Chapter 2. Installing Image Builder
Before using Image Builder, you must install Image Builder in a virtual machine.
2.1. Installing Image Builder in a virtual machine
To install Image Builder on a dedicated virtual machine, follow these steps:
Prerequisites
- Connect to the virtual machine.
- The virtual machine for Image Builder must be installed, subscribed, and running.
Procedure
Install the Image Builder and other necessary packages on the virtual machine:
- osbuild-composer
- composer-cli
- cockpit-composer
- bash-completion
# yum install osbuild-composer composer-cli cockpit-composer bash-completion
The web console is installed as a dependency of the cockpit-composer package.
Enable Image Builder to start after each reboot:
# systemctl enable --now osbuild-composer.socket # systemctl enable cockpit.socket
The
osbuild-composer
andcockpit
services start automatically on first access.Configure the system firewall to allow access to the web console:
# firewall-cmd --add-service=cockpit && firewall-cmd --add-service=cockpit --permanent
Load the shell configuration script so that the autocomplete feature for the
composer-cli
command starts working immediately without reboot:$ source /etc/bash_completion.d/composer-cli
The osbuild-composer
is the new backend engine that will be the preferred default and focus of all new functionality beginning with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.3 and later. The previous backend lorax-composer
is considered deprecated, will only receive select fixes for the remainder of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 life cycle and will be omitted from future major releases. It is recommended to uninstall lorax-composer
in favor of osbuild-composer.
2.2. Reverting to lorax-composer
Image Builder backend
The osbuild-composer
backend, though much more extensible, does not currently achieve feature parity with the previous lorax-composer
backend.
To revert to the previous backend, follow the steps:
Prerequisites
-
You have installed the
osbuild-composer
package
Procedure
Remove the osbuild-composer backend.
# yum remove osbuild-composer
In the
/etc/yum.conf file
, add an exclude entry forosbuild-composer
package.# cat /etc/yum.conf [main] gpgcheck=1 installonly_limit=3 clean_requirements_on_remove=True best=True skip_if_unavailable=False exclude=osbuild-composer
Install the "lorax-composer" package.
# yum install lorax-composer
Additional resources