Chapter 3. Deploying a Red Hat Enterprise Linux image as an EC2 instance on Amazon Web Services

Procedure

1. Create and start a basic Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) VM. For instructions, see Creating virtual machines.

   1. Set the default memory and CPUs to the capacity you need for the VM and the virtual network interface to virtio.

      For example, the following command creates a kvmtest VM by using the rhel-9.0-aarch64-kvm.qcow2 image:

      # virt-install \
          --name kvmtest --memory 2048 --vcpus 2 \
          --disk rhel-9.0-aarch64-kvm.qcow2,bus=virtio \
          --import --os-variant=rhel9.0

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   2. If you use the web console to create your VM, follow the procedure in Creating virtual machines using the web console, with these caveats:

      • Do not check Immediately Start VM.
      • Change your Memory size to your preferred settings.
      • Before you start the installation, ensure that you have changed Model under Virtual Network Interface Settings to virtio and change your vCPUs to the capacity settings you want for the VM.

2. Review the following additional installation selection and modifications.

   • Select Minimal Install with the standard RHEL option.

   • For Installation Destination, select Custom Storage Configuration. Use the following configuration information to make your selections.

     • Ensure allocation of at least 500 MB and maximum 1 GB or more for /boot.
     • In the filesystem section, use the extended File System (XFS), ext4, or ext3 for both boot and root partitions.
   • On the Installation Summary screen, select Network and hostname. Switch Ethernet to ON.

3. When the installation starts:

   • Create a root password.
   • Create an administrative user account.
4. After installation is complete, reboot the VM.
5. Log in to the root account to configure the VM.

Procedure

1. Install the AWS command line tools by using the dnf command.

   # dnf install awscli

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2. Use the aws --version command to verify that you installed the AWS CLI.

   $ aws --version
   aws-cli/1.19.77 Python/3.6.15 Linux/5.14.16-201.fc34.x86_64 botocore/1.20.77

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3. Configure the AWS command line client according to your AWS access details.

   $ aws configure
   AWS Access Key ID [None]:
   AWS Secret Access Key [None]:
   Default region name [None]:
   Default output format [None]:

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Procedure

1. Launch the Amazon S3 Console.
2. Click Create Bucket. The Create Bucket dialog appears.

3. In the Name and region view:

   1. Enter a Bucket name.
   2. Enter a Region.
   3. Click Next.
4. In the Configure options view, select the desired options and click Next.
5. In the Set permissions view, change or accept the default options and click Next.
6. Review your bucket configuration.

7. Click Create bucket.

   Note

   Alternatively, you can use the AWS CLI to create a bucket. For example, the aws s3 mb s3://my-new-bucket command creates an S3 bucket named my-new-bucket. See the AWS CLI Command Reference for more information about the mb command.

Procedure

1. Create a file named trust-policy.json and include the following policy. Save the file on your system and note its location.

   {
      "Version": "2012-10-17",
      "Statement": [
         {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Principal": { "Service": "vmie.amazonaws.com" },
            "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
            "Condition": {
               "StringEquals":{
                  "sts:Externalid": "vmimport"
               }
            }
         }
      ]
   }

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2. Use the create role command to create the vmimport role. Specify the full path to the location of the trust-policy.json file. Prefix file:// to the path. For example:

   $ aws iam create-role --role-name vmimport --assume-role-policy-document file:///home/sample/ImportService/trust-policy.json

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3. Create a file named role-policy.json and include the following policy. Replace s3-bucket-name with the name of your S3 bucket.

   {
      "Version":"2012-10-17",
      "Statement":[
         {
            "Effect":"Allow",
            "Action":[
               "s3:GetBucketLocation",
               "s3:GetObject",
               "s3:ListBucket"
            ],
            "Resource":[
               "arn:aws:s3:::s3-bucket-name",
               "arn:aws:s3:::s3-bucket-name/*"
            ]
         },
         {
            "Effect":"Allow",
            "Action":[
               "ec2:ModifySnapshotAttribute",
               "ec2:CopySnapshot",
               "ec2:RegisterImage",
               "ec2:Describe*"
            ],
            "Resource":"*"
         }
      ]
   }

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4. Use the put-role-policy command to attach the policy to the role you created. Specify the full path of the role-policy.json file. For example:

   $ aws iam put-role-policy --role-name vmimport --policy-name vmimport --policy-document file:///home/sample/ImportService/role-policy.json

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Procedure

1. Run the qemu-img command to convert your image. For example:

   # qemu-img convert -f qcow2 -O raw rhel-9.0-sample.qcow2 rhel-9.0-sample.raw

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2. Push the image to S3.

   $ aws s3 cp rhel-9.0-sample.raw s3://s3-bucket-name

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   Note

   This procedure could take a few minutes. After completion, you can check that your image uploaded successfully to your S3 bucket by using the AWS S3 Console.

Procedure

1. Create a file to specify a bucket and path for your image. Name the file containers.json. In the sample that follows, replace s3-bucket-name with your bucket name and s3-key with your key. You can get the key for the image by using the Amazon S3 Console.

   {
       "Description": "rhel-9.0-sample.raw",
       "Format": "raw",
       "UserBucket": {
           "S3Bucket": "s3-bucket-name",
           "S3Key": "s3-key"
       }
   }

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2. Import the image as a snapshot. This example uses a public Amazon S3 file; you can use the Amazon S3 Console to change permissions settings on your bucket.

   $ aws ec2 import-snapshot --disk-container file://containers.json

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   The terminal displays a message such as the following. Note the ImportTaskID within the message.

   {
       "SnapshotTaskDetail": {
           "Status": "active",
           "Format": "RAW",
           "DiskImageSize": 0.0,
           "UserBucket": {
               "S3Bucket": "s3-bucket-name",
               "S3Key": "rhel-9.0-sample.raw"
           },
           "Progress": "3",
           "StatusMessage": "pending"
       },
       "ImportTaskId": "import-snap-06cea01fa0f1166a8"
   }

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3. Track the progress of the import by using the describe-import-snapshot-tasks command. Include the ImportTaskID.

   $ aws ec2 describe-import-snapshot-tasks --import-task-ids import-snap-06cea01fa0f1166a8

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   The returned message shows the current status of the task. When complete, Status shows completed. Within the status, note the snapshot ID.

Procedure

1. Go to the AWS EC2 Dashboard.
2. Under Elastic Block Store, select Snapshots.
3. Search for your snapshot ID (for example, snap-0e718930bd72bcda0).
4. Right-click on the snapshot and select Create image.
5. Name your image.
6. Under Virtualization type, choose Hardware-assisted virtualization.
7. Click Create. In the note regarding image creation, there is a link to your image.

8. Click on the image link. Your image shows up under Images>AMIs.

   Note

   Alternatively, you can use the AWS CLI register-image command to create an AMI from a snapshot. See register-image for more information. An example follows.

   $ aws ec2 register-image \
       --name "myimagename" --description "myimagedescription" --architecture x86_64 \
       --virtualization-type hvm --root-device-name "/dev/sda1" --ena-support \
       --block-device-mappings "{\"DeviceName\": \"/dev/sda1\",\"Ebs\": {\"SnapshotId\": \"snap-0ce7f009b69ab274d\"}}"

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   You must specify the root device volume /dev/sda1 as your root-device-name. For conceptual information about device mapping for AWS, see Example block device mapping.

Procedure

1. From the AWS EC2 Dashboard, select Images and then AMIs.
2. Right-click on your image and select Launch.

3. Choose an Instance Type that meets or exceeds the requirements of your workload.

   See Amazon EC2 Instance Types for information about instance types.

4. Click Next: Configure Instance Details.

   1. Enter the Number of instances you want to create.
   2. For Network, select the VPC you created when setting up your AWS environment. Select a subnet for the instance or create a new subnet.

   3. Select Enable for Auto-assign Public IP.

      Note

      These are the minimum configuration options necessary to create a basic instance. Review additional options based on your application requirements.

5. Click Next: Add Storage. Verify that the default storage is sufficient.

6. Click Next: Add Tags.

   Note

   Tags can help you manage your AWS resources. See Tagging Your Amazon EC2 Resources for information about tagging.

7. Click Next: Configure Security Group. Select the security group you created when setting up your AWS environment.
8. Click Review and Launch. Verify your selections.

9. Click Launch. You are prompted to select an existing key pair or create a new key pair. Select the key pair you created when setting up your AWS environment.

   Note

   Verify that the permissions for your private key are correct. Use the command options chmod 400 <keyname>.pem to change the permissions, if necessary.

10. Click Launch Instances.

11. Click View Instances. You can name the instance(s).

    You can now launch an SSH session to your instance(s) by selecting an instance and clicking Connect. Use the example provided for A standalone SSH client.

    Note

    Alternatively, you can launch an instance by using the AWS CLI. See Launching, Listing, and Terminating Amazon EC2 Instances in the Amazon documentation for more information.

Procedure

1. Register your system.

   # subscription-manager register

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2. Attach your subscriptions.

   • You can use an activation key to attach subscriptions. See Creating Red Hat Customer Portal Activation Keys for more information.
   • Also, you can manually attach a subscription by using the ID of subscription pool (Pool ID). See Attaching a host-based subscription to hypervisors.

3. Optional: To collect various system metrics about the instance in the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console, you can register the instance with Red Hat Lightspeed.

   # insights-client register --display-name <display_name_value>

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   For information about further configuration of Red Hat Lightspeed, see Client Configuration Guide for Red Hat Lightspeed.

Procedure

1. Upload the Gold Image to AWS. For instructions, see Uploading the Red Hat Enterprise Linux image to AWS.
2. Create VMs by using the uploaded image. They will be automatically subscribed with RHSM.