oVirt installation and setup¶

Install oVirt node¶

• download ISO. You want the oVirt Node ISO.
• flash to USB memory stick
• Boot from memory stick

Run oVirt setup wizard¶

1. Select language from the list then press the Continue button
2. Select the keyboard layout then press the Done key
3. Enter the Installation Destination section
   • you need to keep a disk or partition free for Gluster to use (this was discussed in the preparation section)
4. Enter a root password
5. Set the TimeZone
6. Enter the Network and Host name section (ovirt host details - z840.home.lab in my setup)
   • select Configure to configure the network interface
   • In the IPv4 tab select Manual configuration then select Add to enter the configuration - this should match what is in your DNS configuration. Press Save to store the IP configuration
   • Click the toggle switch to enable the Ethernet interface
   • Select Done to complete the network configuration
7. (optional) If you want to configure NTP time synchronisation, revisit the Time & Date section and configure the NTP server to a local server then enable NTP
8. Select Begin Installation to start the installation
9. Wait for installation to complete then select to reboot when selected (ensure the USB memory stick is removed so it doesn't boot from the install media)
10. You can now interact with the installed system using the web based cockpit UI. On your laptop or a workstation on the network, navigate to https://<host address>:9090. Where the host address is the address you added in DNS for the IP address you manually configured in step 6 above.

(Optional) Create partition for Gluster filesystem¶

If you are using a disk partition for the Gluster FS, then you need to create the partition. In the cockpit UI, navigate to the Storage section. Select the disk where the partition will live from the side panel. This will show the partitions in the Content section. Next to the unallocated space there is a Create partition button. Click the button to create a partition. Set the required size and select No filesystem as the type then click Create partition to create the partition.

Setup ssh keys¶

During the install the ansible scripts need to be able to execute commands on the host. To do this it uses passwordless ssh. Even though we are only using a single host, the scripts are written to work across multiple hosts, so we need to enable passwordless ssh.

You need to know your host IP address to substitute into ssh-copy-id command. You can find your host address using command hostname -I

Enter the following commands using the terminal section of the cockpit web console (http://<host-address>:9090) for the oVirt host. Substitute your host address in the copy command, accept all defaults and leave the passphrase blank:

ssh-keygen
ssh-copy-id root@<host-address>

you will be prompted to confirm the connection, answer yes then you will be prompted for the root password, which you entered in step 4 of the previous section.

Configure LVM filter (not required for oVirt 4.5.4 and later)¶

By default Logical Volumes are configured to specific devices, so you need to add the device you want to use for the Gluster storage.

Using the terminal section in the cockpit web ui, edit file /etc/lvm/lvm.conf and search for a line the starts filter =, not lines starting with # are comments.

Modify the line to include your chosen device for the gluster volumes,

eg. If the filter is currently set to filter = ["a|^/dev/disk/by-id/lvm-pv-uuid-U77HZ9-LPry-OOMY-bgOq-t34w-l3av-srg8tU$|", "r|.*|"] and your chosen device is /dev/sdb, then the filter line needs to be modified to:

filter = ["a|^/dev/disk/by-id/lvm-pv-uuid-U77HZ9-LPry-OOMY-bgOq-t34w-l3av-srg8tU$|", "a|^/dev/sdb|", "r|.*|"]

Save the modified lvm.conf file

Setup the hyperconverged oVirt Hosted Engine and Gluster storage¶

sed -i 's/output | to_json/output/' /etc/ansible/roles/gluster.infra/roles/backend_setup/tasks/get_vg_groupings.yml
sed -i 's/output | to_json/output/' /etc/ansible/roles/gluster.infra/roles/backend_setup/tasks/thick_lv_create.yml
sed -i 's/output | to_json/output/' /etc/ansible/roles/gluster.infra/roles/backend_setup/tasks/thin_pool_create.yml
sed -i 's/output | to_json/output/' /etc/ansible/roles/gluster.infra/roles/backend_setup/tasks/thin_volume_create.yml

The hyperconverged Hosted Engine and Gluster storage can be installed using the cockpit web console (http://<host-address>:9090).

In the Cockpit UI navigate to the Virtualization section in the side menu, then select the Hosted Engine section.

Select the start button under Hyperconverged.

Select the Run Gluster Wizard for Single Node option to start the install.

1. Enter the Fully qualified hostname for the oVirt cluster (this should be the name of the oVirt node that was used during the ssh-copy-id command)
2. You can leave the Packages options as default
3. You can leave the Volumes options as default. However, if you have a small amount of storage you may want to delete 2 of the 3 default volumes, so all available storage will be in a single volume.
4. In the Bricks options, set the device to the device you have available for the gluster storage for all the configured volumes. This could be an entire disk (e.g. /dev/sdb), or an available disk partition (/dev/sda3)
5. (only for earlier versions of oVirt) In the review section edit the summary and remove the line - 5900/tcp, as this will cause the scripts to fail. Save the script
6. Select the Deploy button to start the Gluster Storage installation

If all works you should see the screen confirming the Gluster installation was successful

You can now select the Continue to Hosted Engine Deployment button to install the Hosted Engine.

Install Hosted Engine¶

The Hosted Engine will try to add port 6900 to the public zone and will fail as the port is already being exposed. Before installing the Hosted Engine you need to modify the firewall configuration.

Modify the firewall rules¶

You need to modify the firewall config to remove port 6900 to ensure the automated deployment will work.

1. Switch to the terminal section and edit the file /etc/firewalld/zones/public.xml to have the following content:

   <zone>
     <short>Public</short>
     <description>For use in public areas. You do not trust the other computers on networks to not harm your computer. Only selected incoming connections are accepted.</description>
     <service name="ssh"/>
     <service name="dhcpv6-client"/>
     <service name="cockpit"/>
     <service name="libvirt"/>
     <service name="libvirt-tls"/>
     <service name="glusterfs"/>
     <service name="custom-vdsm"/>
     <port port="2049" protocol="tcp"/>
     <port port="54321" protocol="tcp"/>
     <port port="5900-6899" protocol="tcp"/>
     <port port="6901-6923" protocol="tcp"/>
     <port port="5666" protocol="tcp"/>
     <port port="16514" protocol="tcp"/>
   </zone>
   

   You can see the port range 5900-6923 has been split into 2 ranges avoiding port 6900

2. run command systemctl restart firewalld to make the new firewall configuration live. You can now return to the Virtualization section of the Cockpit web console to continue with the Hosted Engine deployment.

Install the Hosted Engine¶

Select to Deploy the Hosted Engine

1. In the VM Settings section enter:
   • the fully qualified host name for the hosted engine (virt.home.lab in my setup)
   • switch to static Network Configuration and set the IP address to the value matching your hostname in your DNS, the gateway address and DNS server address
   • enter the root password you want to set for the hosted engine operating system
   • select Next to move to Engine section
2. In the Engine section enter the admin password you want to set for the Engine, then select **Next to move to the next section
3. Review the configuration information then press Prepare VM to deploy the Hosted Engine virtual machine in the Prepare VM section, this can take a while
4. When the VM has been setup press Next to complete the setup
5. In the storage section the settings should be pre-populated, so you can press Next then Finish Deployment

Setup Console viewing app¶

oVirt uses the SPICE protocol to access a hosted virtual machine. You need to have a console viewing application installed on your system. Details can be found here

oVirt machine console on macOS¶

Setting up the console viewer on MacOS can be a little more involved.

When using Homebrew, issue the following commands on the command line:

• brew install gtk+3
• brew tap jeffreywildman/homebrew-virt-manager
• brew install remoteviewer

then follow the instructions to setup the association of .vv files to the remote-viewer application.