Chapter 7. Creating RHEL system image and uploading to Microsoft Azure by using Insights image builder

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.

4. On the Image output page, complete the following steps:

   1. From the Release list, select the Release that you want to use: for example, choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

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

      Click Next.

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

   1. 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.
         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.

   2. 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.

   3. 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.

   4. 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.

   5. 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. Select your Resource Group by name.
      3. On the left menu, click Access control (IAM) to add a permission so the Red Hat Image Builder application can 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.

      7. Insert the following details:

         Role

         Assign the Contributor role.

         Assign access to: User, group, service principal.

         Add members

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

         Select

         Red Hat Image Builder application.

Procedure

1. On the Target Environment - Microsoft Azure window, complete the following steps:

   1. Enter your Tenant GUID: you can find your Tenant ID in the Microsoft Azure Active Directory application in Microsoft Azure portal.
   2. Enter your Subscription ID: you can find your Subscription ID account by accessing the Microsoft Azure console.

   3. Enter your Resource group: is the name of your Resource Group in Microsoft Azure portal.

      Click Next.

2. On the Registration page, select the type of registration that you want to use. You can select from these options:

   • Register images with Red Hat: Register and connect image instances, subscriptions and insights with Red Hat. For details on how to embed an activation key and register systems on first boot, see Creating a customized system image with an embed subscription by using Insights image builder .
   • Register image instances only: Register and connect only image instances and subscriptions with Red Hat.
   • Register later: Register the system after the image creation.
3. Click Next.
4. Optional: On the Packages page, add packages to your image. See Adding packages during image creation by using Insights image builder.
5. On the Name image page, enter a name for your image and click Next. If you do not enter a name, you can find the image you created by its UUID.

6. On the Review page, review the details about the image creation and click Create image.

   After you complete the steps in the Create image wizard, the image builder dashboard is displayed.

   Insights image builder starts the compose of a RHEL Azure Disk Image image for the x86_64 architecture, uploads it to the resource group account you specified, and creates a Microsoft Azure Image.

   The Insights image builder Images dashboard opens. You can see details such as the Image UUID, the cloud target environment, the image OS release and the status of the image creation. After the status is Ready, the Azure Disk Image is shared with the specified account.

   On the dashboard, you can see details such as the Image UUID, the cloud target environment, the image OS release and the status of the image creation.

   Possible statuses:

   • Pending: the image upload and cloud registration is being processed.
   • In Progress: the image upload and cloud registration is ongoing.
   • Ready: the image upload and cloud registration is completed

   • Failed: the image upload and cloud registration failed.

     Note

     The image build, upload and cloud registration processes can take up to ten minutes to complete.

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. Click + Create VM. You are redirected to the Create a virtual machine dashboard.

2. In the Basic tab under Project Details, your Subscription and the Resource Group are pre-set.

   Optional: If you want to create a new resource Group:

   1. Click Create new.

      A pop-up prompts you to create the Resource Group Name container.

   2. Insert a name and click OK.

      If you want to keep the Resource Group that is already pre-set.

3. Under Instance Details, insert:

   1. Virtual machine name
   2. Region
   3. Image

   4. Size: Choose a VM size that better suits your needs.

      Keep the remaining fields as in the default choice.

4. Under Administrator account, enter the following details:

   1. Username: the name of the account administrator.
   2. SSH public key source: from the drop-down menu, select Generate new key pair.
   3. Key pair name: insert a name for the key pair.

5. Under Inbound port rules:

   1. Public inbound ports: select Allow selected ports.
   2. Select inbound ports: Use the default set SSH (22).
6. Click Review + Create. You are redirected to the Review + create tab. You receive a confirmation that the validation passed.

7. Review the details and click Create.

   To change options, click Previous.

8. A Generates New Key Pair pop-up opens. Click Download private key and create resources.

   Save the key file in the yourKey.pem file format.

9. After the deployment is complete, click Go to resource.

   You are redirected to a new window with your VM details.

10. Select the public IP address on the top right side of the page and copy it to your clipboard.

1. Open a terminal.

2. At your prompt, open an SSH connection to your virtual machine. Replace the IP address with the one from your VM, and replace the path to the .pem file with the path to where the key file was downloaded.

   Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

   # ssh -i <yourKey.pem file location> <username>@<IP_address>

   • Add the user name and replace the IP address with the one from your VM.

   • Replace the path to the .pem file with the path to where the key file was downloaded.

     For example:

     Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

     # ssh -i ./Downloads/yourKey.pem azureuser@10.111.12.123

3. You are required to confirm if you want to continue to connect. Type yes to continue.

   As a result, the output image you shared with the Microsoft Azure Storage account is started and ready to be provisioned.

   Note

   The default user is azureuser and the password is azureuser.