Appendix G. System Accounts

G.1. System Accounts

G.1.1. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager User Accounts

A number of system user accounts are created to support Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization when the rhevm package is installed. Each system user has a default user identifier (UID). The system user accounts created are:
  • The vdsm user (UID 36). Required for support tools that mount and access NFS storage domains.
  • The ovirt user (UID 108). Owner of the ovirt-engine Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform instance.
  • The ovirt-vmconsole user (UID 498). Required for the guest serial console.

G.1.2. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager Groups

A number of system user groups are created to support Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization when the rhevm package is installed. Each system user group has a default group identifier (GID). The system user groups created are:
  • The kvm group (GID 36). Group members include:
    • The vdsm user.
  • The ovirt group (GID 108). Group members include:
    • The ovirt user.
  • The ovirt-vmconsole group (GID 498). Group members include:
    • The ovirt-vmconsole user.

G.1.3. Virtualization Host User Accounts

A number of system user accounts are created on the virtualization host when the vdsm and qemu-kvm-rhev packages are installed. Each system user has a default user identifier (UID). The system user accounts created are:
  • The vdsm user (UID 36).
  • The qemu user (UID 107).
  • The sanlock user (UID 179).
  • The ovirt-vmconsole user (UID 498).
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor hosts also define an admin user (UID 500) that is not created on Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualization hosts. The admin user is created with the required permissions to run commands as the root user using the sudo command. The vdsm user, which is present on both types of virtualization hosts, is also given access to the sudo command.

Important

The user identifiers (UIDs) and group identifiers (GIDs) allocated may vary between systems. The vdsm user is fixed to a UID of 36 and the kvm group is fixed to a GID of 36.
If UID 36 or GID 36 is already used by another account on the system a conflict will arise during installation of the vdsm and qemu-kvm-rhev packages.

G.1.4. Virtualization Host Groups

A number of system user groups are created on the virtualization host when the vdsm and qemu-kvm-rhev packages are installed. Each system user group has a default group identifier (GID). The system user groups created are:
  • The kvm group (GID 36). Group members include:
    • The qemu user.
    • The sanlock user.
  • The qemu group (GID 107). Group members include:
    • The vdsm user.
    • The sanlock user.
  • The ovirt-vmconsole group (GID 498). Group members include:
    • The ovirt-vmconsole user.

Important

The user identifiers (UIDs) and group identifiers (GIDs) allocated may vary between systems. The vdsm user is fixed to a UID of 36 and the kvm group is fixed to a GID of 36.
If UID 36 or GID 36 is already used by another account on the system a conflict will arise during installation of the vdsm and qemu-kvm-rhev packages.