Creating customized images by using Insights image builder

Procedure

1. Access Insights image builder.
2. Login with your Red Hat credentials.

Procedure

1. Access Insights image builder.

   The Insights image builder dashboard appears.

2. Click Create image.

   The Create image dialog wizard opens.

3. 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 the desired target(s) cloud environment.

      Click Next.

4. On the Register page, select the registration method that you want to use. You can select from these options: Automatically register and enable advanced capabilities or Register later.

   1. If you choose the Automatically register and enable advanced capabilities option, you can customize it further by clicking the Show additional connection options:

      1. The Monitor & manage subscriptions and access to Red Hat content radio button enables the following option:

         • Enable predictive analytics and management capabilities - to provide actionable intelligence about your Red Hat Enterprise Linux environments, helping to identify and address operational and vulnerability risks before an issue results in downtime.

         • Enable remote remediations and system management with automation - rhc enables Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts to connect to Red Hat Insights to use the Red Hat Insights Remediations service.

           You can check or clear the checkboxes according to your preferences.

      2. From the dropdown menu, choose an activation key to use for the image. See Create and manage activation keys. Click Next.
   2. If you choose the Register later option, click Next.
5. On the File system configuration page, define the partitioning of the image. You can select from these options: Use automatic partitioning (Recommended) or Manually configure partitions. Click Next.
6. Optional: On the Additional Red Hat packages page, add packages to your image. See Adding packages during image creation by using Insights image builder.
7. 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.

8. On the Review page, review the information 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 image for the x86_64 architecture.

   The Insights image builder Images dashboard opens. You can see details such as the Image UUID, the cloud target environment, the image operating system release and the status of the image creation.

   Note

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

   Additional resources

   • Using Red Hat Subscription Management

Procedure

1. On the Packages page:

   1. Type the name of the package you want to add to your image in the Available packages search bar.

      Optionally, you can enter the first two letters of the package name to see the available package options. The packages are listed on the Available packages dual list box.

   2. Click the package or packages you want to add.

      1. Click the >> button to add all packages shown in the package search results to the Chosen packages dual list box.

         Optionally, you can click the > button to add only the selected packages.

   3. After you have finished adding the additional packages, click Next.
2. 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.

3. 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 image for the x86_64 architecture.

   The Insights image builder Images dashboard opens. You can see details such as the Image UUID, the cloud target environment, the image operating system release and the status of the image creation.

   Note

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

Procedure

1. On the System Configuration - File system configuration page:

   You can select Use automatic partitioning or Manually configure partitions for your image file system.

   1. Click the Manually configure partitions button.

      The Configure partitions section opens, showing the configuration based on Red Hat standards and security guides.

2. From the dropdown menu, provide details to configure the partitions:

   1. For the Mount point field, select one of the following mount point type options:

      • /app
      • /data
      • /home
      • /opt
      • /srv
      • /tmp
      • /usr
      • /usr/local
      • /var

      • /

        You can also add an additional path to the Mount point, such as /tmp. For example: /var as a prefix and /tmp as an additional path results in /var/tmp.

        Note

        Depending on the Mount point type you choose, the file system type changes to xfs, and so on.

   2. For the Minimum size partition field of the file system, enter the desired minimum partition size. In the Minimum size dropdown menu, you can use common size units such as GiB, MiB, or KiB. The default unit is GiB.

      Note

      Minimum size means that image builder can still increase the partition sizes, in case they are too small to create a working image.

3. To add more partitions, click the Add partition button. Repeat step 2 for each partition.

   If you see the following error message: “Duplicate partitions: Only one partition at each mount point can be created.”, you can:

   • Click the remove button to remove the duplicated partition.

   • Choose a new mount point for the partition you want to create.

     After you finish the partitioning configuration, click Next.

4. Optional: On the Packages page, add packages to your image.

   Click Next.

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 information.

   1. Click the System Configuration tab to review the file system configuration partitioning.

   2. 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 image for the x86_64 architecture.

      The Insights image builder 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.

      Note

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

Procedure

1. Access Insights image builder.

   The Insights image builder dashboard appears.

2. Click Create image.

   The Create image dialog wizard opens.

3. 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 Amazon Web Services as the target environment.

      Click Next.

4. On the Target Environment - Amazon Web Services page, enter your AWS account ID and click Next.

   You can find your AWS account ID by accessing the option Account on the AWS console.

5. 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.
6. Click Next.
7. Optional: On the Packages page, add packages to your image. See Adding packages during image creation by using Insights image builder.
8. 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.

9. 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 Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for the x86_64 architecture and uploads it to AWS EC2. Then, it will share the AMI image with the account you specified.

   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.

Procedure

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

3. In the left side menu, under Images, click 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 list of images, select the image you want to launch.
2. On the top of the panel, click Launch. You are redirected to the Choose an Instance Type window.
3. Choose the instance type according to the resources you need to launch your image. Click Review and Launch.
4. 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.

5. 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.

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

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

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

8. 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. See Launching your customized RHEL system image for AWS from your AWS EC2

   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 Image Builder table, select the AWS image you want to upload to a different region.

2. From the Node options icon (⫶), select Share to new region. A Share to new region wizard opens.

   1. From the Select region dropdown menu, choose the region or regions to upload your image. Click Share.

Verification

1. Click the Node options icon (⫶) and select an AWS region to start the image.
2. The Image Builder table shows the image or images build status that you shared to the new region or regions.

Procedure

1. Access Insights image builder on a browser.

   The Insights image builder dashboard appears.

2. Click Create image.

   The Create image dialog wizard opens.

3. 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.

4. On the Target Environment - Microsoft Azure window, to add Insights image builder as an authorized application, complete the following steps:

   1. Insert your Tenant GUID.

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

   2. Click Authorize image builder to authorize Insights 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.

   3. Confirm that Insights image builder is authorized for your tenant.

      1. Search for Azure Active Directory and choose Enterprise applications, from the left menu.
      2. Search for Insights image builder and confirm it is authorized.

   4. Add the Enterprise application 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.
      3. On the left menu, click Access control (IAM) to add a permission so the Insights 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:

         1. Role: Assign the Contributor role
         2. Assign access to: User, group, service principal. Add members: Click +Select members and type Red Hat in the search bar. Press enter.
         3. Select: Insights 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.

   # 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:

     # 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.

Procedure

1. Access Insights image builder.

   The Insights image builder dashboard appears.

2. Click Create image.

   The Create image dialog wizard opens.

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

   1. From the dropdown menu, select the Release: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

   2. From the Select target environments option, select Google Cloud Platform.

      Click Next.

4. On the Target environment- Google Cloud Platform window, select a valid account type to share your image with: a Google account, a Service account or a domain name.

   • Google account: A Google account which interacts with Google Cloud, for example: alice@gmail.com.
   • Service account: An application account, for example: myapp@appspot.gserviceaccount.com.
   • Google group: A named collection of Google accounts and service accounts, for example: admins@example.com.
   • Google workspace domain/Cloud identity domain: A virtual group of all the Google accounts in a named organization. For example, the domain name mycompany.com.

5. Enter the account email address or domain name, depending on the type of target environment you chose.

   Click Next.

6. 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.
7. Click Next.
8. Optional: On the Packages page, add packages to your image. See Adding packages during image creation by using Insights image builder.
9. 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

10. 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 to compose the RHEL image for the x86_64 architecture and upload it to Google Cloud Platform. Then, it shares the image with the account you specified.

    On the dashboard you can see details such as, the Image UUID, the cloud target environment, the image operating system release and the status of the image creation. After the new image displays a Ready status in the Status column, Insights image builder shares the image with the account you specified.

    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.

Procedure

1. From the Insights image builder dashboard, copy the image UUID 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.
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. 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 you give to 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 through SSH:

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

Procedure

1. From the Image Builder 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. Access Insights image builder on the browser.

   The Insights image builder dashboard appears.

2. Click Create image.

   The Create image dialog wizard opens.

3. 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 VMware.

   3. Select one of the options:

      • Open virtualization format (.ova)

      • Virtual disk (.vmdk) format

        Click Next.

4. 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.
5. Click Next.
6. Optional: On the Packages page, add packages to your image. See Adding packages during image creation by using Insights image builder.
7. 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.

8. 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.

9. When the new image displays a Ready status in the Status column, click Download .vmdk in the Instance column.

   The .vmdk image is saved to your system and is ready for deployment.

   Note

   The .vmdk images are available for 6 hours and expire after that. Ensure that you download the image to avoid losing it.

Procedure

1. In the vSphere Client, from the Actions menu, select Deploy OVF Template.
2. On the Deploy OVF Template page, complete the settings for each configuration option and click Next.

3. Click Finish. The .ova image starts to be deployed.

   After the image deployment is complete, you have a new virtual machine (VM) from the .ova image.

4. In the deployed image page, perform the following steps:

   1. From the Actions menu, select Edit Setting.

   2. On the Virtual Hardware tab, configure resources such as CPU, memory, add a new network adapter, between others of your choice.

      1. On the CD/DVD drive 1 option, attach a CD or DVD Drive that contains a cloud-init.iso, to provision a user on startup.

         The VM is now ready to boot with the username and password from the cloud-init.iso file.

Procedure

1. Access the directory where you downloaded your .vmdk image.

2. Create a file named metadata.yaml. Add the following information to this file:

   instance-id: cloud-vm
   local-hostname: vmname

3. Create a file named userdata.yaml. Add the following information to the file:

   #cloud-config
   users:
   - name: admin
     sudo: "ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL"
     ssh_authorized_keys:
     - ssh-rsa AAA...fhHQ== your.email@example.com

   • ssh_authorized_keys is your SSH public key. You can find your SSH public key in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.

4. Export the metadata.yaml and userdata.yaml files to the environment, compressed with gzip, encoded in base64 as follows. They will be used in further steps.

   export METADATA=$(gzip -c9 <metadata.yaml | { base64 -w0 2>/dev/null || base64; }) \
   USERDATA=$(gzip -c9 <userdata.yaml | { base64 -w0 2>/dev/null || base64; })

5. Launch the image on vSphere with the metadata.yaml and userdata.yaml files:

   1. Import the .vmdk image in to vSphere:

      $ govc import.vmdk ./composer-api.vmdk foldername

   2. Create the VM in vSphere without powering it on:

      govc vm.create \
      -net.adapter=vmxnet3 \
      -m=4096 -c=2 -g=rhel8_64Guest \
      -firmware=bios -disk=”foldername/composer-api.vmdk” \
      -disk.controller=ide -on=false \
       vmname

   3. Change the VM to add ExtraConfig variables, the cloud-init config:

      govc vm.change -vm vmname \
      -e guestinfo.metadata="${METADATA}" \
      -e guestinfo.metadata.encoding="gzip+base64" \
      -e guestinfo.userdata="${USERDATA}" \
      -e guestinfo.userdata.encoding="gzip+base64"

   4. Power-on the VM:

      govc vm.power -on vmname

   5. Retrieve the VM IP address:

      HOST=$(govc vm.ip vmname)

   6. Use SSH to log in to the VM, using the user-data specified in cloud-init file configuration:

      $ ssh admin@HOST

Procedure

1. Access Insights image builder in your browser.

   You are redirected to the Insights image builder dashboard.

2. Click Create image.

   The Create image wizard opens.

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

   1. From the Releases list, select the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that you want to use to create the image.

   2. From the Select target environments options, select Virtualization - Guest image.

      Click Next.

4. 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.
5. Click Next.
6. Optional: On the Packages page, add packages to your image. See Adding packages during image creation by using Insights image builder.
7. 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.

8. 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.

9. When the new image displays a Ready status in the Status column, click Download .qcow2 image in the Instance column.

   The .qcow2 image is saved to your system and is ready for deployment.

   Note

   The .qcow2 images are available for 6 hours and expire after that. Ensure that you download the image to avoid losing it.

Procedure

1. Access the directory where you downloaded your QCOW2 image.

2. Create a file named meta-data. Add the following information to this file:

   instance-id: nocloud
   local-hostname: vmname

3. Create a file named user-data. Add the following information to the file:

   #cloud-config
   user: admin
   password: password
   chpasswd: {expire: False}
   ssh_pwauth: True
   ssh_authorized_keys:
     - ssh-rsa AAA...fhHQ== your.email@example.com

   • ssh_authorized_keys is your SSH public key. You can find your SSH public key in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.

4. Use the genisoimage command to create an ISO image that includes the user-data and meta-data files.

   # genisoimage -output cloud-init.iso -volid cidata -joliet -rock user-data meta-data
   
   I: -input-charset not specified, using utf-8 (detected in locale settings)
   Total translation table size: 0
   Total rockridge attributes bytes: 331
   Total directory bytes: 0
   Path table size(bytes): 10
   Max brk space used 0
   183 extents written (0 MB)

5. Create a new VM from the KVM Guest Image using the virt-install command. Include the ISO image you created on step 4 as an attachment to the VM image.

   # virt-install \
       --memory 4096 \
       --vcpus 4 \
       --name myvm \
       --disk composer-api.qcow2,device=disk,bus=virtio,format=qcow2 \
       --disk cloud-init.iso,device=cdrom \
       --os-variant rhel8 \
       --virt-type kvm \
       --graphics none \
       --import

   Where,

   • --graphics none - indicates that it is a headless RHEL Virtual Machine.
   • --vcpus 4 - indicates that it uses 4 virtual CPUs.
   • --memory 4096 - indicates that it uses 4096 MB RAM.

6. The VM installation starts:

   Starting install...
   Connected to domain myvm
   ...
   [  OK  ] Started Execute cloud user/final scripts.
   [  OK  ] Reached target Cloud-init target.
   
   Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (Ootpa)
   Kernel 4.18.0-221.el8.x86_64 on an x86_64

Procedure

1. Access Insights image builder on the browser.

   The Insights image builder dashboard opens.

2. Click Create image.

   The Create image dialog wizard opens.

3. 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 Bare metal - Installer.
4. Click Next.

5. 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.
6. Click Next.
7. Optional: On the Packages page, add packages to your image. See Adding packages during image creation by using Insights image builder.
8. 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.
9. On the Review page, review the details about the image creation and click Create image. Your image is created as a .iso image.

10. When the new image displays a Ready status in the Status column, click Download .iso image.

    The .iso image is saved to your system and is ready for deployment.

    Note

    The .iso images are available for 6 hours and expire after that. Ensure that you download the image to avoid losing it.

Procedure

1. Access the directory where you downloaded your ISO image.
2. Place the bootable ISO image file on a USB flash drive.
3. Connect the USB flash drive to the port of the computer you want to boot.
4. Boot the ISO image from the USB flash drive.

5. Perform the steps to install the customized bootable ISO image.

   The boot screen shows you the following options:

   • Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
   • Test this media & install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

Procedure

1. Access the Insights image builder dashboard.

   You are redirected to the Insights image builder dashboard and can see all the images that were built for you.

2. Locate your image by name.

   1. Type your image name in the search bar on the top left menu.

   2. If your image exists, image details appear, showing: the Image name, Creation date, Release version, cloud Target, and image Status.

      You can also see information about any customizations applied to the image, such as packages and file system configuration.

3. Under Uploads, you can find the uploaded images.

   • For Amazon Web Services images:

     • After the image status is marked as Ready, click the Launch instance link. You are redirected to the image on AWS from where you can launch the instance. See Launching your customized RHEL system image for AWS from your AWS EC2.

   • For Google Cloud Platform images:

     • After the image status is marked as Ready, click the copy symbol. You can create a Virtual Machine (VM) instance using the GCE image. See Creating a VM instance using your GCE image.

   • For Microsoft Azure images:

     • After the image status is marked as Ready, click the View uploaded image link. You are redirected to the image on Microsoft Azure from where you can view the uploaded image from your Microsoft Azure account. See Creating a VM from the customized RHEL system image you shared with the Microsoft Azure account.

   • For VMware images:

     • After the image status is marked as Ready, click the Download .vmdk link. The image is saved to your system and is ready for deployment. See Deploying VMDK images to vSphere by using the GUI.

   • For Guest images images:

     • After the image status is marked as Ready, click the Download .qcow2 image. The image is saved to your system and is ready for deployment. See Creating a Virtual Machine from the customized RHEL Guest system image.

   • For Bare metal images images:

     • After the image status is marked as Ready, click the Download .iso image. The image is saved to your system and is ready for deployment. See Installing the customized RHEL ISO system image to a bare metal system.

       Note
       1. The image artifacts for public clouds, such as GCP, and AWS are saved for 14 days and expire after that. Ensure to transfer the image to your account to avoid losing it.
       2. The private clouds images, such as VMware, Guest-image, and Installer images are available for 6 hours and expire after that. Ensure to download the image to avoid losing it.

Procedure

1. From the Image Builder dashboard, select the image you want to create an image from.

2. From the Node options icon (⫶), select Recreate image. The Create image wizard opens.

   Note

   If the image status is Expired, click directly the Recreate image button.

   1. Optional: If you want to make any modifications to the image, such as adding new packages, navigate to the appropriate step using the menu on the left to make the customizations. Click Next.
   2. On the Review page, click Create image.