In this post I’ll demonstrate how easy it is to setup open virtualization system with hypervisor and management. oVirt is based on Red Hat’s Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization manager (RHEV-M) and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization hypervisor (RHEV-H).

So lets start with installing some prerequisite packages:

[root@ovirt-manager ~]# yum install -y wget postgresql-server postgresql-contrib pgadmin3 java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel

Next we’ll add new repository for ovirt:

[root@ovirt-manager ~]# wget http://www.ovirt.org/releases/nightly/fedora/16/ovirt-engine.repo -P /etc/yum.repos.d/

Final step is to install actual ovirt-manager packages:

[root@ovirt-manager ~]# yum install -y ovirt-engine ovirt-engine-setup

Now we have all needed packages installed and we can configure manager.

[root@ovirt-manager ~]# engine-setup
Welcome to oVirt Engine setup utility
HTTP Port  [8080] :
HTTPS Port  [8443] :
Host fully qualified domain name, note that this name should be fully resolvable  [ovirt-manager.demo.local] :
ovirt-manager.demo.local did not resolve into an IP address
User input failed validation, do you still wish to use it? (yes|no): yes
Password for Administrator (admin@internal) :
Warning: Weak Password.
Confirm password :
Database password (required for secure authentication with the locally created database) :
Warning: Weak Password.
Confirm password :
Organization Name for the Certificate: Demolab
The default storage type you will be using  ['NFS'| 'FC'| 'ISCSI']  [NFS] :
Should the installer configure NFS share on this server to be used as an ISO Domain? ['yes'| 'no']  [yes] : yes
Mount point path: /install
Display name for the ISO Domain: install
Firewall ports need to be opened.
You can let the installer configure iptables automatically overriding the current configuration. The old configuration will be backed up.
Alternately you can configure the firewall later using an example iptables file found under /usr/share/ovirt-engine/conf/iptables.example
Configure iptables ? ['yes'| 'no']: yes

oVirt Engine will be installed using the following configuration:
=================================================================
http-port:                     8080
https-port:                    8443
host-fqdn:                     ovirt-manager.demo.local
auth-pass:                     ********
db-pass:                       ********
org-name:                      Demolab
default-dc-type:               NFS
nfs-mp:                        /install
iso-domain-name:               install
override-iptables:             yes
Proceed with the configuration listed above? (yes|no): yes

After this setup might take while, but in few minutes you should get output like below:

Installing:
Configuring oVirt-engine...                              [ DONE ]
Creating CA...                                           [ DONE ]
Setting Database Security...                             [ DONE ]
Creating Database...                                     [ DONE ]
Updating the Default Data Center Storage Type...         [ DONE ]
Editing JBoss Configuration...                           [ DONE ]
Editing oVirt Engine Configuration...                    [ DONE ]
Configuring the Default ISO Domain...                    [ DONE ]
Configuring Firewall (iptables)...                       [ DONE ]
Starting JBoss Service...                                [ DONE ]

 **** Installation completed successfully ******

     (Please allow oVirt Engine a few moments to start up.....)

Additional information:
 * There is less than 4 GB available free memory on the Host.
It is  recommended to have at least 4 GB available memory to run the RHEV Manager.
 * Keystore already exists, skipped certificates creation phase
 * A default ISO share has been created on this host.
   If IP based access restrictions are required, please edit /install entry in /etc/exports
 * The firewall has been updated, the old iptables configuration file was saved to /usr/share/ovirt-engine/conf/iptables.backup.074609-01032012_1691
 * The installation log file is available at: /var/log/engine/engine-setup_2012_01_03_07_44_46.log
 * Please use the user "admin" and password specified in order to login into oVirt Engine
 * To configure additional users, first configure authentication domains using the 'engine-manage-domains' utility
 * To access oVirt Engine please go to the following URL: http://ovirt-manager.demo.local:8080

If you get database creation error, please check the database installation log. If there’s lines saying “Peer authentication failed for user “postgres”” please change authentication method in pg_hba.conf to trust and restart your postgresql-service and run installer again.

Next step is install ovirt-node (Hypervisor). It’s really simple and straightforward. Just get latest iso from http://www.ovirt.org/releases/nightly/binary/ and boot your hypervisor machine with it, install to local disk and do basic configurations: This shouldn’t take long, there is only few things to do. Select disk where you are installing, type root password and go.

Next thing to do is install more hypervisors and connect them to ovirt-engine. I’ll write another post about this with basic configuration examples. Try oVirt today, it’s really competitive alternative for VMware / Citrix and it’s totally open source 🙂