Installing oVirt as a self-hosted engine using the command line

Install the NFS utils package.

# dnf install nfs-utils -y

To check the enabled versions:

# cat /proc/fs/nfsd/versions

Enable the following services:

# systemctl enable nfs-server
# systemctl enable rpcbind

Create the group kvm:

# groupadd kvm -g 36

Create the user vdsm in the group kvm:

# useradd vdsm -u 36 -g kvm

Create the storage directory and modify the access rights.

# mkdir /storage
# chmod 0755 /storage
# chown 36:36 /storage/

Add the storage directory to /etc/exports with the relevant permissions.

# vi /etc/exports
# cat /etc/exports
 /storage *(rw)

Restart the following services:

# systemctl restart rpcbind
# systemctl restart nfs-server

To see which export are available for a specific IP address:

# exportfs
 /nfs_server/srv
               10.46.11.3/24
 /nfs_server       <world>

Create a new configuration file in the /etc/multipath/conf.d directory.

Copy the individual setting you want to override from /etc/multipath.conf to the new configuration file in /etc/multipath/conf.d/<my_device>.conf. Remove any comment marks, edit the setting values, and save your changes.

Apply the new configuration settings by entering:

# systemctl reload multipathd

Test that the new configuration performs as expected on a non-production cluster in a variety of failure scenarios. For example, disable all of the storage connections.

Enable one connection at a time and verify that doing so makes the storage domain reachable.

Visit the oVirt Node Download page.

Choose the version of oVirt Node to download and click its Installation ISO link.

Write the oVirt Node Installation ISO disk image to a USB, CD, or DVD.

Start the machine on which you are installing oVirt Node, booting from the prepared installation media.

From the boot menu, select Install oVirt Node 4.5 and press Enter.

Select a language, and click Continue.

Select a keyboard layout from the Keyboard Layout screen and click Done.

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

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

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

Optional: Configure Security Policy and Kdump. See Customizing your RHEL installation using the GUI in Performing a standard RHEL installation for Enterprise Linux 8 for more information on each of the sections in the Installation Summary screen.

Click Begin Installation.

Set a root password and, optionally, create an additional user while oVirt Node installs.

Click Reboot to complete the installation.

The installer installs the Engine Appliance to the deployment host.

The appliance installs the Engine virtual machine.

The appliance installs the Engine on the Engine virtual machine.

On Enterprise Linux hosts:

Start firewalld:

# systemctl unmask firewalld
# systemctl start firewalld

# systemctl enable firewalld

Ensure that firewalld is running:

# systemctl status firewalld

Ensure that your management interface is in a firewall zone via

# firewall-cmd --get-active-zones

Install the deployment tool:

# dnf install ovirt-hosted-engine-setup

Use the tmux window manager to run the script to avoid losing the session in case of network or terminal disruption.

# dnf -y install tmux
# tmux

Start the deployment script:

# hosted-engine --deploy

# hosted-engine --deploy --ansible-extra-vars=he_pause_host=true

When prompted, enter Yes to begin the deployment:

Continuing will configure this host for serving as hypervisor and will create a local VM with a running engine.
The locally running engine will be used to configure a new storage domain and create a VM there.
At the end the disk of the local VM will be moved to the shared storage.
Are you sure you want to continue? (Yes, No)[Yes]:

Configure the network. Check that the gateway shown is correct and press Enter. Enter a pingable address on the same subnet so the script can check the host’s connectivity.

Please indicate a pingable gateway IP address [X.X.X.X]:

The script detects possible NICs to use as a management bridge for the environment. Enter one of them or press Enter to accept the default.

Please indicate a nic to set ovirtmgmt bridge on: (ens1, ens0) [ens1]:

Specify how to check network connectivity. The default is dns.

Please specify which way the network connectivity should be checked (ping, dns, tcp, none) [dns]:

Enter a name for the data center in which to deploy the host for the self-hosted engine. The default name is Default.

Please enter the name of the data center where you want to deploy this hosted-engine host.
Data center [Default]:

Enter a name for the cluster in which to deploy the host for the self-hosted engine. The default name is Default.

Please enter the name of the cluster where you want to deploy this hosted-engine host.
Cluster [Default]:

If you want to use a custom appliance for the virtual machine installation, enter the path to the OVA archive. Otherwise, leave this field empty to use the Engine Appliance.

To deploy with a custom Engine Appliance appliance image, specify the path to the OVA archive. Otherwise, leave this field empty to use the Engine Appliance.

If you want to deploy with a custom engine appliance image, please specify the path to the OVA archive you would like to use.
 Entering no value will use the image from the rhvm-appliance rpm, installing it if needed.
 Appliance image path []:

Enter the CPU and memory configuration for the Engine virtual machine:

Please specify the number of virtual CPUs for the VM. The default is the appliance OVF value [4]:
Please specify the memory size of the VM in MB. The default is the maximum available [6824]:

Specify the FQDN for the Engine virtual machine, such as manager.example.com:

Please provide the FQDN you would like to use for the engine.
Note: This will be the FQDN of the engine VM you are now going to launch,
it should not point to the base host or to any other existing machine.
Engine VM FQDN []:

Specify the domain of the Engine virtual machine. For example, if the FQDN is manager.example.com, then enter example.com.

Please provide the domain name you would like to use for the engine appliance.
Engine VM domain: [example.com]

Create the root password for the Engine, and reenter it to confirm:

Enter root password that will be used for the engine appliance:
Confirm appliance root password:

Optional: Enter an SSH public key to enable you to log in to the Engine virtual machine as the root user without entering a password, and specify whether to enable SSH access for the root user:

You may provide an SSH public key, that will be added by the deployment script to the authorized_keys file of the root user in the engine appliance.
This should allow you passwordless login to the engine machine after deployment.
If you provide no key, authorized_keys will not be touched.
SSH public key []:

Do you want to enable ssh access for the root user (yes, no, without-password) [yes]:

Optional: You can apply the DISA STIG security profile on the Engine virtual machine. The DISA STIG profile is the default OpenSCAP profile.

Do you want to apply a default OpenSCAP security profile? (Yes, No) [No]:

Enter a MAC address for the Engine virtual machine, or accept a randomly generated one. If you want to provide the Engine virtual machine with an IP address via DHCP, ensure that you have a valid DHCP reservation for this MAC address. The deployment script will not configure the DHCP server for you.

You may specify a unicast MAC address for the VM or accept a randomly generated default [00:16:3e:3d:34:47]:

Enter the Engine virtual machine’s networking details:

How should the engine VM network be configured (DHCP, Static)[DHCP]?

Please enter the IP address to be used for the engine VM [x.x.x.x]:
Please provide a comma-separated list (max 3) of IP addresses of domain name servers for the engine VM
Engine VM DNS (leave it empty to skip):

Specify whether to add entries for the Engine virtual machine and the base host to the virtual machine’s /etc/hosts file. You must ensure that the host names are resolvable.

Add lines for the appliance itself and for this host to /etc/hosts on the engine VM?
Note: ensuring that this host could resolve the engine VM hostname is still up to you.
Add lines to /etc/hosts? (Yes, No)[Yes]:

Provide the name and TCP port number of the SMTP server, the email address used to send email notifications, and a comma-separated list of email addresses to receive these notifications. Alternatively, press Enter to accept the defaults:

Please provide the name of the SMTP server through which we will send notifications [localhost]:
Please provide the TCP port number of the SMTP server [25]:
Please provide the email address from which notifications will be sent [root@localhost]:
Please provide a comma-separated list of email addresses which will get notifications [root@localhost]:

Create a password for the admin@internal user to access the Administration Portal and reenter it to confirm:

Enter engine admin password:
Confirm engine admin password:

Specify the hostname of the deployment host:

Please provide the hostname of this host on the management network [hostname.example.com]:

Optional: If you set the variable he_pause_host: true, the deployment pauses after adding the deployment host to the Engine. You can now log in from the deployment host to the Engine virtual machine to customize it. You can log in with either the FQDN or the IP address of the Engine. For example, if the FQDN of the Engine is manager.example.com:

$ ssh root@manager.example.com

Select the type of storage to use:

Please specify the storage you would like to use (glusterfs, iscsi, fc, nfs)[nfs]:

Enter the disk size of the Engine virtual machine:

Please specify the size of the VM disk in GB: [50]:

Optional: Install and configure Red Hat Single Sign On so that you can add additional users to the environment. For more information, see Installing and Configuring Red Hat Single Sign-On in the Administration Guide.

Optional: Deploy Grafana so you can monitor and display reports from your oVirt environment. For more information, see Configuring Grafana in the Administration Guide.

Enable the javapackages-tools module.

# dnf module -y enable javapackages-tools

Enable the pki-deps module.

# dnf module -y enable pki-deps

Enable version 12 of the postgresql module.

# dnf module -y enable postgresql:12

Enable version 2.3 of the mod_auth_openidc module.

# dnf module -y enable mod_auth_openidc:2.3

Enable version 14 of the nodejs module:

# dnf module -y enable nodejs:14

Update the Self-Hosted Engine using the procedure Updating a Self-Hosted Engine in the Upgrade Guide.

In a web browser, navigate to https://manager-fqdn/ovirt-engine, replacing manager-fqdn with the FQDN that you provided during installation.

# vi /etc/ovirt-engine/engine.conf.d/99-custom-sso-setup.conf
SSO_ALTERNATE_ENGINE_FQDNS="_alias1.example.com alias2.example.com_"

Click Administration Portal. An SSO login page displays. SSO login enables you to log in to the Administration and VM Portal at the same time.

Enter your User Name and Password. If you are logging in for the first time, use the user name admin along with the password that you specified during installation.

Select the Domain to authenticate against. If you are logging in using the internal admin user name, select the internal domain.

Click Log In.

You can view the Administration Portal in multiple languages. The default selection is chosen based on the locale settings of your web browser. If you want to view the Administration Portal in a language other than the default, select your preferred language from the drop-down list on the welcome page.

In the Administration Portal, click Compute  Hosts.

Click New.

Use the drop-down list to select the Data Center and Host Cluster for the new host.

Enter the Name and the Address of the new host. The standard SSH port, port 22, is auto-filled in the SSH Port field.

Select an authentication method to use for the Engine to access the host.

Optionally, configure power management, where the host has a supported power management card. For information on power management configuration, see Host Power Management Settings Explained in the Administration Guide.

Click the Hosted Engine tab.

Select Deploy.

Click OK.

From the Administration Portal, click Compute  Hosts.

Click New.

Use the drop-down list to select the Data Center and Host Cluster for the new host.

Enter the Name and the Address of the new host. The standard SSH port, port 22, is auto-filled in the SSH Port field.

Select an authentication method to use for the Engine to access the host.

Optionally, click the Advanced Parameters button to change the following advanced host settings:

Optionally configure power management, where the host has a supported power management card. For information on power management configuration, see Host Power Management Settings Explained in the Administration Guide.

Click OK.

In the Administration Portal, click Storage  Domains.

Click New Domain.

Enter a Name for the storage domain.

Accept the default values for the Data Center, Domain Function, Storage Type, Format, and Host lists.

Enter the Export Path to be used for the storage domain. The export path should be in the format of 123.123.0.10:/data (for IPv4), [2001:0:0:0:0:0:0:5db1]:/data (for IPv6), or domain.example.com:/data.

Optionally, you can configure the advanced parameters:

Click OK.

Click Storage  Domains.

Click New Domain.

Enter the Name of the new storage domain.

Select a Data Center from the drop-down list.

Select Data as the Domain Function and iSCSI as the Storage Type.

Select an active host as the Host.

The Engine can map iSCSI targets to LUNs or LUNs to iSCSI targets. The New Domain window automatically displays known targets with unused LUNs when the iSCSI storage type is selected. If the target that you are using to add storage does not appear, you can use target discovery to find it; otherwise proceed to the next step.

Click the + button next to the desired target. This expands the entry and displays all unused LUNs attached to the target.

Select the check box for each LUN that you are using to create the storage domain.

Optionally, you can configure the advanced parameters:

Click OK.

Click Storage  Domains.

Click New Domain.

Enter the Name of the storage domain.

Select an FCP Data Center from the drop-down list.

Select the Domain Function and the Storage Type from the drop-down lists. The storage domain types that are not compatible with the chosen data center are not available.

Select an active host in the Host field. If this is not the first data domain in a data center, you must select the data center’s SPM host.

The New Domain window automatically displays known targets with unused LUNs when Fibre Channel is selected as the storage type. Select the LUN ID check box to select all of the available LUNs.

Optionally, you can configure the advanced parameters.

Click OK.

If the Engine virtual machine is up and running as normal, you will see the following output:

--== Host 1 status ==--

Status up-to-date              : True
Hostname                       : hypervisor.example.com
Host ID                        : 1
Engine status                  : {"health": "good", "vm": "up", "detail": "up"}
Score                          : 3400
stopped                        : False
Local maintenance              : False
crc32                          : 99e57eba
Host timestamp                 : 248542

If the output is normal but you cannot connect to the Engine, check the network connection.

If the health is bad and the vm is up, the HA services will try to restart the Engine virtual machine to get the Engine back. If it does not succeed within a few minutes, enable the global maintenance mode from the command line so that the hosts are no longer managed by the HA services.

# hosted-engine --set-maintenance --mode=global

Connect to the console. When prompted, enter the operating system’s root password. For more console options, see How to access Hosted Engine VM console from RHEV-H host?.

# hosted-engine --console

Ensure that the Engine virtual machine’s operating system is running by logging in.

Check the status of the ovirt-engine service:

# systemctl status -l ovirt-engine
# journalctl -u ovirt-engine

Check the following logs: /var/log/messages, /var/log/ovirt-engine/engine.log, and /var/log/ovirt-engine/server.log.

After fixing the issue, reboot the Engine virtual machine manually from one of the self-hosted engine nodes:

# hosted-engine --vm-shutdown
# hosted-engine --vm-start

On the Engine virtual machine, verify that the ovirt-engine service is up and running:

 # systemctl status ovirt-engine.service

After ensuring the Engine virtual machine is up and running, close the console session and disable the maintenance mode to enable the HA services again:

# hosted-engine --set-maintenance --mode=none

If you have more than one host in your environment, ensure that another host is not currently trying to restart the Engine virtual machine.

Ensure that you are not in global maintenance mode.

Check the ovirt-ha-agent logs in /var/log/ovirt-hosted-engine-ha/agent.log.

Try to reboot the Engine virtual machine manually from one of the self-hosted engine nodes:

# hosted-engine --vm-shutdown
# hosted-engine --vm-start

Check the VDSM logs in /var/log/vdsm/vdsm.log.

Check the ovirt-ha-agent logs in /var/log/ovirt-hosted-engine-ha/agent.log.

Check the status of ovirt-ha-agent on the host:

# systemctl status -l ovirt-ha-agent
# journalctl -u ovirt-ha-agent

If the ovirt-ha-agent is down, restart it:

# systemctl start ovirt-ha-agent

Check the ovirt-ha-agent logs in /var/log/ovirt-hosted-engine-ha/agent.log.

Check that you can ping the shared storage.

Check whether the shared storage is mounted.

Run /usr/sbin/ovirt-hosted-engine-cleanup and select y to remove anything left over from the failed self-hosted engine deployment.

# /usr/sbin/ovirt-hosted-engine-cleanup
This will de-configure the host to run ovirt-hosted-engine-setup from scratch.
Caution, this operation should be used with care.
Are you sure you want to proceed? [y/n]

Define whether to reinstall on the same shared storage device or select a different shared storage device.

Redeploy the self-hosted engine.

Run modprobe to remove any currently-loaded module:

# modprobe -r <module name>

If the module cannot be unloaded, a process or another module might still be using the module. If so, terminate the process and run the modpole command written above another time to unload the module.