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6.5. Updating the Hosts

Use the host upgrade manager to update individual hosts directly from the Red Hat Virtualization Manager.

Note

The upgrade manager only checks hosts with a status of Up or Non-operational, but not Maintenance.

Important

On RHVH, the update only preserves modified content in the /etc and /var directories. Modified data in other paths is overwritten during an update.

Prerequisites

  • If migration is enabled at the cluster level, virtual machines are automatically migrated to another host in the cluster. Update a host when its usage is relatively low.
  • Ensure that the cluster contains more than one host before performing an update. Do not update all hosts at the same time, as one host must remain available to perform Storage Pool Manager (SPM) tasks.
  • Ensure that the cluster to which the host belongs has sufficient memory reserve for its hosts to perform maintenance. Otherwise, the virtual machine migration operation will hang and fail. You can reduce the memory usage of this operation by shutting down some or all virtual machines before updating the host.
  • You cannot migrate a virtual machine using a vGPU to a different host. Virtual machines with vGPUs installed must be shut down before updating the host.
Important

RHVH 4.0 hosts cannot be updated with Red Hat Virtualization Manager 4.2. They must be updated manually from the command line:

# yum update redhat-virtualization-host-image-update

This limitation applies only to RHVH 4.0. Other RHVH versions and all RHEL hosts can be upgraded using Red Hat Virtualization Manager 4.2.

Procedure

  1. Ensure that the correct repositories are enabled (to view a list of currently enabled repositories, type yum repolist):

    • For Red Hat Virtualization Hosts:

      # subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-7-server-rhvh-4-rpms
    • For Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts:

      # subscription-manager repos \
          --enable=rhel-7-server-rpms \
          --enable=rhel-7-server-rhv-4-mgmt-agent-rpms \
          --enable=rhel-7-server-ansible-2.9-rpms
  2. In the Administration Portal, click ComputeHosts and select the host to be updated.
  3. Click InstallationCheck for Upgrade and click OK.

    Click the Events and alerts notification icon ( EventsIcon ) and expand the Events section to see the result.

  4. If an update is available, click InstallationUpgrade.
  5. Click OK to update the host. Running virtual machines will be migrated according to their migration policy. If migration is disabled for any virtual machines, you will be prompted to shut them down.

    The details of the host are updated in ComputeHosts and the status transitions through these stages:

    • Maintenance
    • Installing
    • Reboot
    • Up

      If any virtual machines were migrated off the host, they are now migrated back.

      Note

      If the update fails, the host’s status changes to Install Failed. From Install Failed you can click InstallationUpgrade again.

Repeat this procedure for each host in the Red Hat Virtualization environment.