Chapter 4. Installing RHEL AI on Google Cloud


Before you can deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI on Google Cloud, you must first convert the RHEL AI image into an Google Cloud image.

To create a bootable image in Google Cloud you must configure your Google Cloud account, create a Google Cloud Storage bucket, and convert the RHEL AI RAW image into a Google Cloud image.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed the gcloud CLI. See Install the gcloud CLI.
  • You have a host with RHEL version 9.2+ installed.
  • Your host has an additional 100GB of disk space available.

Procedure

  1. Log in to gcloud. Run the following command:

    $ gcloud auth login
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  2. Configure gcloud and create your Google Cloud storage container.

    1. Configure the gcloud CLI to use your project.

      $ GCLOUD_PROJECT=rhelai-gcloud-project
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      $ gcloud config set project $GCLOUD_PROJECT
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    2. Create an environment variable defining the region where you want to operate. For example:

      $ gcloud_region=us-central1
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    3. Create a storage container. Run the following commands:

      $ GCLOUD_BUCKET=<YOUR_BUCKET_NAME>
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      $ gsutil mb -l $gcloud_region gs://$GCLOUD_BUCKET
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  3. Download the tar.gz image from the Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI page.
  4. Unzip the tar.gz file with the following command:

    $ gunzip <DOWNLOADED_TAR_GZ_FILE>
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  5. Configure the IMAGE_NAME variable:

    $ IMAGE_NAME=rhel-ai-gcloud
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  6. Upload the tar.gz file to the Google Cloud Storage Container by running the following command:

    $ gsutil cp <DOWNLOADED_TAR_GZ_FILE> "gs://${GCLOUD_BUCKET}/$IMAGE_NAME.tar.gz"
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  7. Create a Google Cloud image from the tar.gz file:

    $ gcloud compute images create \
    "$IMAGE_NAME" \
    --source-uri="gs://${GCLOUD_BUCKET}/$IMAGE_NAME.tar.gz" \
    --family "rhel-ai" \
    --guest-os-features=GVNIC
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You can launch an Google Cloud instance from an uploaded Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI image by using the Google Cloud web console or the CLI. The following procedure describes how to use the gcloud CLI to launch the instance by using the custom image.

Prerequisites

  • You have created the RHEL AI image and made it available for installation in Google Cloud.
  • You have installed the gcloud CLI. See Install the gcloud CLI.

Procedure

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

    $ gcloud auth login
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  2. Create several gcloud configuration variables for the deployment.
  3. Select the instance profile that you want to use for the deployment. List all the profiles in the required region by running the following command:

    $ gcloud compute machine-types list --zones=<ZONE>
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    Make a note of the preferred machine type.

  4. Create Google Cloud instance variables, for example:

    NAME=rhelai-instance
    ZONE=us-central1-a
    MACHINE_TYPE=a3-highgpu-8g
    ACCELERATOR="type=nvidia-h100-80gb,count=8"
    IMAGE=custom-rhelai-image
    DISK_SIZE=1024
    SUBNET=default
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  5. Configure the zone.

    $ gcloud config set compute/zone $ZONE
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  6. Launch the Google Cloud instance:

    $ gcloud compute instances create \
        ${name} \
        --machine-type ${MACHINE_TYPE} \
        --image $IMAGE \
        --zone $ZONE \
        --subnet $SUBNET \
        --boot-disk-size ${DISK_SIZE} \
        --boot-disk-device-name ${NAME} \
        --accelerator=$ACCELERATOR
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