Chapter 6. Installing RHEL AI on Azure (Technology preview)

Procedure

1. Log in to Azure by running the following command:

   $ az login

   Example output of the login

   $ az login
   A web browser has been opened at https://login.microsoftonline.com/organizations/oauth2/v2.0/authorize. Please continue the login in the web browser. If no web browser is available or if the web browser fails to open, use device code flow with `az login --use-device-code`.
   [
     {
       "cloudName": "AzureCloud",
       "homeTenantId": "c7b976df-89ce-42ec-b3b2-a6b35fd9c0be",
       "id": "79d7df51-39ec-48b9-a15e-dcf59043c84e",
       "isDefault": true,
       "managedByTenants": [],
       "name": "Team Name",
       "state": "Enabled",
       "tenantId": "0a873aea-428f-47bd-9120-73ce0c5cc1da",
       "user": {
         "name": "user@example.com",
         "type": "user"
       }
     }
   ]

2. Log in with the azcopy tool using the following commands:

   $ keyctl new_session
   $ azcopy login

3. You need to set up various Azure configurations and create your Azure Storage Container before creating the Azure image.

   1. Create an environment variable defining the location of your instance with the following command:

      $ az_location=eastus

   2. Create a resource group and save the name in an environment variable named az_resource_group. The following example creates a resource group named Default in the location eastus. (You can omit this step if you want to use an already existing resource group).

      $ az_resource_group=Default
      $ az group create --name ${az_resource_group} --location ${az_location}

   3. Create an Azure storage account and save the name in an environment variable named az_storage_account by running the following commands:

      $ az_storage_account=THE_NAME_OF_YOUR_STORAGE_ACCOUNT

      $ az storage account create \
          --name ${az_storage_account} \
          --resource-group ${az_resource_group} \
          --location ${az_location} \
          --sku Standard_LRS

   4. Create your Azure Storage Container named as the environment variable az_storage_container with the following commands:

      $ az_storage_container=NAME_OF_MY_BUCKET
      $ az storage container create \
          --name ${az_storage_container} \
          --account-name ${az_storage_account} \
          --public-access off

   5. You can get your Subscription ID from the Azure account list by running the following command:

      $ az account list --output table

   6. Create a variable named ` az_subscription_id` with your Subscription ID .

      $ az_subscription_id=46c08fb3-83c5-4b59-8372-bf9caf15a681

   7. Grant azcopy write permission to user into the storage container. This example grants permission to the user user@example.com.

      $ az role assignment create \
          --assignee user@example.com \
          --role "Storage Blob Data Contributor" \
          --scope /subscriptions/${az_subscription_id}/resourceGroups/${az_resource_group}/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/${az_storage_account}/blobServices/default/containers/${az_storage_container}

4. Red Hat currently does not provide RHEL AI Azure images. You need to create a Azure disk image using RHEL AI bootc image as base.

   1. Create this example Containerfile file, using the appropriate version of RHEL AI in the FROM line.

1. Build the bootc image, in the same directory that holds the Containerfile, by running the following commands:

   $ AZURE_BOOTC_IMAGE=quay.io/yourquayusername/bootc-nvidia-rhel9-azure
   $ podman build --file Containerfile --tag ${AZURE_BOOTC_IMAGE} .

1. Create a config.toml file that will be used in disk image generation.

   [customizations.kernel]
   name = "azure"
   append = "loglevel=3 console=tty1 console=ttyS0,115200n8 earlyprintk=ttyS0,115200 net.ifnames=0"

2. Build the disk image using bootc-image-builder by running the following commands:

   $ mkdir -p build/store build/output
   $ podman run --rm -ti --privileged --pull newer \
     -v /var/lib/containers/storage:/var/lib/containers/storage \
     -v ./build/store:/store -v ./build/output:/output \
     -v ./config.toml:/config.toml \
     quay.io/centos-bootc/bootc-image-builder \
       --config /config.toml \
       --chown 0:0 \
       --local \
       --type raw \
       --target-arch x86_64 \
       ${AZURE_BOOTC_IMAGE}

   1. Set the name you want to use as the RHEL AI Azure image.

      $ image_name=rhel-ai-1.2

   2. Convert the RAW image to VHD format by running the following command:

      $ raw_file=<path-to-raw-file>
      $ vhd_file=rhelai.vhd
      $ qemu-img convert -f raw -O vpc -o subformat=fixed,force_size "$raw_file" "$vhd_file"

   3. Upload the VHD file to the Azure Storage Container by running the following command:

      $ az_vhd_url="https://${az_storage_account}.blob.core.windows.net/${az_storage_container}/$(basename ${vhd_file})"
      $ azcopy copy "$vhd_file" "$az_vhd_url"

   4. Create an Azure image from the VHD file you just uploaded with the following command:

      $ az image create --resource-group $az_resource_group \
          --name "$image_name" \
          --source "${az_vhd_url}" \
          --location ${az_location} \
          --os-type Linux \
          --hyper-v-generation V2

Procedure

1. Log in to your Azure account by running the following command:

   $ az login

2. You need to select the instance profile that you want to use for the deployment. List all the profiles in the desired region by running the following command:

   $ az vm list-sizes --location <region> --output table

   Make a note of your preferred instance profile, you will need it for your instance deployment.

3. You can now start creating your Azure instance. Populate environment variables for when you create the instance.

   name=my-rhelai-instance
   az_location=eastus
   az_resource_group=my_resource_group
   az_admin_username=azureuser
   az_vm_size=Standard_ND96isr_H100_v5
   az_image=my-custom-rhelai-image
   sshpubkey=$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
   disk_size=1024

4. You can launch your instance, by running the following command:

   $ az vm create \
       --resource-group $az_resource_group \
       --name ${name} \
       --image ${az_image} \
       --size ${az_vm_size} \
       --location ${az_location} \
       --admin-username ${az_admin_username} \
       --ssh-key-values @$sshpubkey \
       --authentication-type ssh \
       --nic-delete-option Delete \
       --accelerated-networking true \
       --os-disk-size-gb 1024 \
       --os-disk-name ${name}-${az_location}