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Chapter 5. Red Hat Virtualization Hosts

5.1. Installing Red Hat Virtualization Host

Red Hat Virtualization Host (RHVH) is a minimal operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux that is designed to provide a simple method for setting up a physical machine to act as a hypervisor in a Red Hat Virtualization environment. The minimal operating system contains only the packages required for the machine to act as a hypervisor, and features a Cockpit user interface for monitoring the host and performing administrative tasks. See http://cockpit-project.org/running.html for the minimum browser requirements.

RHVH supports NIST 800-53 partitioning requirements to improve security. RHVH uses a NIST 800-53 partition layout by default.

Before you proceed, ensure the machine on which you are installing RHVH meets the hardware requirements listed in Section 1.2, “Host Requirements”.

Installing RHVH on a physical machine involves three key steps:

  • Download the RHVH ISO image from the Customer Portal.
  • Write the RHVH ISO image to a USB, CD, or DVD.
  • Install the RHVH minimal operating system.

Installing Red Hat Virtualization Host

  1. Download the RHVH ISO image from the Customer Portal:

    1. Log in to the Customer Portal at https://access.redhat.com.
    2. Click Downloads in the menu bar.
    3. Click Red Hat Virtualization, the Red Hat Virtualization page opens on the Get Started tab.
    4. Under Hypervisor Image, click Download RHVH to access the product download page.
    5. In the Version drop down list, select 4.2.
    6. Choose the latest Hypervisor Image and click Download Now.
    7. Create a bootable media device. See Making Media in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide for more information.
  2. Start the machine on which you are installing RHVH, booting from the prepared installation media.

  3. From the boot menu, select Install RHVH 4.2 and press Enter.

    Note

    You can also press the Tab key to edit the kernel parameters. Kernel parameters must be separated by a space, and you can boot the system using the specified kernel parameters by pressing the Enter key. Press the Esc key to clear any changes to the kernel parameters and return to the boot menu.

  4. Select a language, and click Continue.
  5. Select a time zone from the Date & Time screen and click Done.
  6. Select a keyboard layout from the Keyboard screen and click Done.

  7. Select the device on which to install RHVH from the Installation Destination screen. Optionally, enable encryption. Click Done.

    Important

    Red Hat strongly recommends using the Automatically configure partitioning option. However, if you do select I will configure partitioning, see Section 5.2.1, “Custom Partitioning” for details.

    Note

    For information on preserving local storage domains when reinstalling RHVH, see Upgrading to RHVH While Preserving Local Storage in the Upgrade Guide for Red Hat Virtualization 4.0 for more details.

  8. Select a network from the Network & Host Name screen and click Configure…​ to configure the connection details. Enter a host name in the Host name field, and click Done.
  9. Optionally configure Language Support, Security Policy, and Kdump. See Installing Using Anaconda in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Installation Guide for more information on each of the sections in the Installation Summary screen.
  10. Click Begin Installation.

  11. Set a root password and, optionally, create an additional user while RHVH installs.

    Warning

    Red Hat strongly recommends not creating untrusted users on RHVH, as this can lead to exploitation of local security vulnerabilities.

  12. Click Reboot to complete the installation.

    Note

    When RHVH restarts, nodectl check performs a health check on the host and displays the result when you log in on the command line. The message node status: OK or node status: DEGRADED indicates the health status. Run nodectl check to get more information. The service is enabled by default.

  13. Register the system to receive updates:

    • If you are registering RHVH with the Content Delivery Network:

      1. Log in to the Cockpit user interface at https://HostFQDNorIP:9090.
      2. Navigate to Subscriptions, click Register System, and enter your Customer Portal user name and password. The Red Hat Virtualization Host subscription is automatically attached to the system.
      3. Click Terminal.

      4. Enable the Red Hat Virtualization Host 7 repository to allow later updates to the Red Hat Virtualization Host: 

        # subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-7-server-rhvh-4-rpms

    • If you are registering RHVH with Red Hat Satellite 6:

      1. Log in to the Cockpit user interface at https://HostFQDNorIP:9090.
      2. Click Terminal.

      3. Register RHVH with Red Hat Satellite 6: 

          # rpm -Uvh http://satellite.example.com/pub/katello-ca-consumer-latest.noarch.rpm
  # subscription-manager register --org="org_id"
  # subscription-manager list --available
  # subscription-manager attach --pool=pool_id
  # subscription-manager repos \
    --disable='*' \
    --enable=rhel-7-server-rhvh-4-rpms

You can now add the host to your Red Hat Virtualization environment. See Chapter 7, Adding a Host to the Red Hat Virtualization Manager.