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Appendix C. Whole Disk Images

The main overcloud image is a flat partition image. This means it contains no partitioning information or bootloader on the images itself. The director uses a separate kernel and ramdisk when booting and creates a basic partitioning layout when writing the overcloud image to disk. However, you can create a whole disk image, which includes a partitioning layout, bootloader, and hardened security.

Important

The following process uses the director’s image building feature. Red Hat only supports images built using the guidelines contained in this section. Custom images built outside of these specifications are not supported.

A security hardened image includes extra security measures necessary for Red Hat OpenStack Platform deployments where security is an important feature. Some of the recommendations for a secure image are as follows:

  • The /tmp directory is mounted on a separate volume or partition and has the rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, and relatime flags
  • The /var, /var/log and the /var/log/audit directories are mounted on separate volumes or partitions, with the rw ,relatime flags
  • The /home directory is mounted on a separate partition or volume and has the rw, nodev, relatime flags

  • Include the following changes to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX setting:

    • To enable auditing, include an extra kernel boot flag by adding audit=1
    • To disable the kernel support for USB using boot loader configuration by adding nousb
    • To remove the insecure boot flags by setting crashkernel=auto
  • Blacklist insecure modules (usb-storage, cramfs, freevxfs, jffs2, hfs, hfsplus, squashfs, udf, vfat) and prevent them from being loaded.
  • Remove any insecure packages (kdump installed by kexec-tools and telnet) from the image as they are installed by default
  • Add the new screen package necessary for security

To build a security hardened image, you need to:

  1. Download a base Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 image
  2. Set the environment variables specific to registration
  3. Customize the image by modifying the partition schema and the size
  4. Create the image
  5. Upload it to your deployment

The following sections detail the procedures to achieve these tasks.

C.1. Downloading the Base Cloud Image

Before building a whole disk image, you need to download an existing cloud image of Red Hat Enterprise Linux to use as a basis. Navigate to the Red Hat Customer Portal and select the KVM Guest Image to download. For example, the KVM Guest Image for the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available on the following page:

C.2. Disk Image Environment Variables

As a part of the disk image building process, the director requires a base image and registration details to obtain packages for the new overcloud image. You define these aspects using Linux environment variables.

Note

The image building process temporarily registers the image with a Red Hat subscription and unregisters the system once the image building process completes.

To build a disk image, set Linux environment variables that suit your environment and requirements:

DIB_LOCAL_IMAGE
Sets the local image to use as your basis.
REG_ACTIVATION_KEY
Use an activation key instead as part of the registration process.
REG_AUTO_ATTACH
Defines whether or not to automatically attach the most compatible subscription.
REG_BASE_URL
The base URL of the content delivery server to pull packages. The default Customer Portal Subscription Management process uses https://cdn.redhat.com. If using a Red Hat Satellite 6 server, this parameter should use the base URL of your Satellite server.
REG_ENVIRONMENT
Registers to an environment within an organization.
REG_METHOD
Sets the method of registration. Use portal to register a system to the Red Hat Customer Portal. Use satellite to register a system with Red Hat Satellite 6.
REG_ORG
The organization to register the images.
REG_POOL_ID
The pool ID of the product subscription information.
REG_PASSWORD
Gives the password for the user account registering the image.
REG_REPOS

A string of repository names separated with commas (no spaces). Each repository in this string is enabled through subscription-manager.

Use the following repositories for a security hardened whole disk image:

  • rhel-7-server-rpms
  • rhel-7-server-extras-rpms
  • rhel-ha-for-rhel-7-server-rpms
  • rhel-7-server-optional-rpms
  • rhel-7-server-openstack-13-rpms
REG_SAT_URL
The base URL of the Satellite server to register Overcloud nodes. Use the Satellite’s HTTP URL and not the HTTPS URL for this parameter. For example, use http://satellite.example.com and not https://satellite.example.com.
REG_SERVER_URL
Gives the hostname of the subscription service to use. The default is for the Red Hat Customer Portal at subscription.rhn.redhat.com. If using a Red Hat Satellite 6 server, this parameter should use the hostname of your Satellite server.
REG_USER
Gives the user name for the account registering the image.

The following is an example set of commands to export a set of environment variables to temporarily register a local QCOW2 image to the Red Hat Customer Portal: 

$ export DIB_LOCAL_IMAGE=./rhel-server-7.5-x86_64-kvm.qcow2
$ export REG_METHOD=portal
$ export REG_USER="[your username]"
$ export REG_PASSWORD="[your password]"
$ export REG_REPOS="rhel-7-server-rpms \
    rhel-7-server-extras-rpms \
    rhel-ha-for-rhel-7-server-rpms \
    rhel-7-server-optional-rpms \
    rhel-7-server-openstack-13-rpms"

C.3. Customizing the Disk Layout

The default security hardened image size is 20G and uses predefined partitioning sizes. However, some modifications to the partitioning layout are required to accommodate overcloud container images. The following sections increase the image size to 40G. You can also provide further modification to the partitioning layout and disk size to suit your needs.

To modify the partitioning layout and disk size, perform the following steps:

  • Modify the partitioning schema using the DIB_BLOCK_DEVICE_CONFIG environment variable.
  • Modify the global size of the image by updating the DIB_IMAGE_SIZE environment variable.

C.3.1. Modifying the Partitioning Schema

You can modify the partitioning schema to alter the partitioning size, create new partitions, or remove existing ones. You can define a new partitioning schema with the following environment variable: 

$ export DIB_BLOCK_DEVICE_CONFIG='<yaml_schema_with_partitions>'

The following YAML structure represents the modified logical volume partitioning layout to accommodate enough space to pull overcloud container images: 

export DIB_BLOCK_DEVICE_CONFIG='''
- local_loop:
    name: image0
- partitioning:
    base: image0
    label: mbr
    partitions:
      - name: root
        flags: [ boot,primary ]
        size: 40G
- lvm:
    name: lvm
    base: [ root ]
    pvs:
        - name: pv
          base: root
          options: [ "--force" ]
    vgs:
        - name: vg
          base: [ "pv" ]
          options: [ "--force" ]
    lvs:
        - name: lv_root
          base: vg
          extents: 23%VG
        - name: lv_tmp
          base: vg
          extents: 4%VG
        - name: lv_var
          base: vg
          extents: 45%VG
        - name: lv_log
          base: vg
          extents: 23%VG
        - name: lv_audit
          base: vg
          extents: 4%VG
        - name: lv_home
          base: vg
          extents: 1%VG
- mkfs:
    name: fs_root
    base: lv_root
    type: xfs
    label: "img-rootfs"
    mount:
        mount_point: /
        fstab:
            options: "rw,relatime"
            fsck-passno: 1
- mkfs:
    name: fs_tmp
    base: lv_tmp
    type: xfs
    mount:
        mount_point: /tmp
        fstab:
            options: "rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime"
            fsck-passno: 2
- mkfs:
    name: fs_var
    base: lv_var
    type: xfs
    mount:
        mount_point: /var
        fstab:
            options: "rw,relatime"
            fsck-passno: 2
- mkfs:
    name: fs_log
    base: lv_log
    type: xfs
    mount:
        mount_point: /var/log
        fstab:
            options: "rw,relatime"
            fsck-passno: 3
- mkfs:
    name: fs_audit
    base: lv_audit
    type: xfs
    mount:
        mount_point: /var/log/audit
        fstab:
            options: "rw,relatime"
            fsck-passno: 4
- mkfs:
    name: fs_home
    base: lv_home
    type: xfs
    mount:
        mount_point: /home
        fstab:
            options: "rw,nodev,relatime"
            fsck-passno: 2
'''

Use this sample YAML content as a basis for your image’s partition schema. Modify the partition sizes and layout to suit your needs.

Note

Define the right partition sizes for the image as you will not be able to resize them after the deployment.

C.3.2. Modifying the Image Size

The global sum of the modified partitioning schema might exceed the default disk size (20G). In this situation, you might need to modify the image size. To modify the image size, edit the configuration files used to create the image.

Create a copy of the /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-common/image-yaml/overcloud-hardened-images.yaml: 

# cp /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-common/image-yaml/overcloud-hardened-images.yaml \
/home/stack/overcloud-hardened-images-custom.yaml
Note

For UEFI whole disk images, use /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-common/image-yaml/overcloud-hardened-images-uefi.yaml.

Edit the DIB_IMAGE_SIZE in the configuration file to adjust the values as necessary: 

...

environment:
DIB_PYTHON_VERSION: '2'
DIB_MODPROBE_BLACKLIST: 'usb-storage cramfs freevxfs jffs2 hfs hfsplus squashfs udf vfat bluetooth'
DIB_BOOTLOADER_DEFAULT_CMDLINE: 'nofb nomodeset vga=normal console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200 audit=1 nousb'
DIB_IMAGE_SIZE: '40' 1
COMPRESS_IMAGE: '1'
1
Adjust this value to the new total disk size.

Save this file.

Important

When the director deploys the overcloud, it creates a RAW version of the overcloud image. This means your undercloud must have necessary free space to accommodate the RAW image. For example, if you increase the security hardened image size to 40G, you must have 40G of space available on the undercloud’s hard disk.

Important

When the director eventually writes the image to the physical disk, the director creates a 64MB configuration drive primary partition at the end of the disk. When creating your whole disk image, ensure it is less than the size of the physical disk to accommodate this extra partition.

C.4. Creating a Security Hardened Whole Disk Image

After you have set the environment variables and customized the image, create the image using the openstack overcloud image build command: 

# openstack overcloud image build \
--image-name overcloud-hardened-full \
--config-file /home/stack/overcloud-hardened-images-custom.yaml \
--config-file /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-common/image-yaml/overcloud-hardened-images-rhel7.yaml

The /home/stack/overcloud-hardened-images-custom.yaml custom configuration file contains the new disk size from Section C.3.2, “Modifying the Image Size”. If you are not using a different custom disk size, use the original /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-common/image-yaml/overcloud-hardened-images.yaml file instead.

For UEFI whole disk images, use the /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-common/image-yaml/overcloud-hardened-images-uefi-rhel7.yaml configuration file.

The overcloud-hardened-full.qcow2 image that you have created contains all the necessary security features.

C.5. Uploading a Security Hardened Whole Disk Image

Upload the image to the OpenStack Image (glance) service and start using it from the Red Hat OpenStack Platform director. To upload a security hardened image, execute the following steps:

  1. Rename the newly generated image and move it to your images directory: 

    # mv overcloud-hardened-full.qcow2 ~/images/overcloud-full.qcow2

  2. Remove all the old overcloud images: 

    # openstack image delete overcloud-full
# openstack image delete overcloud-full-initrd
# openstack image delete overcloud-full-vmlinuz

  3. Upload the new overcloud image: 

    # openstack overcloud image upload --image-path /home/stack/images --whole-disk

If you want to replace an existing image with the security hardened image, use the --update-existing flag. This will overwrite the original overcloud-full image with a new security hardened image you generated.