RHEV 3 Cookbook

RHEV 3 Cook Book Part 1

Introduction

RHEV 3 Beta 3 was just released So what next its time to take you to the complete tour of RHEV3. Please note Everything Mentioned Here after as RHEV3 relates to RHEV3 Beta 3 Release. This post is intentional only for readers who like to explore RHEV3. For RHEV 2.x Series you can refer my old blog post “RHEV In a Nutshell”

If you are new to RedHat Enterprise Virtualization Read My Below Post which covers you general overview before Proceeding further. There are Major Changes in RHEV 3.0 When Compared to RHEV 2.0. So please Don't Skip any Section of this Post.

http://rcritical.blogspot.com/2010/10/red-hat-enterprise-virtualization.html

What's New on RHEV 3.0?

Linux Backend : Unlike RHEV 2.0 which requires Windows to run RHEV Manager, the latest RHEV Manager Runs on RHEL6.1 as Backend. So there is no need of any windows Instance to Install RHEV Manager.

Enhanced Administrator Portal: With tree view included to ease the management of various objects like Data Center, Cluster, Storage, Hosts, Networks, Virtual Machines, Snapshots, Templates and User Managements etc.

Power User Portal: New Power User portal allows users to access and Perform assigned tasks on virtual infrastructure as defined by the administrator from the Administrator Portal.

Multilevel Admin Support: Fine Grained Virtual Infrastructure ACL to Users.

RHEVM Reports: Complete Reporting of Virtual Infrastructure Statistic accessed from web interface and even allows you to export in various formats such as PDF,CSV,ODT etc.

RHEV Hypervisor User Interface: Improved Text based Interface for Installation, Configuration and Set up of Hypervisor.

Local Storage: You can use the Local Hard Disk to Store Virtual Machine Images and Templates, other than NFS, ISCSI, and FCP Storage type.

Custom Hooks: Hooks allows you to write a script to virtual machine to perform certain tasks like raw device mapping on to the Guests, CPU pinning etc.

Guest Agents: RHEV Agent Support for RHEL 5 & 6 both 32 & 64 Bit Guests to monitor the status and health from RHEV Manager. Also using this tool will allow you to configure single sign on and Desktop Lock on RHEL6 guests.

Restful API: Enhanced Rest API allows you to integrate RHEV Manager with your own Application.

Automation's: Python Based Command line utility in developed by upstream community to script and automate tasks in Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization.

Supported Guest Operating System

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3,4,5,6 (32 & 64 Bit)

Windows Server 2008 (32 & 64 Bit), Windows Server 2008 R2(64 Bit)

Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Later (32 & 64 Bit)

Windows 7 (32 & 64 Bit)

Windows XP SP3 and Later (32 Bit)

 

Hardware & Software Requirements

All the requirements mentioned below are minimal recommended. You need More Compute Resource if you are going to set up very large RHEV Infrastructure. For More information Refer

http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Virtualization/3.0/html-single/Installation_Guide/index.html#sect-Installation_Guide-System_Requirements-Hardware_requirements 

RHEV Manager

Physical or Virtual Machine to Act as RHEV Manager with following Minimum Prerequisite.

Dual or Quad Core CPU

4GB of RAM

25GB of Local Storage Disk

1 Gbps NIC

Virtualization Host

Two or More Host with following requirements. You can test with even a single Host But to achieve Live Migration of virtual Machine Workloads requires two minimal Host
 

64 Bit Intel or AMD CPU with Intel VT or AMD-V Hardware Virtualization Extensions
10GB of RAM and Additional GB Per Virtual Machine as per the Guest Requirement.
10GB of Internal Storage to Hold Various Partitions like /root, /data, /config, /log, /swap etc. 

NIC with Minimum 1 Gbps Network Bandwidth.

Note: Installation on Fake Raid Devices Are Not Supported

 
Software

Red Hat Network (RHN) For More info on RHN Refer http://www.redhat.com/rhn/

RHEL 6 & Later for RHEV Manager and the System to be subscribed to below Additional RHN Channels other than base channel.

rhel-x86_64-server-6-rhevm-3-beta [provides core manager]

rhel-x86_64-server-6-rhevm-3-jboss-5-beta [provides application platforms]

rhel-x86_64-server-supplementary-6 [Provides supported JRE]

RHEV-H-6 or RHEL6 Linux Host can be used as a Virtualization Host

Directory Services 

  This is Optional But ATM RHEV3 Supports two directory Services Red Hat IPA & Microsoft ADS. RHEV Provides internal admin users for Virtualization Management and if you want to attach more users then you can use either of one Directory Services. I will cover integration with both Directory Services in Later Part of the Section.

Client Requirements

Administrative Portal Access

Windows XP/7/2008&R2 32 & 64 Bit Clients With IE7 and Higher with .NET Framework 4.

User Portal Access

RHEL5.5 & Later and above mentioned windows client with Firefox 3.5 & above with SPICE Plugin for RHEL and for windows IE7 & above with SPICE ActiveX Control

Firewall

rhevm-setup tools will enable the required firewall port during the RHEV Manager Installation. You can even Skip and add the rules manually if you are running any custom iptables rules. For RHEV-H firewall ports are automatically added after the hypervisor installation and if you are using RHEL 6 Host then the following ports need to be opened .

Environment Details 
 

Some brief details about the set up we are going to use in our Demo.

RHEV Manager FQDN :    http://rhevmanager.rhev.in/

Admin User    :    admin (default internal user used by rhevm installer)

Domain  :  rhev3.in

Hypervisor 1  :   hyp1-ml350g6.rhev.in (RHEL 6.1 host as Hypervisor)

Hypervisor 2  : hyp2-dl580g5.rhev.in (RHEL 6.1 host as  Hypervisor)

DNS:  rhev3.in  (BIND With  IPA LDAP Related  Entries  in Zone Files,  Forward and Reverse Look up Zone &  configured for both hypervisors, RHEV Manager and storage in case of NFS and IscsI Set Up )

IPA Server:  ipa.rhev3.in

IPA Domain: rhev3.in (selinux: disabled)

ntp: ntp.rhev3.in

Setting up Basic Prerequisite to Install RHEV Manager

 Install RHEL6.1 X86_64 Server with @core on a virtual or physical Machine

 Assign Static/DHCP IP and Configure DNS Name Resolver suitable to your environment so that the machine will reach rhn satellite and install the necessary rhevm packages.

 Set the host name and make corresponding changes in /etc/hosts files

 Turn off Selinux [Ex: vi /etc/selinux/config and change SELINUX=disabled]

 Reboot the Machine and make sure every thing comes up as expected.

Register the Machine to RHN Satellite Server

Run #rhn_register from the command line and follow on screen instructions.

 

Click Next & Provide the RHN Log In Credentials and Click Next



Select All Available Updates and Proceed Further



 Click OK



  Modify Any of the Parameter on this step Relevant  to your environment

 
 Note: IP Information are Intentionally Masked on above screen shot

Select or Deselect Package Profile to Receive Updates from RHN & Click Next

Now its done your system  is successfully Registered with Red Hat Network to get system updates and is  subscribed to RHEL6.1 base Channel

Next we Need to Subscribe this system to Other Required Child Channels where you will find all the rhev manager related packages required to set up the rhev manager .To do so Log in to the Text Console from ssh on to this machine and run.

[root@rhevm3 ~]# rhn-channel --add –channel=rhel-x86_64-server-6-rhevm-3-beta

[root@rhevm3 ~]# rhn-channel --add --channel=rhel-x86_64-server-6-rhevm-3-jboss-5-beta

[root@rhevm3 ~]# rhn-channel --add –channel=rhel-x86_64-server-supplementary-6

Once you registered verify the host is subscibed to required base and child channel and you should get output resembles like the one below.

[root@rhevm3 ~]# rhn-channel -l

rhel-x86_64-server-6

rhel-x86_64-server-6-rhevm-3-beta

rhel-x86_64-server-6-rhevm-3-jboss-5-beta

rhel-x86_64-server-supplementary-6

[root@rhevm3 ~]#

Note: As a first step Remove classpathx-jaf package if in case  exist on the system already  since it conflict with some jboss components.

# yum remove classpathx-jaf  

 Next Upgrade the OS with the latest packages and check /tmp/yum_upgrade

for your upgrade status reference
 # yum -y upgrade 2>&1 | tee /tmp/yum_upgrade

Then install the rhevm package by running the following command and  check /tmp/yum_upgrade  for reference

#yum -y install rhevm 2>&1 | tee /tmp/yum_rhevm

Before running rhevm setup tools, Lets make other  stuffs like BIND DNS Named Service, IPA Directory Service and NTP Installed, Configured and Running. 

Setting Up BIND Named on RHEL6

You can use the Same RHEV Manager Box to install, Configure and Run  DNS BIND Service for a  smaller RHEV Set up. For Larger RHEV Base i recommend you to use other stand alone box to run DNS Service.You can use your existing DNS with sufficient Forward & Reverse Zone Entries  in your environment as well.

Please Refer My Below Blog for Setting up and Making Ready BIND Named to use with RHEV Manager & IPA.

 http://rcritical.blogspot.com/2011/11/setting-up-bind-dns-on-rhel6-for-rhev3.html

Setting up  IPA Directory Service

Like DNS you can install and Configure IPA on the same box where you are installing RHEV Manager. Please Refer My Below Blog for Setting up IPA and use with RHEV.

http://rcritical.blogspot.com/2011/11/setting-up-ipa-for-rhev3.html 

Setting IP AD/DNS 

If you plan to set up Microsoft AD/DNS to use with RHEV Please Read My Earlier  Blog i wrote for RHEV2.X Series.

http://rcritical.blogspot.com/2010/11/rhevm-addns-setup.html

I will take you to the setting up of RHEV Manager, Adding Hypervisor Host and other advanced stuffs on my  following  Part 2 of RHEV Cookbook.

http://rcritical.blogspot.com/2011/11/rhev-3-cookbook-part-2.html

Reference: http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/index.html