Installing oVirt as a standalone Engine with remote databases

The oVirt Engine must run on Enterprise Linux 8.7 or later. For detailed installation instructions, see Performing a standard EL installation.

Install a second Enterprise Linux machine to use for the databases. This machine will be referred to as the remote server.

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

Synchronize installed packages to update them to the latest available versions.

# dnf distro-sync --nobest

Enable the javapackages-tools module.

# dnf module -y enable javapackages-tools

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

Synchronize installed packages to update them to the latest available versions.

# dnf distro-sync --nobest

Install the PostgreSQL server package:

# dnf install postgresql-server postgresql-contrib

Initialize the PostgreSQL database instance:

# postgresql-setup --initdb

Enable the postgresql service and configure it to start when the machine boots:

# systemctl enable postgresql
# systemctl start postgresql

Connect to the psql command line interface as the postgres user:

# su - postgres -c psql

Create a default user. The Engine’s default user is engine:

postgres=# create role user_name with login encrypted password 'password';

Create a database. The Engine’s default database name is engine:

postgres=# create database database_name owner user_name template template0 encoding 'UTF8' lc_collate 'en_US.UTF-8' lc_ctype 'en_US.UTF-8';

Connect to the new database:

postgres=# \c database_name

Add the uuid-ossp extension:

database_name=# CREATE EXTENSION "uuid-ossp";

Add the plpgsql language if it does not exist:

database_name=# CREATE LANGUAGE plpgsql;

Quit the psql interface:

database_name=# \q

Edit the /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf file to enable md5 client authentication, so that the engine can access the database remotely. Add the following line immediately below the line that starts with local at the bottom of the file. Replace X.X.X.X with the IP address of the Engine or Data Warehouse machine, and replace 0-32 or 0-128 with the CIDR mask length:

host    database_name    user_name    X.X.X.X/0-32    md5
host    database_name    user_name    X.X.X.X::/0-128   md5

# IPv4, 32-bit address:
host    engine    engine    192.168.12.10/32    md5

# IPv6, 128-bit address:
host    engine    engine    fe80::7a31:c1ff:0000:0000/96   md5

Allow TCP/IP connections to the database. Edit the /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf file and add the following line:

listen_addresses='*'

Update the PostgreSQL server’s configuration. In the /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf file, add the following lines to the bottom of the file:

autovacuum_vacuum_scale_factor=0.01
autovacuum_analyze_scale_factor=0.075
autovacuum_max_workers=6
maintenance_work_mem=65536
max_connections=150
work_mem=8192

Open the default port used for PostgreSQL database connections, and save the updated firewall rules:

# firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-service=postgresql
# firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=postgresql

Restart the postgresql service:

# systemctl restart postgresql

Optionally, set up SSL to secure database connections.

Ensure all packages are up to date:

# dnf upgrade --nobest

Install the ovirt-engine package and dependencies.

# dnf install ovirt-engine

Run the engine-setup command to begin configuring the oVirt Engine:

# engine-setup

Optional: Type Yes and press Enter to set up Cinderlib integration on this machine:

Set up Cinderlib integration
(Currently in tech preview)
(Yes, No) [No]:

Press Enter to configure the Engine on this machine:

Configure Engine on this host (Yes, No) [Yes]:

Optional: Install Open Virtual Network (OVN). Selecting Yes installs an OVN server on the Engine machine and adds it to oVirt as an external network provider. This action also configures the Default cluster to use OVN as its default network provider.

Configuring ovirt-provider-ovn also sets the Default cluster’s default network provider to ovirt-provider-ovn.
Non-Default clusters may be configured with an OVN after installation.
Configure ovirt-provider-ovn (Yes, No) [Yes]:

Optional: Allow engine-setup to configure a WebSocket Proxy server for allowing users to connect to virtual machines through the noVNC console:

Configure WebSocket Proxy on this machine? (Yes, No) [Yes]:

To configure Data Warehouse on a remote server, answer No and see Installing and Configuring Data Warehouse on a Separate Machine after completing the Engine configuration.

Please note: Data Warehouse is required for the engine. If you choose to not configure it on this host, you have to configure it on a remote host, and then configure the engine on this host so that it can access the database of the remote Data Warehouse host.
Configure Data Warehouse on this host (Yes, No) [Yes]:

To configure Grafana on the same machine as the Data Warehouse service, enter No:

Configure Grafana on this host (Yes, No) [Yes]:

Optional: Allow access to a virtual machine’s serial console from the command line.

Configure VM Console Proxy on this host (Yes, No) [Yes]:

Press Enter to accept the automatically detected host name, or enter an alternative host name and press Enter. Note that the automatically detected host name may be incorrect if you are using virtual hosts.

Host fully qualified DNS name of this server [autodetected host name]:

The engine-setup command checks your firewall configuration and offers to open the ports used by the Engine for external communication, such as ports 80 and 443. If you do not allow engine-setup to modify your firewall configuration, you must manually open the ports used by the Engine. firewalld is configured as the firewall manager.

Setup can automatically configure the firewall on this system.
Note: automatic configuration of the firewall may overwrite current settings.
Do you want Setup to configure the firewall? (Yes, No) [Yes]:

Specify whether to configure the Engine database on this machine, or on another machine:

Where is the Engine database located? (Local, Remote) [Local]:

Engine database host [localhost]:
Engine database port [5432]:
Engine database secured connection (Yes, No) [No]:
Engine database name [engine]:
Engine database user [engine]:
Engine database password:

Set a password for the automatically created administrative user of the oVirt Engine:

Engine admin password:
Confirm engine admin password:

Select Gluster, Virt, or Both:

Application mode (Both, Virt, Gluster) [Both]:

If you installed the OVN provider, you can choose to use the default credentials, or specify an alternative.

Use default credentials (admin@internal) for ovirt-provider-ovn (Yes, No) [Yes]:
oVirt OVN provider user[admin@internal]:
oVirt OVN provider password:

Set the default value for the wipe_after_delete flag, which wipes the blocks of a virtual disk when the disk is deleted.

Default SAN wipe after delete (Yes, No) [No]:

The Engine uses certificates to communicate securely with its hosts. This certificate can also optionally be used to secure HTTPS communications with the Engine. Provide the organization name for the certificate:

Organization name for certificate [autodetected domain-based name]:

Optionally allow engine-setup to make the landing page of the Engine the default page presented by the Apache web server:

Setup can configure the default page of the web server to present the application home page. This may conflict with existing applications.
Do you wish to set the application as the default web page of the server? (Yes, No) [Yes]:

By default, external SSL (HTTPS) communication with the Engine is secured with the self-signed certificate created earlier in the configuration to securely communicate with hosts. Alternatively, choose another certificate for external HTTPS connections; this does not affect how the Engine communicates with hosts:

Setup can configure apache to use SSL using a certificate issued from the internal CA.
Do you wish Setup to configure that, or prefer to perform that manually? (Automatic, Manual) [Automatic]:

You can specify a unique password for the Grafana admin user, or use same one as the Engine admin password:

Use Engine admin password as initial Grafana admin password (Yes, No) [Yes]:

Review the installation settings, and press Enter to accept the values and proceed with the installation:

Please confirm installation settings (OK, Cancel) [OK]:

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

Synchronize installed packages to update them to the latest available versions.

# dnf distro-sync --nobest

Log in to the machine where you want to install the database.

Ensure that all packages are up to date:

# dnf upgrade --nobest

Install the ovirt-engine-dwh-setup package:

# dnf install ovirt-engine-dwh-setup

Run the engine-setup command to begin the installation:

# engine-setup

Answer Yes to install Data Warehouse on this machine:

Configure Data Warehouse on this host (Yes, No) [Yes]:

Answer Yes to install Grafana on this machine:

Configure Grafana on this host (Yes, No) [Yes]:

Press Enter to accept the automatically-detected host name, or enter an alternative host name and press Enter:

Host fully qualified DNS name of this server [autodetected hostname]:

Press Enter to automatically configure the firewall, or type No and press Enter to maintain existing settings:

Setup can automatically configure the firewall on this system.
Note: automatic configuration of the firewall may overwrite current settings.
Do you want Setup to configure the firewall? (Yes, No) [Yes]:

Enter the fully qualified domain name of the Engine machine, and then press Enter:

Host fully qualified DNS name of the engine server []:

Press Enter to allow setup to sign the certificate on the Engine via SSH:

Setup will need to do some actions on the remote engine server. Either automatically, using ssh as root to access it, or you will be prompted to manually perform each such action.
Please choose one of the following:
1 - Access remote engine server using ssh as root
2 - Perform each action manually, use files to copy content around
(1, 2) [1]:

Press Enter to accept the default SSH port, or enter an alternative port number and then press Enter:

ssh port on remote engine server [22]:

Enter the root password for the Engine machine:

root password on remote engine server manager.example.com:

Specify whether to host the Data Warehouse database on this machine (Local), or on another machine (Remote).:

Where is the DWH database located? (Local, Remote) [Local]:

Enter the fully qualified domain name and password for the Engine database machine. If you are installing the Data Warehouse database on the same machine where the Engine database is installed, use the same FQDN. Press Enter to accept the default values in each other field:

Engine database host []: engine-db-fqdn
Engine database port [5432]:
Engine database secured connection (Yes, No) [No]:
Engine database name [engine]:
Engine database user [engine]:
Engine database password: password

Choose how long Data Warehouse will retain collected data:

Please choose Data Warehouse sampling scale:
(1) Basic
(2) Full
(1, 2)[1]:

Confirm your installation settings:

Please confirm installation settings (OK, Cancel) [OK]:

After the Data Warehouse configuration is complete, on the oVirt Engine, restart the ovirt-engine service:

# systemctl restart ovirt-engine

Optionally, set up SSL to secure database connections.

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.

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.

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>

On the host, create the directory to be used for the local storage:

# mkdir -p /data/images

Ensure that the directory has permissions allowing read/write access to the vdsm user (UID 36) and kvm group (GID 36):

# chown 36:36 /data /data/images
# chmod 0755 /data /data/images

Create a local storage directory:

# mkdir /data
# lvcreate -L $SIZE rhvh -n data
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/rhvh-data
# echo "/dev/mapper/rhvh-data /data ext4 defaults,discard 1 2" >> /etc/fstab
# mount /data

Mount the new local storage:

# mount -a

Ensure that the directory has permissions allowing read/write access to the vdsm user (UID 36) and kvm group (GID 36):

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

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.

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.

Click Storage  Domains.

Click New Domain.

Enter the Name for the storage domain.

Select the Data Center to be associated with the storage domain. The data center selected must be of type POSIX (POSIX compliant FS). Alternatively, select (none).

Select Data from the Domain Function drop-down list, and POSIX compliant FS from the Storage Type drop-down list.

Select a host from the Host drop-down list.

Enter the Path to the POSIX file system, as you would normally provide it to the mount command.

Enter the VFS Type, as you would normally provide it to the mount command using the -t argument. See man mount for a list of valid VFS types.

Enter additional Mount Options, as you would normally provide them to the mount command using the -o argument. The mount options should be provided in a comma-separated list. See man mount for a list of valid mount options.

Optionally, you can configure the advanced parameters.

Click OK.

Click Compute  Hosts and select the host.

Click Management  Maintenance and OK. The host’s status changes to Maintenance.

Click Management  Configure Local Storage.

Click the Edit buttons next to the Data Center, Cluster, and Storage fields to configure and name the local storage domain.

Set the path to your local storage in the text entry field.

If applicable, click the Optimization tab to configure the memory optimization policy for the new local storage cluster.

Click OK.

Click Storage  Domains.

Locate the local storage domain you just added.

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.