in use.

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders.
  2. Check the cloud providers to remove.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Remove Cloud Providers from the VMDB (Remove Cloud Providers from the VMDB).
  4. Click OK.

3.8. Editing a Cloud Provider

Edit information about a provider such as the name, IP address, and login credentials.

Note

The Type value is unchangeable.

To use a different cloud provider, create a new one.

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders.
  2. Click the cloud provider to edit.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Edit Selected Cloud Provider (Edit Selected Cloud Provider).
  4. Edit the Basic Information. This varies depending on the Type of provider.
  5. Fill out the Credentials by typing in a Username, Password, and a verification of this password (Confirm Password).

    • If selecting Amazon EC2, generate an Access Key in the Security Credentials of your Amazon AWS account. The Access Key ID acts as your User ID, and your Secret Access Key acts as your Password.
    • If selecting OpenStack, use the Keystone User ID and Password for your login credentials.
  6. If editing an OpenStack provider, use the AMQP subtab to provide credentials required for the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol service on your OpenStack Nova component.
  7. Click Validate and wait for notification of successful validation.
  8. Click Save.

3.9. Viewing a Cloud Provider’s Timeline

View the timeline of events for instances registered to a cloud provider.

  1. Navigate to ComputeCloudsProviders.
  2. Click the desired cloud provider for viewing the timeline.
  3. Click Monitoring (Monitoring), and then Timelines (Timelines).
  4. From Options, customize the period of time to display and the types of events to see.

    • Use Show to select regular Management Events or Policy Events.
    • Use the Type list to select hourly or daily data points.
    • Use Date to type the date for the timeline to display.
    • If you select to view a daily timeline, use Show to set how many days back to go. The maximum history is 31 days.
    • The three Event Groups list allow you to select different groups of events to display. Each has its own color.
    • From the Level list, select a Summary event, or a Detail list of events.

Chapter 4. Network Managers

In Red Hat CloudForms, a network manager is an inventory of networking entities on existing cloud and infrastructure providers managed by your CloudForms appliance.

This provider type exposes software-defined networking (SDN) providers including OpenStack Network (Neutron), Azure Network, Amazon EC2 Network, and Google Cloud Network, which enables software-defined networking inventory collection. The OpenStack Network provider collects inventory of floating IPs from OpenStack so that IPs can be allocated without querying OpenStack database every time. Also, it refreshes all Neutron data from both OpenStack and OpenStack Infrastructure, and extracts the Neutron logic to a shared place. Note that management via the network providers configuration is currently disabled.

This chapter describes the different types of network managers available to CloudForms, and how to manage them. Network managers are discovered automatically by CloudForms from other connected providers.

4.1. Adding or Viewing Network Providers

Note

All supported network providers — OpenStack Network, Azure Network, and Amazon EC2 Network, are added or removed automatically upon adding or removing the respective cloud provider.

Viewing network providers:

  1. Navigate to NetworksProviders to see a list of all network providers, along with information such as Name, Type, EVM Zone, Number of Instances, Subnets, and Region.
  2. Click on a provider from the list to view its summary screen.

Network providers summary:

The summary screen includes tables containing information on Properties, Status, Relationships, Overview, and Smart Management. Click on rows in the Relationship and Overview tables to see detailed information for individual entities.

Accordion tabs in the sidebar provide access to Properties and Relationships details.

Click on Reload, Configuration, Policy, and Monitoring actions in the taskbar to manage the selected provider.

Note

Alternatively, click on a cloud provider to see the cloud provider details and its relationships such as Network Manager, Tenants, Instances among others. In Relationships, click Network Manager to see information about the network provider, and its relationship with the cloud provider, on the summary page.

4.2. Refreshing Network Providers

Refresh a network provider to find other resources related to it. Ensure the selected network providers have the correct credentials before refreshing.

  1. Navigate to NetworksProviders.
  2. Select the network providers to refresh.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Refresh Relationships and Power States (Refresh Relationships and Power States).
  4. Click OK.

4.3. Tagging Network Providers

Apply tags to network providers to categorize them together at the same time.

  1. Navigate to NetworksProviders.
  2. Select the network providers to tag.
  3. Click Policy (Policy), and then Edit Tags (Edit Tags).
  4. Select a customer tag to assign from the first list.
  5. Select a value to assign from the second list.
  6. Click Save.

4.4. Removing Network Providers

Although network providers are added or removed automatically upon adding or removing the respective cloud provider, you can manually remove a network provider if it is no longer in use. This will remove the network provider from the VMDB and any relationship with the cloud provider.

  1. Navigate to NetworksProviders.
  2. Click the network provider to remove.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Remove this Network Provider from the VMDB (Remove this Network Provider from the VMDB).
  4. Click OK.

4.5. Viewing a Network Provider’s Timeline

View the timeline of events for instances registered to a network provider.

  1. Navigate to NetworksProviders.
  2. Click the network provider you want to monitor the timeline for.
  3. Click Monitoring (Monitoring), and then Timelines (Timelines).
  4. From Options, select the event type and interval, and customize the period of time to display and the types of events to see.

    • Select Management Events or Policy Events from the Show list.
    • Select an Interval between Hourly and Daily.
    • Select Date.
    • If you selected Daily for Interval, set the number of days in the past to see the event timeline for. The maximum is 31 days back.
    • Select Summary or Detail for Level.
    • Select the required Event Groups from the lists you want to monitor the timeline for.

You can also assign policy profiles to network providers, or remove them. The method for doing so is similar to that of any normal policy profile. See Assigning Policy Profiles to a Network Provider and Removing Policy Profiles from a Network Provider in the Policies and Profiles Guide.

4.6. Using the Topology Widget for Network Providers

The Topology widget is an interactive topology graph, showing the status and relationships between the different entities of the network providers that Red Hat CloudForms has access to.

The topology graph includes cloud subnets, virtual machines, security groups, floating IP addresses, cloud networks, network routers, cloud tenants, and tags within the overall network provider environment.

Each entity in the graph displays a color indication of its status: green indicates an active entity, while red indicates inactivity or an issue.

Network Topology

Using the Topology Widget

  1. Navigate to NetworksTopology.
  2. Click the desired network provider for viewing the provider summary.

Alternatively, you can open the topology widget from the provider summary page by clicking Topology under Overview.

  • Hovering over any individual graph element will display a summary of details for the individual element.
  • Double-click an entity in the graph to navigate to its summary page.
  • Drag elements to reposition the graph.
  • Click the symbols in the legend at the top of the graph to show or hide entities.
  • Click the Display Names checkbox to show or hide entity names.
  • Click Refresh to refresh the display of the network provider entities.
  • Enter a search term in the Search box to locate an entity by full or partial name.

Chapter 5. Middleware Management Providers

In Red Hat CloudForms, a middleware provider is a middleware management environment that you can add to a Red Hat CloudForms appliance to manage and interact with the resources in that environment. This chapter describes the different types of middleware providers that you can add to Red Hat CloudForms, and how to manage them.

5.1. Middleware Management

The middleware provider extends Red Hat CloudForms management capabilities to JBoss Middleware application containers running in managed virtual machines, hosts, and Linux containers. The provider delivers inventory, events, metrics, and power operations. Middleware management in Red Hat CloudForms is a provider based on the Hawkular open source project. When feature complete, the middleware management provider will replace the current Red Hat middleware management offering, JBoss Operations Network.

Note

Middleware management providers are available as a technology preview in this release of Red Hat CloudForms. For more information on the support scope for features marked as technology previews, see Technology Preview Features Support Scope.

5.1.1. Adding Middleware Management Providers

To add a middleware management provider:

  1. Navigate to MiddlewareProviders.
  2. Click 1847 (Configuration), then click 1862 (Add a New Middleware Provider).
  3. In the Add a New Middleware Provider screen, enter the following:

    • Name - Enter a name for the provider, for example, Middleware Manager.
    • Type - Select Hawkular.
    • Zone - Accept the default.

      Endpoints

    • Hostname (or IPv4 or IPv6 address) Host name of the machine where you installed the middleware manager.
    • API Port - Port of the middleware manager. The default is 8080.
    • User Name - The user name used to start the middleware manager. This should match the HAWKULAR_USERNAME.
    • Password - This should match the HAWKULAR_PASSWORD.
    • Confirm Password - Reenter the password.
  4. Before you add the provider, click the Validate button to confirm that the user has the proper credentials.
  5. Click Add.
  6. Click 1847 (Configuration), then click 2003 (Refresh Items and Relationships).

Red Hat CloudForms displays the Summary screen.

Provider Summary Screen

Chapter 6. Containers Providers

A containers provider is a service that manages container resources that can be added to the Red Hat CloudForms appliance.

CloudForms can connect to OpenShift Enterprise containers providers and manage them similarly to infrastructure and cloud providers. This allows you to gain control over different aspects of your containers environment and answer questions, such as:

  • How many containers exist in my environment?
  • Does a specific node have enough resources?
  • How many distinct images are used?
  • Which image registries are used?

When CloudForms connects to a container’s environment, it collects information on different areas of the environment:

  • Entities such as pods, nodes, or services.
  • Basic relationships between the entities, for example: Which services are serving which pods?
  • Advanced insight into relationships, for example: Which two different containers are using the same image?
  • Additional information, such as events, projects, routes, and metrics.

You can manage policies for containers entities by adding tags. All containers entities except volumes can be tagged.

6.1. Obtaining an OpenShift Enterprise Management Token

When deploying OpenShift Enterprise using openshift-ansible-3.0.20 (or later versions), the OpenShift Enterprise service account and roles required by Red Hat CloudForms are installed by default.

Note

See the OpenShift Enterprise documentation for a list of the default roles.

To obtain the token to use for the provider definition, follow the instructions below for your OpenShift Enterprise version.

6.1.1. Obtaining a Management Token in OpenShift Enterprise 3.2 and Later

Run the following to obtain the token needed to add an OpenShift Enterprise provider:

# oc sa get-token -n management-infra management-admin
eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiI...

6.1.2. Obtaining a Management Token in OpenShift Enterprise 3.1

Run the following to obtain the token needed to add an OpenShift Enterprise provider:

  1. To obtain the management service account token name, run the following command::

    # oc describe sa -n management-infra management-admin
    ...
    Tokens:  management-admin-token-0f3fh
             management-admin-token-q7a87
  2. Select one of the tokens and run the following command to retrieve the full token output:

    # oc describe secret -n management-infra management-admin-token-0f3fh
    ...
    Data
    ====
    token:  eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiI...

    Replace management-admin-token-0f3fh with the name of your token.

6.2. Enabling OpenShift Cluster Metrics

Use the OpenShift Cluster Metrics plug-in to collect node, pod, and container metrics into one location. This helps track usage and find common issues.

6.3. Adding an OpenShift Enterprise Provider

After initial installation and creation of a Red Hat CloudForms environment, add an OpenShift Enterprise provider using the token obtained in Section 6.1, “Obtaining an OpenShift Enterprise Management Token” and following the procedure below.

  1. Navigate to ComputeContainersProviders.
  2. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Add a New Containers Provider (Add a New Containers Provider).
  3. Enter a Name for the provider.
  4. From the Type list, select OpenShift Enterprise.
  5. Enter the appropriate Zone for the provider. By default, the zone is set to default.
  6. Enter the Hostname or IP address of the provider.

    Important

    The Hostname must use a unique fully qualified domain name.

  7. Enter the Port of the provider. The default port is 8443.
  8. Under Credentials, enter the token in the Token field. This is the token obtained earlier in Section 6.1, “Obtaining an OpenShift Enterprise Management Token”.

    • Click Validate to confirm that the Red Hat CloudForms can connect to the OpenShift Enterprise provider using the provided token.
  9. Click Add.
  10. The "Added!" pop-up displays when the provider has been added.

6.4. Tagging Containers Providers

Apply tags to all containers providers to categorize them together at the same time.

  1. Navigate to ComputeContainersProviders.
  2. Select the checkboxes for the containers providers to tag.
  3. Click Policy (Policy), and then Edit Tags (Edit Tags).
  4. Select a tag to assign from the drop-down menu.

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  5. Select a value to assign.
  6. Click Save.

6.5. Removing Containers Providers

You may want to remove a containers provider from the VMDB if the provider is no longer in use.

  1. Navigate to ComputeContainersProviders.
  2. Select the checkboxes for the containers providers to remove.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Remove Containers Providers from the VMDB (Remove Containers Providers from the VMDB).
  4. Click OK.

6.6. Editing a Containers Provider

Edit information about a provider such as the name, hostname, IP address or port, and credentials.

  1. Navigate to ComputeContainersProviders.
  2. Click the containers provider to edit.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Edit Selected Containers Provider (Edit Selected Containers Provider).
  4. Edit the Basic Information. This varies depending on the Type of provider.

    Note

    The Type value is unchangeable.

    To use a different containers provider, create a new one.

  5. Edit the Credentials by typing in a new Token.
  6. Click Validate and wait for notification of successful validation.
  7. Click Save.

6.7. Viewing a Containers Provider’s Timeline

View the timeline of events for instances registered to a containers provider.

  1. Navigate to ComputeContainersProviders.
  2. Click the desired containers provider for viewing the timeline.
  3. Click Monitoring (Monitoring), and then Timelines (Timelines).
  4. From Options, customize the period of time to display and the types of events to see.

    • Use Show to select regular Management Events or Policy Events.
    • Use the Interval dropdown to select hourly or daily data points.
    • Use Date to type the date for the timeline to display.
    • If you select to view a daily timeline, use Show to set how many days back to go. The maximum history is 31 days.
    • From the Level dropdown, select a Summary event, or a Detail list of events.
    • The three Event Groups dropdowns allow you to select different groups of events to display. Each has its own color.

Click on an item for more detailed information.

6.8. The Container Overview Page

Navigate to ComputeContainers<Object to view information on many different container objects.

6.8.1. Cross-Providers Insight

Cross-providers insight is a feature that connects all layers of infrastructure, cloud, and containers known to Red Hat CloudForms and collects data for analysis.

It supports cross-linking all of the layers available in the following environments:

  • OpenStack
  • Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization
  • VMware vCenter
  • Amazon EC2
  • Google Cloud Engine

The collected information includes all the data available in other (infrastructure or cloud) providers.

Note

For Amazon EC2 (AWS) and Google Cloud Engine (GCE) support, OpenShift must be installed using the relevant cloud provider. For more information, see the OpenShift Enterprise Installation and Configuration Guide, ensuring to use the desired version of OpenShift.

6.8.2. Working with the Containers Overview Page

The information on all containers providers and entities known to Red Hat CloudForms is summarized on the Containers Overview page. The Overview page provides links to other summary pages which contain further information on the containers providers and entities. The Overview page also provides metrics for Aggregated Node Utilization, Network Utilization Trend, New Image Usage Trend, Node Utilization, and Pod Creation and Deletion Trends.

Containers Overview

Working with the Containers Overview Page

  1. Navigate to ComputeContainersOverview.
  2. Click the desired containers entity, or provider, if applicable, for viewing the summary with further information.
Note

To reliably associate pods and images, CloudForms requires information from the docker-pullable field, added in OpenShift 3.3.1.2. This can affect the results of the Chargeback by Image report for older OpenShift providers, and potentially cause image inspection (done as part of Smart State Analysis) to fail due to associating a container to the wrong image. Consequently, CloudForms may not report accurate information about pods and images in OpenShift providers before version 3.3.1.2.

6.8.2.1. Viewing an Object Summary

Object summaries are found at ComputeContainersObject, and you can view information about a number of objects and their components.

Viewing a Containers Provider Summary

Navigate to ComputeContainersProviders to view information on different aspects of a containers provider. The summary includes:

  • The status of the provider and its components.
  • The relationships between different entities of the containers provider. These relationships are summarized in the Relationships box on the right-hand side of the summary page.

    Entity Relationships

  • Additional information on aggregated capacity of all CPU cores of all nodes, and aggregated capacity of all memory of all nodes.
Viewing a Container Nodes Summary

Navigate to ComputeContainersContainer Nodes to view information on different aspects of a container node. The summary includes:

  • The number of entities on a node.
  • A node’s capacity and utilization.
  • The version of the underlying operating system and software.

To view the timeline of events for a node from a container nodes summary page, click Monitoring (Monitoring), and then Timelines (Timelines).

Viewing a Containers Summary

Navigate to ComputeContainersContainers to view information on different aspects of a container. The summary includes:

  • The relationships of the container to a related node, pod, or image.
  • The node the container runs on.
  • The container ID.
  • Properties of the container image, such as name, tag, etc.
Viewing a Container Images Summary

Navigate to ComputeContainersContainer Images to view information on different aspects of a container image. The summary includes:

  • The containers currently using the images.
  • The image registry the image is from.
Viewing an Image Registries Summary

Navigate to ComputeContainersImage Registries to view information on different aspects of an image registry. The summary includes:

  • Which images are from the registry.
  • The number of images that come from that registry.
  • Which containers use images from that registry.
  • The host and port of the registry.
Viewing a Pods Summary

Navigate to ComputeContainersPods to view information on different aspects of a pod. The summary includes:

  • The containers that are part of the pod.
  • The services that reference the pod.
  • The node the pod runs on.
  • If the pod controlled by a replicator.
  • The IP address of the pod.
Viewing a Replicators Summary

Navigate to ComputeContainersReplicators to view information on different aspects of a replicator. The summary includes:

  • The number of requested pods.
  • The number of current pods.
  • The labels and selector for the replicator.
Viewing a Container Services Summary

Navigate to ComputeContainersContainer Services to view information on different aspects of a container service. The summary includes:

  • The pods that the container service provide traffic to.
  • The port configurations for the container service.
  • The labels and selector for the container service.
Viewing a Volumes Summary

Navigate to ComputeContainersVolumes to view information on the persistent volumes of a container provider. The summary includes:

  • The pods the volume is connected to.
  • The volume’s connection parameters.
  • The volume’s storage capacity.
  • The volume’s iSCSI target details (if applicable).
Viewing a Container Builds Summary

Navigate to ComputeContainersContainer Builds to view different aspects of a container build. The summary includes:

  • The build configuration the container build is based on.
  • Which build instances have been created.
  • Which phase in the build process the instance has completed.
  • Which pod a build instance reside in.
Viewing a Container Templates Summary

Navigate to ComputeContainersContainer Templates to view different aspects of a container template. The summary includes:

  • The project the template is associated with.
  • The objects the template contains.
  • The parameters that can be used with the template’s objects.
  • The template’s version number.

6.8.3. Using the Topology Widget

The Topology widget is an interactive topology graph, showing the status and relationships between the different entities of the containers providers that Red Hat CloudForms has access to.

  • The topology graph includes pods, containers, services, nodes, virtual machines, hosts, routes, and replicators within the overall containers provider environment.
  • Each entity in the graph displays a color indication of its status.
  • Hovering over any individual graph element will display a summary of details for the individual element.
  • Double-click the entities in the graph to navigate to their summary pages.
  • It is possible to drag elements to reposition the graph.
  • Click the legend at the top of the graph to show or hide entities.
  • Click Display Names on the right-hand side of the page to show or hide entity names.

Using the Topology Widget

  1. Navigate to ComputeContainersProviders.
  2. Click the desired containers provider for viewing the provider summary.
  3. On the provider summary page, click Topology in the Overview box on the right-hand side of the page.

6.8.4. Running a SmartState Analysis

Perform a SmartState Analysis of a container image to inspect the packages included in an image.

Running a SmartState Analysis

  1. Navigate to ComputeContainersContainer Images.
  2. Check the container image to analyze. You can check multiple images.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), and then Perform SmartState Analysis (Perform SmartState Analysis).

The container image is scanned. The process will copy over any required files for the image. After reloading the image page, all new or updated packages are listed.

To monitor the status of container image SmartState Analysis tasks, navigate to the settings menu, then Tasks. The status of each task is displayed including time started, time ended, what part of the task is currently running, and any errors encountered.

Chapter 7. Storage Managers

In Red Hat CloudForms, a storage manager is a service providing storage resources that you can manage from a Red Hat CloudForms appliance. This chapter describes the different types of storage managers used by Red Hat CloudForms, and how to manage them.

Two types of storage managers are currently available to Red Hat CloudForms: OpenStack Block Storage (openstack-cinder) and OpenStack Object Storage (openstack-swift). OpenStack Block Storage provisions and manages block storage, whereas OpenStack Object Storage manages object storage within the cloud. These storage managers are discovered automatically by Red Hat CloudForms after adding an OpenStack cloud provider.

7.1. OpenStack Block Storage Managers

The OpenStack Block Storage service (openstack-cinder) provides and manages persistent block storage resources that OpenStack infrastructure instances can consume.

To use OpenStack Block Storage as a storage manager, you must first add an OpenStack cloud provider to your Red Hat CloudForms appliance and enable events. The Block Storage service will be automatically discovered by CloudForms and added to the Storage Managers list in Red Hat CloudForms. See Section 3.1.1, “Adding OpenStack Providers” for instructions on adding a cloud provider and enabling events.

7.1.1. Creating Volumes on an OpenStack Block Storage Manager

You can create and attach volumes to your OpenStack Block Storage manager.

To create a volume:

  1. Navigate to StorageVolumes.
  2. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click 1862 (Add a new Cloud Volume).
  3. Enter a Volume Name.
  4. Enter the volume size in gigabytes (GB).
  5. Under Placement, select the cloud tenant to attach it to.
  6. Click Add.
Important

After creating a volume, only the volume name can be edited.

7.1.2. Creating a Backup of a Volume

You can create a backup of a volume to protect against data loss, and restore it in the future.

Important

The openstack-cinder-backup service must be enabled on the OpenStack Block Storage manager to create a volume backup.

To create a backup of a volume:

  1. Navigate to StorageVolumes.
  2. Click the volume you want to back up to open the volume’s summary page.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Create a Backup of this Cloud Volume (Create a Backup of this Cloud Volume).
  4. Enter a name for the backup in Backup Name.
  5. (Optional) Select Incremental? to take an incremental backup of the volume instead of a full backup.

    Note

    You can take an incremental backup of a volume if you have at least one existing full backup of the volume. An incremental volume saves resources by capturing only changes made to the volume since its last backup. See Create an Incremental Volume Backup in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Storage Guide for more information.

  6. Click Save.

View a volume’s backups by clicking Cloud Volume Backups on the volume’s summary page.

Note

See Back Up and Restore a Volume in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Storage Guide for more information about backups.

7.1.3. Restoring a Volume from a Backup

In case of data loss, you can restore a volume from a backup with the following steps:

  1. Navigate to StorageVolumes.
  2. Click the volume whose backup you want to restore. This will open the volume’s summary page.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Restore from a Backup of this Cloud Volume (Restore from a Backup of this Cloud Volume).
  4. Select the volume to restore from in the Cloud Volume Backup list.
  5. Click Save.

7.1.4. Creating a Snapshot of a Volume

You can create a snapshot of a volume to preserve a volume’s state at a specific point in time. The snapshot can be used to create a duplicate of the volume.

To create a snapshot of a volume:

  1. Navigate to StorageVolumes.
  2. Click the volume to snapshot to open the volume’s summary page.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Create a Snapshot of this Cloud Volume (Create a Snapshot of this Cloud Volume).
  4. Enter a name for the snapshot in Snapshot Name.
  5. Click Save.

View a volume’s snapshots by clicking Cloud Volume Snapshots on the volume’s summary page.

Note

See Create, Use, or Delete Volume Snapshots in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Storage Guide for more information about snapshots.

7.1.5. Attaching a Volume to an Instance

To attach a volume to an OpenStack instance:

  1. Navigate to StorageVolumes.
  2. Select the volume to attach.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Attach selected Cloud Volume to an Instance (Attach selected Cloud Volume to an Instance) to open the Attach Cloud Volume screen.
  4. Select an instance from the list.
  5. (Optional) Enter the Device Mountpoint.
  6. Click Attach.

7.1.6. Detaching a Volume from an Instance

To detach a volume from an OpenStack instance:

  1. Navigate to StorageVolumes.
  2. Select the volume to detach.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Detach selected Cloud Volume from an Instance (Detach selected Cloud Volume from an Instance) to open the Detach Cloud Volume screen.
  4. Select an instance from the list.
  5. Click Detach.

7.1.7. Editing a Volume

Only the volume name can be edited on an existing volume.

To edit a volume’s name:

  1. Navigate to StorageVolumes.
  2. Select the volume to edit to open its summary page.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Edit this Cloud Volume (Edit this Cloud Volume).
  4. Enter the new Volume Name.
  5. Click Save.

7.1.8. Deleting a Volume

To delete a volume from the OpenStack Block Storage manager:

  1. Navigate to StorageVolumes.
  2. Select the volume to delete.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click 1861 (Delete selected Cloud Volumes).

7.2. OpenStack Object Storage Managers

The OpenStack Object Storage (openstack-swift) service provides cloud object storage.

To use the OpenStack Object Storage service as a storage manager, you must first add an OpenStack cloud provider to your Red Hat CloudForms appliance and enable events. The Object Storage service will be automatically discovered by CloudForms and added to the Storage Managers list in Red Hat CloudForms. See Section 3.1.1, “Adding OpenStack Providers” for instructions on adding a cloud provider and enabling events.

7.2.1. Viewing Object Stores

The object store summary page shows details including the object store’s size, parent cloud, storage manager, cloud tenant, and the number of cloud objects on the object store.

In Red Hat CloudForms, view object stores on a object storage manager by following these steps:

  1. Navigate to StorageObject Stores to display a list of object store containers.
  2. Click a container to open a summary page for that object store container.
  3. Click Cloud Objects to view a list of object stores in the object store container.
  4. Click an object store from the list to view the object store’s summary page.