Chapter 11. Preparing and deploying a KVM Guest Image by using RHEL image builder

Procedure

1. Click the blueprint name you created.
2. Select the tab Images.
3. Click Create Image to create your customized image. The Create Image window opens.
4. From the Type drop-down menu list, select QEMU Image(.qcow2).
5. Set the size that you want the image to be when instantiated and click Create.
6. A small pop-up on the upper right side of the window informs you that the image creation has been added to the queue. After the image creation process is complete, you can see the Image build complete status.

Procedure

1. Move the .qcow2 image that you created by using RHEL image builder to the /var/lib/libvirt/images/ directory.

2. Create a directory, for example, cloudinitiso and navigate to this newly created directory:

   $ mkdir cloudinitiso
   $ cd cloudinitiso

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3. Create a file named meta-data. Add the following information to this file:

   instance-id: citest
   local-hostname: vmname

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4. Create a file named user-data. Add the following information to the file:

   #cloud-config
   user: admin
   password: password
   chpasswd: {expire: False}
   ssh_pwauth: True
   ssh_authorized_keys:
     - ssh-rsa AAA...fhHQ== your.email@example.com

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   ssh_authorized_keys is your SSH public key. You can find your SSH public key in ~/.ssh/<id_rsa.pub>\.

5. Use the genisoimage utility to create an ISO image that includes the user-data and meta-data files.

   # genisoimage -output cloud-init.iso -volid cidata -joliet -rock user-data meta-data
   
   I: -input-charset not specified, using utf-8 (detected in locale settings)
   Total translation table size: 0
   Total rockridge attributes bytes: 331
   Total directory bytes: 0
   Path table size(bytes): 10
   Max brk space used 0
   183 extents written (0 MB)

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6. Create a new VM from the KVM Guest Image using the virt-install command. Include the ISO image you created on step 4 as an attachment to the VM image.

   # virt-install \
       --memory 4096 \
       --vcpus 4 \
       --name myvm \
       --disk rhel-8-x86_64-kvm.qcow2,device=disk,bus=virtio,format=qcow2 \
       --disk cloud-init.iso,device=cdrom \
       --os-variant rhel 8 \
       --virt-type kvm \
       --graphics none \
       --import

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   • --graphics none - means it is a headless RHEL 8 VM.
   • --vcpus 4 - means that it uses 4 virtual CPUs.
   • --memory 4096 - means it uses 4096 MB RAM.

7. The VM installation starts:

   Starting install...
   Connected to domain mytestcivm
   ...
   [  OK  ] Started Execute cloud user/final scripts.
   [  OK  ] Reached target Cloud-init target.
   
   Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (Ootpa)
   Kernel 4.18.0-221.el8.x86_64 on an x86_64

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1. Enter admin as a username and press Enter.

2. Enter password as password and press Enter.

   After the login authentication is complete, you have access to the VM using the CLI.