IBM® provides various OS images that have been
tested with imbedded pattern contents and are pre-optimized for performance and security
considerations. However, in some cases you may want to use your own OS image. IBM OS Pattern Kit allows you to onboard your own operating system image in to
PureApplication® System and transform that image by
adding capabilities required for pattern-based deployment.
Before you begin
You must provide a virtual appliance OVA which consists of your basic operating system. The
following operating systems are supported:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux
(RHEL) 6.8 (64-bit), 6.9 (64-bit), and 6.10 (64-bit)
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.4 (64-bit) and 7.5
(64-bit)
Note: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.10 (64-bit) and 7.5
(64-bit) are supported in V2.2.5.3 only.
You can create a new virtual machine in VMware using various
methods. Whether you clone from an existing virtual machine, deploy from a template, or create your
own, ensure that VMware Tools is installed on the virtual machine that you are using. To install
VMware Tools on a running virtual machine in vSphere Client, left click the virtual machine, select and go to the virtual machine console to complete the installation.
If you do not have a virtual appliance
OVA, follow the steps in Creating OVA files to
create an OVA which can be used in PureApplication System.
About this task
Follow these steps to create a virtual system instance
using your own working operating system.
Procedure
- Follow the steps in Adding virtual appliances to import
your own base operating system image as a virtual appliance (OVA)
in to PureApplication System.
- Follow the steps in Deploying virtual appliances to
deploy the virtual appliance and create a running virtual machine.
Important: When you export your
own operating system image from VMware to
then import and deploy it into PureApplication System,
the image does not include Activation Engine. You can set the virtual
machine configuration no_activation_engine option
to true if you want to use VMware guest
OS customization for automated network configuration. If your virtual
appliance image is not compatible with VMware guest
OS customization, you can set no_activation_engine to false and
use the virtual machine console to configure your network later.
- Follow the steps in Starting and stopping virtual machines to start the
virtual machine.
- If the IP address is unavailable after
you have deployed the virtual appliance, follow these steps to configure
the network:
- Access the PureApplication System console
pane. Click . Select the virtual machine that you specified during the virtual
appliance deployment step. The detailed information for that virtual
machine is displayed.
- Scroll to IP addresses and record
the IP address, Netmask,
and Gateway of the virtual machine.
- Click the Console icon in the
toolbar to establish a connection to the virtual machine console. You must have root access to configure the
network.
- Run the following commands to configure the network:
ifconfig eth1 <ip address> netmask <netmask> up
route add default gw <gateway>
Important: For
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
7.0, if your network device name field is not defined as
ethx,
you must first run the following commands to disable consistent network
device naming:
sed -i 's/rhgb quiet/biosdevname=0 net.ifnames=0 rhgb quiet/' /etc/default/grub
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
shutdown -r now
After the system reboot, the network device
name field will appear as
ethx and you can
continue configuring the network.
- Configure and start SSH service to log
in to the virtual machine.
- Download and install enablement packages for preferred
supported systems.
- From the virtual machine, issue the following command to
reset the virtual machine.
AE.sh --reset
This
action will power off the virtual machine.
- Use one of the following procedures to create a new image
of an existing virtual machine.
Note: A virtual machine
may be left in an unmanageable state if you perform this step against
a virtual machine that is from a virtual system pattern deployment
instead of a virtual appliance deployment. From the console, the virtual
system instance will appear in the launching state
but you will not be able to launch the instance. You should delete
this virtual system instance.
- Follow the steps in Creating virtual images from existing virtual machines.
- Use the following CLI commands to create a new image of the virtual machine by specifying
the new image name, version, virtual machine id (vmid), and the url to metadata OVA (using the
corresponding metadata OVA).
>>> vm=admin.virtualmachines.list({'name':'name_of_virtual_machine'})[0]
where name_of_virtual_machine is the name of the virtual machine as deployed from
the virtual appliance under consideration (or a partial name that can uniquely identify the virtual
machine).
>>> deployer.virtualimages.create({'url':'url_of_metadata_file','vmid':vm.id,'name':'name_of_virtual_image','version':'version_of_virtual_image','description':'description_of_virtual_image'})
where- URL of the url_of_metadata_file is the URL of the metadata OVA file which
your PureApplication System can access. You can
provide the metadata OVA file in one of the following ways:
- name_of_virtual_image is the name given to the virtual image to be
created.
- version_of_virtual_image is the version of the provided virtual image.
- description_of_virtual_image is the description of the provided virtual
image.
For
example:>>> vm=admin.virtualmachines.list({'name':''My RHEL 6.5 VM 2''})[0
>>> deployer.virtualimages.create({'url':'http://172.16.15.250/jobs/MAESTRO_LINUX_OS_IMG_METADATA_OVA/lastSuccessful/archive/MAESTRO_LINUX_OS_IMG_METADATA_2.1-11.ova','vmid':vm.id,'name':'BYOS RHEL 6.5','version':'1.0.0.0','description':'My RHEL 6.5 Image for pattern deploy'})]
For example (when using
ssh):
>>> vm=admin.virtualmachines.list({'name':''My RHEL 6.5 VM 2''})[0
>>> deployer.virtualimages.create({'url':'172.16.15.250:/jobs/MAESTRO_LINUX_OS_IMG_METADATA_OVA/lastSuccessful/archive/MAESTRO_LINUX_OS_IMG_METADATA_2.1-11.ova','vmid':vm.id,'name':'BYOS RHEL 6.5','version':'1.0.0.0','description':'My RHEL 6.5 Image for pattern deploy'})]
- Inspect the virtual image by following the steps in Viewing and modifying virtual images. Accept the license agreement
if it has not yet been accepted.
- Once the new image is successfully created, verify the
new image by creating a virtual system pattern using the image component
from this new image. Follow steps in Creating virtual system patterns.
Back to the top of the page.
What to do next
You can use the virtual image for virtual system and virtual
application deployment. You do not have to repeat the above procedure
to make changes to the image. See Extending and capturing virtual images to
learn how to make changes to an image.