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Chapter 4. Prerequisites

Before proceeding to install virt-who, ensure the following prerequisites are met.

4.1. Authentication Requirements

Create an account on each virtualization manager, such as VMware vCenter and Red Hat Virtualization Manager, or individual hypervisors so the virt-who agent can retrieve the list of guest virtual machines. Each connection is separate, so you can use different accounts for each connection if required. Each account, generally known as a service account, should be dedicated to this purpose, have read-only access, and have a non-expiring password.

4.2. Software Requirements

The virt-who daemon must be installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 7 (recommended) or 6. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux hypervisors, the virt-who daemon must be installed on the hypervisor. For all other hypervisors, the virt-who daemon can be installed on the Satellite Server, an external Capsule Server, or a dedicated instance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Except for Red Hat Enterprise Linux hypervisors, Red Hat recommends installing virt-who on the Satellite Server, because it simplifies the network configuration and provides maximum availability. If you install virt-who on a dedicated instance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, this host does not have to be registered to the Satellite Server.

4.3. Subscriptions

Subscriptions are specific to organizations. Although you can configure the virt-who daemon to support multiple organizations, you cannot share subscriptions across organizations.

Note

You must have one virtual data center subscription for each organization and for each hypervisor.

4.4. Preparing the virt-who Host

Note

Skip this procedure if virt-who is to be installed on the Satellite Server, an external Capsule Server, or a Red Hat Enterprise Linux hypervisor.

Before installing the virt-who daemon, a Red Hat Enterprise Linux instance must be installed and configured as follows.

  1. Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 7 (recommended) or 6.

    Only a CLI environment is required. For help with this step, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Installation Guide or the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Installation Guide.

  2. Install the Satellite Server’s CA certificate: 

    # rpm -ivh http://satellite.example.com/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpm

  3. Register the Red Hat Enterprise Linux server to the Satellite Server: 

    # subscription-manager register --username=admin --password=p@sswd \
--org=organization_label --auto-attach

  4. Open a network port for HTTPS:

    To enable virt-who to communicate with the subscription service, TCP port 443 must be opened.

    On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7: 

    # firewall-cmd --add-port="443/tcp"
# firewall-cmd --add-port="443/tcp" --permanent

    On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6: 

    # iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT
# service iptables save

4.5. Installing virt-who

  1. Subscribe to the Satellite Tools repository for 6.2.

    On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7: 

    # subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-7-server-satellite-tools-6.2-rpms

    On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6: 

    # subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-6-server-satellite-tools-6.2-rpms

  2. Verify that the server is subscribed to the Satellite Tools repository for 6.2. 

    # subscription-manager repos --list-enabled

    If the output of this command lists the Satellite Tools repository for 6.2 then the subscription has been successful.

    Note

    The virt-who package is available both from the Red Hat Satellite Tools and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux repository. The latest version of the package will be installed by the yum utility.

  3. Install the virt-who package. 

    # yum install virt-who