Chapter 7. Preparing and deploying KVM guest images with Image Builder

Procedure

1. Click Create blueprint to create a blueprint. See Creating an Image Builder blueprint in the web console interface.
2. Select the components and packages that you want as part of the KVM guest image you are creating.
3. Click Commit to commit the changes you made to the blueprint. A small pop-up on the superior right side informs you of the saving progress and then the result of the changes you commited.
4. Click the blueprint name link on the left banner.
5. Select the tab Images.
6. Click Create Image to create your customized image. A pop-up window opens.
7. From the Type drop-down menu list, select the `QEMU Image(.qcow2)' image.
8. Set the size that you want the image to be when instantiated and click Create.
9. A small pop-up on the upper right side of the window informs you that the image creation has been added to the queue. Once the image creation process is complete, you can see the Image build complete status.

Verification steps

1. Click the breadcrumbs icon and select the Download option. Image Builder downloads the KVM guest image .qcow2 file at your default download location.

Procedure

1. Move the KVM Guest Image you created using Image Builder to the /var/lib/libvirt/images directory and rename the image name to rhel-8.4-x86_64-kvm.qcow2.

2. Create a directory, for example, cloudinitiso and navigate to this newly created directory:

   $ mkdir cloudinitiso
   $ cd cloudinitiso

3. Create a file named meta-data. Add the following information to this file:

   instance-id: citest
   local-hostname: citest-1

4. Create a file named user-data. Add the following information to the file:

   #cloud-config
   user: admin
   password: cilogon
   chpasswd: {expire: False}
   ssh_pwauth: True
   ssh_authorized_keys:
     - ssh-rsa AAA...fhHQ== your.email@example.com

   Where,

   • ssh_authorized_keys is your SSH public key. You can find your SSH public key in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.

5. Use the genisoimage command to create an ISO image that includes the user-data and meta-data files.

   # genisoimage -output ciiso.iso -volid cidata -joliet -rock user-data meta-data
   
   I: -input-charset not specified, using utf-8 (detected in locale settings)
   Total translation table size: 0
   Total rockridge attributes bytes: 331
   Total directory bytes: 0
   Path table size(bytes): 10
   Max brk space used 0
   183 extents written (0 MB)

6. Create a new VM from the KVM Guest Image using the virt-install command. Include the ISO image you created on step 4 as an attachment to the VM image.

   # virt-install \
       --memory 4096 \
       --vcpus 4 \
       --name mytestcivm \
       --disk /var/lib/libvirt/images/rhel-8.4-x86_64-kvm.qcow2,device=disk,bus=virtio,format=qcow2 \
       --disk /home/sample/cloudinitiso/ciiso.iso,device=cdrom \
       --os-variant rhel8.4 \
       --virt-type kvm \
       --graphics none \
       --import

   Where,

   • --graphics none - means it is a headless RHEL 8.4 VM.
   • --vcpus 4 - means that it uses 4 virtual CPUs.
   • --memory 4096 - means it uses 4096 MB RAM.

7. The VM installation starts:

   Starting install...
   Connected to domain mytestcivm
   ...
   [  OK  ] Started Execute cloud user/final scripts.
   [  OK  ] Reached target Cloud-init target.
   
   Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Beta (Ootpa)
   Kernel 4.18.0-221.el8.x86_64 on an x86_64

Verification

1. Log in to the created VM, using cloud-user as a username. Your password is cilogon.