Chapter 8. Advanced VM creation

Procedure

1. Navigate to Virtualization Catalog in the web console.
2. Click a template tile without an available boot source.
3. Click Customize VirtualMachine.
4. On the Customize template parameters page, expand Storage and select URL (creates PVC) from the Disk source list.
5. Enter the image URL. Example: https://access.redhat.com/downloads/content/69/ver=/rhel---7/7.9/x86_64/product-software
6. Set the disk size.
7. Click Next.
8. Click Create VirtualMachine.

Procedure

1. Edit the VirtualMachine manifest and save it as a vm-rhel-datavolume.yaml file:

   apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1
   kind: VirtualMachine
   metadata:
     creationTimestamp: null
     name: vm-rhel-datavolume 1
     labels:
       kubevirt.io/vm: vm-rhel-datavolume
   spec:
     dataVolumeTemplates:
     - metadata:
         creationTimestamp: null
         name: rhel-dv 2
       spec:
         sourceRef:
           kind: DataSource
           name: rhel9
           namespace: openshift-virtualization-os-images
         storage:
           resources:
             requests:
               storage: 10Gi 3
     instancetype:
       name: u1.small 4
     preference:
       inferFromVolume: datavolumedisk1
     runStrategy: Always
     template:
       metadata:
         creationTimestamp: null
         labels:
           kubevirt.io/vm: vm-rhel-datavolume
       spec:
         domain:
           devices: {}
           resources: {}
         terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 180
         volumes:
         - dataVolume:
             name: rhel-dv
           name: datavolumedisk1
   status: {}

   1

   Specify the name of the VM.

   2

   Specify the name of the data volume.

   3

   Specify the size of the storage requested for the data volume.

   4

   Optional: Specify the instance type to use to control resource sizing of the VM.

2. Create the VM by running the following command:

   $ oc create -f vm-rhel-datavolume.yaml

   The oc create command creates the data volume and the VM. The CDI controller creates an underlying PVC with the correct annotation and the import process begins. When the import is complete, the data volume status changes to Succeeded. You can start the VM.

   Data volume provisioning happens in the background, so there is no need to monitor the process.

Verification

1. The importer pod downloads the image from the specified URL and stores it on the provisioned persistent volume. View the status of the importer pod by running the following command:

   $ oc get pods

2. Monitor the data volume until its status is Succeeded by running the following command:

   $ oc describe dv rhel-dv 1

   1

   Specify the data volume name that you defined in the VirtualMachine manifest.

3. Verify that provisioning is complete and that the VM has started by accessing its serial console:

   $ virtctl console vm-rhel-datavolume

Procedure

1. Navigate to Virtualization Catalog in the web console.
2. Click a template tile without an available boot source.
3. Click Customize VirtualMachine.
4. On the Customize template parameters page, expand Storage and select Upload (Upload a new file to a PVC) from the Disk source list.
5. Browse to the image on your local machine and set the disk size.
6. Click Customize VirtualMachine.
7. Click Create VirtualMachine.

Procedure

1. Upload the Windows image as a new PVC:

   1. Navigate to Storage PersistentVolumeClaims in the web console.
   2. Click Create PersistentVolumeClaim With Data upload form.
   3. Browse to the Windows image and select it.

   4. Enter the PVC name, select the storage class and size and then click Upload.

      The Windows image is uploaded to a PVC.

2. Configure a new VM by cloning the uploaded PVC:

   1. Navigate to Virtualization Catalog.
   2. Select a Windows template tile and click Customize VirtualMachine.
   3. Select Clone (clone PVC) from the Disk source list.
   4. Select the PVC project, the Windows image PVC, and the disk size.

3. Apply the answer file to the VM:

   1. Click Customize VirtualMachine parameters.
   2. On the Sysprep section of the Scripts tab, click Edit.
   3. Browse to the autounattend.xml answer file and click Save.

4. Set the run strategy of the VM:

   1. Clear Start this VirtualMachine after creation so that the VM does not start immediately.
   2. Click Create VirtualMachine.
   3. On the YAML tab, replace running:false with runStrategy: RerunOnFailure and click Save.

5. Click the Options menu and select Start.

   The VM boots from the sysprep disk containing the autounattend.xml answer file.

Procedure

1. Upload the image by running the virtctl image-upload command:

   $ virtctl image-upload dv <datavolume_name> \ 1
     --size=<datavolume_size> \ 2
     --image-path=</path/to/image> \ 3

   1

   The name of the data volume.

   2

   The size of the data volume. For example: --size=500Mi, --size=1G

   3

   The file path of the image.

   Note
   • If you do not want to create a new data volume, omit the --size parameter and include the --no-create flag.
   • When uploading a disk image to a PVC, the PVC size must be larger than the size of the uncompressed virtual disk.
   • To allow insecure server connections when using HTTPS, use the --insecure parameter. When you use the --insecure flag, the authenticity of the upload endpoint is not verified.

2. Optional. To verify that a data volume was created, view all data volumes by running the following command:

   $ oc get dvs

Procedure

1. Navigate to Virtualization VirtualMachines in the web console.
2. Select a VM to open the VirtualMachine details page.
3. Click Actions.
4. Select Clone.
5. On the Clone VirtualMachine page, enter the name of the new VM.
6. (Optional) Select the Start cloned VM checkbox to start the cloned VM.
7. Click Clone.

Procedure

1. Navigate to Virtualization VirtualMachines in the web console.
2. Select a VM to open the VirtualMachine details page.
3. Click the Snapshots tab.
4. Click the Options menu for the snapshot you want to copy.
5. Select Create VirtualMachine.
6. Enter the name of the virtual machine.
7. (Optional) Select the Start this VirtualMachine after creation checkbox to start the new virtual machine.
8. Click Create.

Procedure

1. Edit the VirtualMachine manifest for your VM. The following example configures a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) VM:

   Note

   This example manifest does not configure VM authentication.

   Example manifest for a RHEL VM

    apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1
    kind: VirtualMachine
    metadata:
     name: rhel-9-minimal
    spec:
     dataVolumeTemplates:
       - metadata:
           name: rhel-9-minimal-volume
         spec:
           sourceRef:
             kind: DataSource
             name: rhel9 1
             namespace: openshift-virtualization-os-images 2
           storage: {}
     instancetype:
       name: u1.medium 3
     preference:
       name: rhel.9 4
     runStrategy: Always
     template:
       spec:
         domain:
           devices: {}
         volumes:
           - dataVolume:
               name: rhel-9-minimal-volume
             name: rootdisk

   1

   The rhel9 golden image is used to install RHEL 9 as the guest operating system.

   2

   Golden images are stored in the openshift-virtualization-os-images namespace.

   3

   The u1.medium instance type requests 1 vCPU and 4Gi memory for the VM. These resource values cannot be overridden within the VM.

   4

   The rhel.9 preference specifies additional attributes that support the RHEL 9 guest operating system.

2. Create a virtual machine by using the manifest file:

   $ oc create -f <vm_manifest_file>.yaml

3. Optional: Start the virtual machine:

   $ virtctl start <vm_name> -n <namespace>

Procedure

1. Create a Dockerfile to build the VM image into a container image. The VM image must be owned by QEMU, which has a UID of 107, and placed in the /disk/ directory inside the container. Permissions for the /disk/ directory must then be set to 0440.

   The following example uses the Red Hat Universal Base Image (UBI) to handle these configuration changes in the first stage, and uses the minimal scratch image in the second stage to store the result:

   $ cat > Dockerfile << EOF
   FROM registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/ubi:latest AS builder
   ADD --chown=107:107 <vm_image>.qcow2 /disk/ 1
   RUN chmod 0440 /disk/*
   
   FROM scratch
   COPY --from=builder /disk/* /disk/
   EOF

   1

   Where <vm_image> is the image in either QCOW2 or RAW format. If you use a remote image, replace <vm_image>.qcow2 with the complete URL.

2. Build and tag the container:

   $ podman build -t <registry>/<container_disk_name>:latest .

3. Push the container image to the registry:

   $ podman push <registry>/<container_disk_name>:latest

Prerequisites

1. Open the HyperConverged CR in your default editor by running the following command:

   $ oc edit hyperconverged kubevirt-hyperconverged -n openshift-cnv

2. Add a list of insecure registries to the spec.storageImport.insecureRegistries field.

   Example HyperConverged custom resource

   apiVersion: hco.kubevirt.io/v1beta1
   kind: HyperConverged
   metadata:
     name: kubevirt-hyperconverged
     namespace: openshift-cnv
   spec:
     storageImport:
       insecureRegistries: 1
         - "private-registry-example-1:5000"
         - "private-registry-example-2:5000"

   1

   Replace the examples in this list with valid registry hostnames.

Procedure

1. Navigate to Virtualization Catalog in the web console.
2. Click a template tile without an available boot source.
3. Click Customize VirtualMachine.
4. On the Customize template parameters page, expand Storage and select Registry (creates PVC) from the Disk source list.
5. Enter the image URL. Example: https://access.redhat.com/downloads/content/69/ver=/rhel---7/7.9/x86_64/product-software
6. Enter the container image URL. Example: https://mirror.arizona.edu/fedora/linux/releases/38/Cloud/x86_64/images/Fedora-Cloud-Base-38-1.6.x86_64.qcow2
7. Set the disk size.
8. Click Next.
9. Click Create VirtualMachine.

Procedure

1. Edit the VirtualMachine manifest and save it as a vm-rhel-datavolume.yaml file:

   apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1
   kind: VirtualMachine
   metadata:
     creationTimestamp: null
     name: vm-rhel-datavolume 1
     labels:
       kubevirt.io/vm: vm-rhel-datavolume
   spec:
     dataVolumeTemplates:
     - metadata:
         creationTimestamp: null
         name: rhel-dv 2
       spec:
         sourceRef:
           kind: DataSource
           name: rhel9
           namespace: openshift-virtualization-os-images
         storage:
           resources:
             requests:
               storage: 10Gi 3
     instancetype:
       name: u1.small 4
     preference:
       inferFromVolume: datavolumedisk1
     runStrategy: Always
     template:
       metadata:
         creationTimestamp: null
         labels:
           kubevirt.io/vm: vm-rhel-datavolume
       spec:
         domain:
           devices: {}
           resources: {}
         terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 180
         volumes:
         - dataVolume:
             name: rhel-dv
           name: datavolumedisk1
   status: {}

   1

   Specify the name of the VM.

   2

   Specify the name of the data volume.

   3

   Specify the size of the storage requested for the data volume.

   4

   Optional: Specify the instance type to use to control resource sizing of the VM.

2. Create the VM by running the following command:

   $ oc create -f vm-rhel-datavolume.yaml

   The oc create command creates the data volume and the VM. The CDI controller creates an underlying PVC with the correct annotation and the import process begins. When the import is complete, the data volume status changes to Succeeded. You can start the VM.

   Data volume provisioning happens in the background, so there is no need to monitor the process.

Verification

1. The importer pod downloads the container disk from the specified URL and stores it on the provisioned persistent volume. View the status of the importer pod by running the following command:

   $ oc get pods

2. Monitor the data volume until its status is Succeeded by running the following command:

   $ oc describe dv rhel-dv 1

   1

   Specify the data volume name that you defined in the VirtualMachine manifest.

3. Verify that provisioning is complete and that the VM has started by accessing its serial console:

   $ virtctl console vm-rhel-datavolume

Procedure

1. Navigate to Virtualization Catalog in the web console.
2. Click a template tile without an available boot source.
3. Click Customize VirtualMachine.
4. On the Customize template parameters page, expand Storage and select PVC (clone PVC) from the Disk source list.
5. Enter the image URL. Example: https://access.redhat.com/downloads/content/69/ver=/rhel---7/7.9/x86_64/product-software
6. Enter the container image URL. Example: https://mirror.arizona.edu/fedora/linux/releases/38/Cloud/x86_64/images/Fedora-Cloud-Base-38-1.6.x86_64.qcow2
7. Select the PVC project and the PVC name.
8. Set the disk size.
9. Click Next.
10. Click Create VirtualMachine.