Chapter 5. Building and managing customized RHEL images

Procedure

1. Access Insights Images. The list of existing blueprints appears.

2. Select the blueprint that you want to build an image from.

   1. Optionally, you can select the blueprint version from the dropdown menu.

3. Click Build images. A pop-up alert informs that the image is being built.

   After the image process status is marked as Ready, you can use it in your deployments.

Procedure

1. Access your AWS account and navigate to Service→EC2.
2. In the navigation bar, verify if you are under the correct region: us-east-1.

3. Click Images, and choose AMIs.

   The dashboard with the Owned by me images opens.

4. From the dropdown menu, choose Private images.

   You can see the image successfully shared with the AWS account you specified.

Procedure

1. From the dropdown menu, under Private images, locate the image that you shared to the AWS account you specified.
2. Select the image you want to launch.
3. On the top of the panel, click Launch. You are redirected to the Choose an Instance Type window.
4. Choose the instance type according to the resources you need to launch your image. Click Review and Launch.
5. Review your instance launch details. You can edit each section, such as Security, Storage, for example, if you need to make any changes. After you finish the review, click Launch.

6. To launch the instance, you must select a public key to access it.

   Create a new key pair in EC2 and attach it to the new instance.

   1. From the drop-down menu list, select Create a new key pair.
   2. Enter the name to the new key pair. It generates a new key pair.
   3. Click Download Key Pair to save the new key pair on your local system.

7. Then, you can click Launch Instance to launch your instance.

   You can check the status of the instance, it shows as Initializing.

8. After the instance status is running, the Connect button turns available.

9. Click Connect. A popup window appears with instructions on how to connect by using SSH.

   1. Select the preferred connection method to A standalone SSH client and open a terminal.

   2. In the location you store your private key, make sure that your key is publicly viewable for SSH to work. To do so, run the command:

      $ chmod 400 <your-instance-name.pem>

   3. Connect to your instance by using its Public DNS:

      $ ssh -i "<_your-instance-name.pem_> ec2-user@<_your-instance-IP-address_>"

   4. Type yes to confirm that you want to continue connecting.

Procedure

1. From the list of Public images, select the image you want to copy.
2. On the top of the panel, click Actions.
3. From the dropdown menu, choose Copy AMI. A popup window appears.

4. Choose the Destination region and click Copy AMI.

   After the copying process is complete, you are provided with the new AMI ID. You can launch a new instance in the new region.

   Note

   When you copy an image to a different region, it results in a separate and new AMI in the destination region, with a unique AMI ID.

Procedure

1. From the Images table, select the image you want to share with other regions.
2. From the Node options menu (⫶), select Share to new region. The Share to new region wizard opens.

3. From the Select region dropdown menu, select the region to share the image.

   You can choose more than one region to share your image with.

4. Click Share.

   Your image is built, uploaded to AWS, and shared to the regions you selected.

   Note

   The shared image expires in 14 days.

5. To ensure that you can access the image permanently, copy the Red Hat image to your own AWS account.

Procedure

1. Access Hybrid Cloud Console on a browser.
2. Click Red Hat Insights > RHEL > Inventory > Images. The Insights image builder dashboard appears.

3. Click Create blueprint.

   The Image output dialog wizard opens.

1. From the Release list, select the release that you want to use.

2. From the Select target environments option, select Microsoft Azure.

   Click Next.

   1. On the Target Environment - Microsoft Azure window, to add Image Builder as an authorized application, select one of the following share method options:

3. Use an account configured from Sources:

   1. From the Source name dropdown menu, select the source that you previously configured. See Connecting Microsoft Azure account to the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console.

      1. The Azure tenant GUID, the Subscription ID, and the Resource group are automatically completed, and the Authorize image builder button becomes available.

         Image builder checks if your Tenant GUID is correctly formatted and the Authorize image builder button becomes available.

4. Manually enter the account information:

   1. Enter your Azure Tenant GUID.

      Image builder checks if your Tenant GUID is correctly formatted and the Authorize image builder button becomes available.

5. One time action: Click Authorize image builder to authorize Image Builder to push images to the Microsoft Azure cloud.

   This redirects you to the Microsoft Azure portal.

   1. Login with your credentials.
   2. Click Accept the Permission requested. Note that, if you already went through the authentication process before, you will not see the Permission requested. It is already granted.

6. Confirm that Image Builder is authorized for your tenant.

   1. In the search bar, search for Azure Active Directory.
   2. From the Services menu, click Microsoft Entra ID, from the left menu. The Azure Active Directory page opens.
   3. Search for Insights image builder and confirm it is authorized.
   4. In the Azure Active Directory, from the Services list, select Enterprise applications.
   5. In the Enterprise applications page, from the Manage list menu, click All applications. You can see Red Hat Image Builder is authorized in the Microsoft Azure cloud.

7. Add the Red Hat Image Builder as a contributor to your Resource Group.

   1. In the search bar, type Resource Groups and select the first entry under Services. This redirects you to the Resource Groups dashboard.
   2. Search and select your Resource Group by name.
   3. On the lateral menu, click Access control (IAM) to add a permission to the Red Hat Image Builder application to access your resource group.
   4. From the menu, click the tab Role assignments.
   5. Click +Add.

   6. From the dropdown menu, choose Add role assignment. A menu appears on the left side.

      Select role

      Assign the Contributor role.

      Assign access to

      Select the option Assign access to user, group, and service principal.

      Members

      Click +Select members and type Red Hat in the search bar. Click enter.

      Select

      Red Hat Image Builder application.

Verification

1. After you access your Microsoft Azure Account, you can see that the image successfully shared with the resource group account you specified.

   Note

   If the image is not visible there, you might have issues with the upload process. Return to the Insights image builder dashboard and check if the image is marked as Ready.

Procedure

1. From the Insights image builder dashboard, copy the image UUID of the image that you created.
2. Access /composes/{composeId} API endpoint.
3. Click Try it Out to activate the composeId string path.
4. Enter the UUID into the composes/{composeId} field in the API endpoint.

5. Click Execute. The API endpoint generates a response in the Response body, for example:

   {
     "image_status": {
       "status": "success",
       "upload_status": {
         "options": {
           "image_name": "composer-api-03f0e19c-0050-4c8a-a69e-88790219b086",
           "project_id": "red-hat-image-builder"
         },
         "status": "success",
         "type": "gcp"
       }
     }
   }

6. From the Response body field, copy the image_name and project_id to access the image from the Google Cloud Platform environment.

7. From your browser, access Google Cloud Shell and set your Google Cloud Platform Project ID as the default GCP project. You can find the Product ID of your project by accessing the Google Cloud Platform dashboard.

   $ gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID

8. In the Authorize Cloud Shell window prompt, click Authorize to allow this and future calls that require your credentials.

9. Create a VM instance with the image by using the gcloud command in the Google Cloud Shell:

   $ gcloud compute instances create INSTANCE_NAME \
     --image-project PROJECT_ID_FROM_RESPONSE \
     --image IMAGE_NAME \
     --zone GCP_ZONE

   Where:

   • INSTANCE_NAME is the name for your instance;
   • PROJECT_ID_FROM_RESPONSE is the project_id generated by Response body;
   • IMAGE_NAME is the image_name generated by Response body;
   • GCP_ZONE is the GCP zone in which the instance will be created.

Verification

1. Verify that Compute Engine created the VM:

   $ gcloud compute instances describe INSTANCE_NAME

2. Connect to the VM instance using SSH:

   $ gcloud compute ssh --project=PROJECT_ID --zone=ZONE INSTANCE_NAME

Procedure

1. From the Images dashboard, copy the UUID image of the image you created.
2. Access /composes/{composeId} API endpoint.
3. Click the Try it Out button to activate the composeId string path.
4. Enter the UUID into the composes/{composeId} field in the API endpoint.

5. Click Execute. The API endpoint generates a response in the Response body, for example:

   {
     "image_status": {
       "status": "success",
       "upload_status": {
         "options": {
           "image_name": "composer-api-03f0e19c-0050-4c8a-a69e-88790219b086",
           "project_id": "red-hat-image-builder"
         },
         "status": "success",
         "type": "gcp"
       }
     }
   }

6. From the Response body field, copy the image_name and project_id to access the image from the Google Cloud Platform environment. From the Response body:

   "image_name": "composer-api-03f0e19c-0050-4c8a-a69e-88790219b086",
   "project_id": "red-hat-image-builder"

7. From your browser, access Google Cloud Shell.

8. Set your Google Cloud Platform Project ID as the default GCP project. You can find the Product ID of your project by accessing the Google Cloud Platform dashboard.

   $ gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID

9. In the Authorize Cloud Shell window prompt, click Authorize to allow this and future calls that require your credentials.

10. Copy the image to your project by using the gcloud command:

    $ gcloud compute images create MY_IMAGE_NAME \
      --source-image-project red-hat-image-builder \
      --source-image IMAGE_NAME

    Where:

    • MY_IMAGE_NAME is the name you give to your instance;
    • red-hat-image-builder is the project_id generated by Response body;
    • IMAGE_NAME is the image_name generated by Response body;

Procedure

1. From the Images dashboard, select the image from which you want to create your customized image.

2. Click the Node options menu (⫶) and select Re-create image. The Create image wizard opens.

   Note

   If the image status is Expired, click the Re-create image button.

   1. Optional: You can customize the new image by using the Navigation panel to open a step and making changes. Click Next.
   2. On the Review page, click Create image.

Procedure

1. From the Images table, select the image that you want to download as a .json compose request.

2. Click the Node options (⫶) menu and select Download compose request (.json).

   The .json compose request is now saved to your host server. To use the image builder API, see Using hosted image builder via its API.