Appendix F. Installing a Websocket Proxy on a Separate Machine

The websocket proxy allows users to connect to virtual machines via a noVNC console. The noVNC client uses websockets to pass VNC data. However, the VNC server in QEMU does not provide websocket support, therefore a websocket proxy must be placed between the client and the VNC server. The proxy can run on any machine that has access to the network, including the the Manager machine.

For security and performance reasons, users may want to configure the websocket proxy on a separate machine.

This section describes how to install and configure the websocket proxy on a separate machine that does not run the Manager. See Section 2.3, “Configuring the Red Hat Virtualization Manager” for instructions on how to configure the websocket proxy on the Manager.

Installing and Configuring a Websocket Proxy on a Separate Machine

  1. Install the websocket proxy: 

    # yum install ovirt-engine-websocket-proxy

  2. Run the engine-setup command to configure the websocket proxy. 

    # engine-setup
    Note

    If the rhvm package has also been installed, choose No when asked to configure the engine on this host.

  3. Press Enter to allow engine-setup to configure a websocket proxy server on the machine. 

    Configure WebSocket Proxy on this machine? (Yes, No) [Yes]:

  4. Press Enter to accept the automatically detected hostname, or enter an alternative hostname and press Enter. Note that the automatically detected hostname may be incorrect if you are using virtual hosts: 

    Host fully qualified DNS name of this server [host.example.com]:

  5. Press Enter to allow engine-setup to configure the firewall and open the ports required for external communication. If you do not allow engine-setup to modify your firewall configuration, then you must manually open the required ports. 

    Setup can automatically configure the firewall on this system.
Note: automatic configuration of the firewall may overwrite current settings.
Do you want Setup to configure the firewall? (Yes, No) [Yes]:

  6. Enter the fully qualified DNS name of the Manager machine and press Enter. 

    Host fully qualified DNS name of the engine server []: engine_host.example.com

  7. Press Enter to allow engine-setup to perform actions on the Manager machine, or press 2 to manually perform the actions. 

    Setup will need to do some actions on the remote engine server. Either automatically, using ssh as root to access it, or you will be prompted to manually perform each such action.
Please choose one of the following:
1 - Access remote engine server using ssh as root
2 - Perform each action manually, use files to copy content around
(1, 2) [1]:

    1. Press Enter to accept the default SSH port number, or enter the port number of the Manager machine. 

      ssh port on remote engine server [22]:

    2. Enter the root password to log in to the Manager machine and press Enter. 

      root password on remote engine server engine_host.example.com:

  8. Select whether to review iptables rules if they differ from the current settings. 

    Generated iptables rules are different from current ones.
Do you want to review them? (Yes, No) [No]:

  9. Press Enter to confirm the configuration settings. 

    --== CONFIGURATION PREVIEW ==--

Firewall manager                        : iptables
Update Firewall                         : True
Host FQDN                               : host.example.com
Configure WebSocket Proxy               : True
Engine Host FQDN                        : engine_host.example.com

Please confirm installation settings (OK, Cancel) [OK]:

    Instructions are provided to configure the Manager machine to use the configured websocket proxy. 

    Manual actions are required on the engine host
in order to enroll certs for this host and configure the engine about it.

Please execute this command on the engine host:
   engine-config -s WebSocketProxy=host.example.com:6100
and than restart the engine service to make it effective

  10. Log in to the Manager machine and execute the provided instructions. 

    # engine-config -s WebSocketProxy=host.example.com:6100
# systemctl restart ovirt-engine.service