4.7. Upgrading RHVH while preserving local storage

Procedure

1. Ensure that the local storage on the RHVH 4.3 host’s local storage is in maintenance mode before starting this process. Complete these steps:

   1. Open the Data Centers tab.
   2. Click the Storage tab in the Details pane and select the storage domain in the results list.
   3. Click Maintenance.

2. Reinstall the Red Hat Virtualization Host, as described in Installing Red Hat Virtualization Host in the Installation Guide.

   Important

   When selecting the device on which to install RHVH from the Installation Destination screen, do not select the device(s) storing the virtual machines. Only select the device where the operating system should be installed.

   If you are using Kickstart to install the host, ensure that you preserve the devices containing the virtual machines by adding the following to the Kickstart file, replacing `device` with the relevant device.

   # clearpart --all --drives=device

   For more information on using Kickstart, see Kickstart references in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Performing an advanced RHEL installation.

3. On the reinstalled host, create a directory, for example /data in which to recover the previous environment.

   # mkdir /data

4. Mount the previous local storage in the new directory. In our example, /dev/sdX1 is the local storage:

   # mount /dev/sdX1 /data

5. Set the following permissions for the new directory.

   # chown -R 36:36 /data
   # chmod -R 0755 /data

6. Red Hat recommends that you also automatically mount the local storage via /etc/fstab in case the server requires a reboot:

   # blkid | grep -i sdX1
   /dev/sdX1: UUID="a81a6879-3764-48d0-8b21-2898c318ef7c" TYPE="ext4"
   # vi /etc/fstab
   UUID="a81a6879-3764-48d0-8b21-2898c318ef7c" /data    ext4    defaults     0       0

7. In the Administration Portal, create a data center and select Local in the Storage Type drop-down menu.
8. Configure a cluster on the new data center. See Creating a New Cluster in the Administration Guide for more information.
9. Add the host to the Manager. See Adding Standard Hosts to the Red Hat Virtualization Manager in one of the Installing Red Hat Virtualization guides for more information.

10. On the host, create a new directory that will be used to create the initial local storage domain. For example:

    # mkdir -p /localfs
    # chown 36:36 /localfs
    # chmod -R 0755 /localfs

11. In the Administration Portal, open the Storage tab and click New Domain to create a new local storage domain.
12. Set the name to localfs and set the path to /localfs.
13. Once the local storage is active, click Import Domain and set the domain’s details. For example, define Data as the name, Local on Host as the storage type and /data as the path.
14. Click OK to confirm the message that appears informing you that storage domains are already attached to the data center.

15. Activate the new storage domain:

    1. Open the Data Centers tab.
    2. Click the Storage tab in the details pane and select the new data storage domain in the results list.
    3. Click Activate.

16. Once the new storage domain is active, import the virtual machines and their disks:

    1. In the Storage tab, select data.
    2. Select the VM Import tab in the details pane, select the virtual machines and click Import. See Importing Virtual Machines from a Data Domain in the Virtual Machine Management Guide for more details.
17. Once you have ensured that all virtual machines have been successfully imported and are functioning properly, you can move localfs to maintenance mode.

18. Click the Storage tab and select localfs from the results list.

    1. Click the Data Center tab in the details pane.
    2. Click Maintenance, then click OK to move the storage domain to maintenance mode.
    3. Click Detach. The Detach Storage confirmation window opens.
    4. Click OK.