Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization(RHEV) Notes

The post only highlight some useful notes, for step-by-step instructions, refer to Red Hat RHEV document

RHEV has two components: Red Hat enterprise Virtualization manager(RHEV-M) and managed hypervisor,which could be RHEV-H(RHEV hypervisor, a trim down version of RHEL) or full-blown RHEL 5.5 (64bit) or newer.

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RHEV-M notes
- RHEV-M 2.2 support Windows 2003 SP2 or Windows 2008 R2, although the RHEV 2.2 document only mentions Windows 2008 R2. Windows 2003 SP2 need some hostfix, just run update all after installing .NET 3.5.1/IIS/PowerShell 2.2.
Windows 2008 is NOT supported.
- RHEV-M can use hosts file instead of DNS, but the “Do not validate fully qualified computer name checkbox” need to be select when install RHEV-M
- RHEV-M login rely on Windows account, which can be a generic local account or AD account.
- RHEV-M's backend DB is  SQL Server 2005, by default, it installs  “SQL Server 2005 express” locally, there is an option to connect to external DB. 
- If the RHEV manager login URL is not redirected after installing trusted certificate and adding trusted website, point URL directly to  Https://FQDN/RHEVmanager/WPFclient.xbap
RHEV-H notes

#RHEV-H boot prompt options
:     #Just press enter to start installation.
:linux rescue     #same as RHEL rescue mode
:linux firstboot   #invoke interactive installation menu
:linux upgrade   #upgrade hypervisor
:linux nocheck   #disable installation media check
#Hypervisor Configuration Menu
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor release 5.5-2.2
Hypervisor Configuration Menu
1) Configure storage partitions    6) Configure the host for Red Hat Enterprise
Virtualization
2) Configure authentication        7) View logs
3) Set the hostname                8) Install locally and reboot
4) Networking setup                9) Support Menu
5) Register Host to RHN
#options notes
“5) Register Host to RHN” is optional, just configure 1,2,3,4,6 then choose 8
“9) Support Menu” has an option to uninstall  existing RHEV-H

Troubleshoot after RHEV-H has been installed. 
If RHEV-H is successfully connected to RHEV-M, it should be appeared in RHEV-M hosts tab with status “Pending Approval”, click “approve” button will  finalize the installation. (“Add host” option only works for RHEL host used as hypervisor host . RHEV-H,a trim down version of RHEL, has to use registration flow)
 If for some reason, RHEV-H doesn't appear in RHEV-M, check following first
 - RHEV-M  Windows 2003 SP2  has all latest update
 - RHEV-M host name is resolvable, and telnet to the host on 80,443 works.
 - Datetime matched in RHEV-H and RHEV-M, /etc/init.d/ntpd is working
then try to re-register RHEV-H to RHEV-M

#re-invoke the Hypervisor Configuration Menu
$setup                      #select option 6 to re-configure hostname for RHEV-M
#restart registration process
/etc/init.d/vdsm-reg restart
#check registration log
/var/log/vdsm-reg/vdsm-reg.log

#Configure files in RHEV-H 
#vdsm registration script
#register itself to RHEV-M, it seems it doesn't need to be running once registration is successful
/etc/init.d/vdsm-reg                 #start-up script, 
/etc/vdsm-reg/vdsm-reg.conf     #configuration file
/var/log/vdsm-reg/vdsm-reg.log    #log file
#Management agent
#by default, listening on port 54321 to communicate with RHEV-M
/etc/init.d/vdsmd
/etc/vdsm/vdsm.conf
/var/log/vdsm/vdsm.log
You are not supposed to create new configuration files  in RHEV-H, any new files in  /etc/ will be lost after reboot. To survive reboot, you need copy your customization files, e.g /etc/hosts, /etc/resolv.conf, to “/config/etc/” once. Next time RHEV-H boots up, it will synchronize all files in /config/etc/* to /etc

NFS store
- The NFS export must writable by vdsm:kvm, (uid:gid 36:36)
- RHEV-M has a windows tool to upload ISO files to ISO domain, The tool go through 2 steps:first upload to SPM(Storage Pool Manager) host, then move from SPM host to NFS. You can actually winscp to NFS directly, then change file ownership to  vdsm:kvm.
Guest OS notes
- RHEV 2.2 doesn't support auto-start  guest OS, which means if RHEV-M and RHEV-H are rebooted, someone has to login  RHEV-M to click “run” for each VM 
- RHEL 5.x has built-in VirtIO driver for  harddisk and network 
- Windows Guest need the virtual floppy file virtio*.vfd copied to ISO domain and mount the floppy (select “run once” select the file as floppy drive)  in order for Windows to recognize VirtIO harddisk. Once Windows boots up, install “Guest tools”  for VirtIO NIC driver.