Chapter 4. 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.

4.1. 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.

Warning

When installing or reinstalling the host’s operating system, Red Hat strongly recommends that you first detach any existing non-OS storage that is attached to the host to avoid accidental initialization of these disks, and with that, potential data loss.

Procedure

  1. Go to the Get Started with Red Hat Virtualization on the Red Hat Customer Portal and log in.
  2. Click Download Latest to access the product download page.
  3. Choose the appropriate Hypervisor Image for RHV from the list and click Download Now.
  4. Start the machine on which you are installing RHVH, booting from the prepared installation media.

  5. From the boot menu, select Install RHVH 4.4 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.

  6. Select a language, and click Continue.
  7. Select a keyboard layout from the Keyboard Layout screen and click Done.

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

    Important

    Use the Automatically configure partitioning option.

  9. Select a time zone from the Time & Date screen and click Done.

  10. 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 Connect automatically with priority check box. For more information, see Configuring network and host name options in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Installation Guide.

    Enter a host name in the Host Name field, and click Done.

  11. Optionally configure Language Support, Security Policy, and Kdump. See Customizing your RHEL installation using the GUI in Performing a standard RHEL installation for _Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for more information on each of the sections in the Installation Summary screen.
  12. Click Begin Installation.

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

    Warning

    Do not create untrusted users on RHVH, as this can lead to exploitation of local security vulnerabilities.

  14. 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.

4.1.1. 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, 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 8 repository to allow later updates to the Red Hat Virtualization Host: 

    # subscription-manager repos --enable=rhvh-4-for-rhel-8-x86_64-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=rhvh-4-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms
Note

You can also configure virtual machine subscriptions in Red Hat Satellite using virt-who. See Using virt-who to manage host-based subscriptions.

4.2. Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts

A Red Hat Enterprise Linux host is based on a standard basic installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 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 RHEL installation.

The host must meet the minimum host requirements.

Warning

When installing or reinstalling the host’s operating system, Red Hat strongly recommends that you first detach any existing non-OS storage that is attached to the host to avoid accidental initialization of these disks, and with that, potential data loss.

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

Do not install third-party watchdogs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts. They can interfere with the watchdog daemon provided by VDSM.

4.2.1. 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: 

    # dnf repolist

  4. Configure the repositories: 

    # subscription-manager repos \
    --disable='*' \
    --enable=rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms \
    --enable=rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms \
    --enable=rhv-4-mgmt-agent-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms \
    --enable=fast-datapath-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms \
    --enable=advanced-virt-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms

  5. Reset the virt module: 

    # dnf module reset virt
    Note

    If this module is already enabled in the Advanced Virtualization stream, this step is not necessary, but it has no negative impact.

    You can see the value of the stream by entering: 

    # dnf module list virt

  6. Enable the virt module in the Advanced Virtualization stream with the dnf module enable virt:8.y command, where y is the version of the stream. For example, if the value for the stream is 8.3, enter the following command: 

    # dnf module enable virt:8.3

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

    # dnf upgrade --nobest
  8. Reboot the machine.

4.2.2. Installing Cockpit on Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts

You can install Cockpit for monitoring the host’s resources and performing administrative tasks.

Procedure

  1. Install the dashboard packages: 

    # dnf install cockpit-ovirt-dashboard

  2. Enable and start the cockpit.socket service: 

    # systemctl enable cockpit.socket
# systemctl start cockpit.socket

  3. Check if Cockpit is an active service in the firewall: 

    # firewall-cmd --list-services

    You should see cockpit listed. If it is not, enter the following with root permissions to add cockpit as a service to your firewall: 

    # firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=cockpit

    The --permanent option keeps the cockpit service active after rebooting.

You can log in to the Cockpit web interface at https://HostFQDNorIP:9090.