Chapter 2. Installing the Self-hosted Engine Deployment Host

A self-hosted engine can be deployed from a Red Hat Virtualization Host or a Red Hat Enterprise Linux host.

Important

If you plan to use bonded interfaces for high availability or VLANs to separate different types of traffic (for example, for storage or management connections), you should configure them on the host before beginning the self-hosted engine deployment. See Networking Recommendations in the Planning and Prerequisites Guide.

2.1. Installing Red Hat Virtualization Hosts

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 web 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.

The host must meet the minimum host requirements.

Procedure

  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. Scroll up and click Download Latest to access the product download page.
    4. Go to Hypervisor Image for RHV 4.3 and and click Download Now.
    5. 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 4.3 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.

  8. Select a network from the Network & Host Name screen and click Configure…​ to configure the connection details.

    Note

    To use the connection every time the system boots, select the Automatically connect to this network when it is available check box. For more information, see Edit Network Connections in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Installation Guide.

    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.

2.1.1. Enabling the Red Hat Virtualization Host Repository

Register the system to receive updates. Red Hat Virtualization Host only requires one repository. This section provides instructions for registering RHVH with the Content Delivery Network, or with Red Hat Satellite 6.

Registering RHVH with the Content Delivery Network

  1. Log in to the Cockpit web 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

Registering RHVH with Red Hat Satellite 6

  1. Log in to the Cockpit web 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

2.2. Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts

A Red Hat Enterprise Linux host is based on a standard basic installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 on a physical server, with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server and Red Hat Virtualization subscriptions attached.

For detailed installation instructions, see the Performing a standard {enterprise-linux-shortname} installation.

The host must meet the minimum host requirements.

Important

Virtualization must be enabled in your host’s BIOS settings. For information on changing your host’s BIOS settings, refer to your host’s hardware documentation.

Important

Third-party watchdogs should not be installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts, as they can interfere with the watchdog daemon provided by VDSM.

2.2.1. Enabling the Red Hat Enterprise Linux host Repositories

To use a Red Hat Enterprise Linux machine as a host, you must register the system with the Content Delivery Network, attach the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server and Red Hat Virtualization subscriptions, and enable the host repositories.

Procedure

  1. Register your system with the Content Delivery Network, entering your Customer Portal user name and password when prompted: 

    # subscription-manager register

  2. Find the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server and Red Hat Virtualization subscription pools and record the pool IDs: 

    # subscription-manager list --available

  3. Use the pool IDs to attach the subscriptions to the system: 

    # subscription-manager attach --pool=poolid
    Note

    To view currently attached subscriptions: 

    # subscription-manager list --consumed

    To list all enabled repositories: 

    # yum repolist

  4. Configure the repositories: 

    # subscription-manager repos \
    --disable='*' \
    --enable=rhel-7-server-rpms \
    --enable=rhel-7-server-rhv-4-mgmt-agent-rpms \
    --enable=rhel-7-server-ansible-2.9-rpms

    For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 hosts, little endian, on IBM POWER8 hardware: 

    # subscription-manager repos \
    --disable='*' \
    --enable=rhel-7-server-rhv-4-mgmt-agent-for-power-le-rpms \
    --enable=rhel-7-for-power-le-rpms

    For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 hosts, little endian, on IBM POWER9 hardware: 

    # subscription-manager repos \
    --disable='*' \
    --enable=rhel-7-server-rhv-4-mgmt-agent-for-power-9-rpms \
    --enable=rhel-7-for-power-9-rpms

  5. Ensure that all packages currently installed are up to date: 

    # yum update
  6. Reboot the machine.

Although the existing storage domains will be migrated from the standalone Manager, you must prepare additional storage for a self-hosted engine storage domain that is dedicated to the Manager virtual machine.