Description

These scripts help to quickly create and publish RHEL for Edge images. You should execute them in a RHEL 9 server which will become the image-builder and repo server for RHEL for Edge images (scripts should work with RHEL 8 but I don't test it anymore, and you can find issues with the demos).

NOTE: Remember that if you want to install RHEL for Edge on ARM systems, the image will need to be created in an image-builder RHEL deployed also in an ARM server.

Usage

If you already have your RHEL system installed and subscribed, you just need to:

0. Run the 0-pre-requisites-osbuild.sh script to deploy image-builder

1. Create your RHEL for edge image based on a blueprint with 1-create-image.sh. You can find a blueprint example in blueprint.toml.example

2. Publish the image with 2-publish-image.sh

3. (optional) Create an ISO or RAW image for offline deployments with 3-create-offline-deployment.sh

NOTE: You can get help and examples by typing <script> --help

RHEL for Edge deployment types

There are two main groups of RHEL for Edge deployment types:

• Deploying by accessing to the base OSTree repository using the network (network based deployment)

• Creating an ISO/image with the OSTree repository embed to deploy without the need of accessing to the repository using the network (non-network based deployment)

Network VS Non-network based deployments

In these scripts we find several options per type:

1. Network based deployment

   • Online repo using standard RHEL ISO
   • Online repo using custom RHEL ISO
   • UEFI HTTP Boot using the custom RHEL ISO

2. Non-network based deployment

   • Offline unattended ISO
   • Offline attended ISO
   • RAW/QCOW2 image

Let's review each of them in the following section.

Network based deployment

There are three options while deploying RHEL for Edge following the network based approach:

Option 1) Online repo using standard RHEL ISO

Network based deployement with standard RHEL ISO

With this option you will run a container with nginx serving the OSTree depository along with a kickstart.ks file. The edge node will be deployed with the standard RHEL ISO but using the kickstart published in the server by configuring manually a kernel argument before proceding with the install.

If you want to use this approach you need to:

1. Create the RHEL for Edge image with 1-create-image.sh script and copy the image ID.

./1-create-image.sh -b <blueprint-filename>

2. Publish the image with this command (here using IP and port defaults):

./2-publish-image.sh -i <image-id>

3. In order to deploy the image you just need to use the default RHEL boot ISO on the edge server/VM and introduce (pressing TAB during the GRUB menu) the required kernel arg (inst.ks) pointing to the kickstart file published in the server, something like this:

<other kernel args> inst.ks=http://192.168.122.129:8090/kickstart.ks

Option 2) Online repo using custom RHEL ISO

Network based deployement with customized (kickstart) RHEL ISO

This is similar to the previous option but instead of interupting the default RHEL installation to include the inst.ks kernel argument manually, you create a custom ISO based on the default boot ISO.

NOTE: The script will use the kickstart.ks file from the HTTP server, but you could also embed the actual kickstart file in the ISO (although introducing modifications to the kickstart will be more tedious)

If you want to use this approach you need to:

1. Create the RHEL for Edge image with 1-create-image.sh script and copy the image ID.

./1-create-image.sh -b <blueprint-filename>

2. Publish the image with this command (here using IP and port defaults) and pointing to the previously downloaded default RHEL boot ISO:

./2-publish-image.sh -i <image-id> -e <RHEL-default-ISO>

3. Start the edge server/VM from the custom ISO that you will find in the images directory (with a filename similar to <image-id>-custom-kernelarg.iso)

Option 3) UEFI HTTP Boot using the custom RHEL ISO

Network based deployement with custom (kickstart) RHEL ISO using network boot

In this deployment type the script will get the contents from the OSTree repo published in the NGINX and create an additional HTTP server where this ISO image will be published to be used as UEFI HTTP boot source. It could be done with traditional PXE Boot but since UEFI HTTP boot supports IPv6 and seems to be the future I included this option.

NOTE: In the official DOCS you will find they they use the "offline fully automated ISO" (description in the non-network based deployment) instead of the custom iso of previous step, but when using network boot I find that it makes more sense to have the OSTree remote repo pointing to a network server instead of to the local resource that you will get with the simplified ISO, which simplifies OSTree image updates.

If you want to use this approach you need to:

1. Create the RHEL for Edge image with 1-create-image.sh script and copy the image ID.

./1-create-image.sh -b <blueprint-filename>

2. Publish the image with this command (here using IP and port defaults) and pointing to the previously downloaded default RHEL boot ISO:

./2-publish-image.sh -i <image-id> -e <RHEL-default-ISO> -x <UEFI-HTTP-boot-server-port>

3. Deploy the edge server by starting using UEFI boot and the NIC as the device for the first boot. You will find that the boot will attempt to use PXE boot before UEFI HTTP boot...so you will need to wait a bit until the install begins

NOTE: Your Edge server must have at least 2GB of RAM in order to download the ISO to memory during the installation process

NOTE: In order to use UEFI HTTP boot you will need to include the UEFI HTTP boot server as a DHCP option.

If you are using libvirt and VMs this is an example of the network setup:

 <network xmlns:dnsmasq="http://libvirt.org/schemas/network/dnsmasq/1.0">
   <name>default</name>
   <uuid>3328ebe7-2202-4e3b-9ca3-9ddf357db576</uuid>
   <forward mode="nat">
     <nat>
       <port start="1024" end="65535"/>
     </nat>
   </forward>
   <bridge name="virbr0" stp="on" delay="0"/>
   <mac address="52:54:00:16:0e:63"/>
   <ip address="192.168.122.1" netmask="255.255.255.0">
     <tftp root="/var/lib/tftpboot"/>
     <dhcp>
       <range start="192.168.122.2" end="192.168.122.254"/>
       <bootp file="pxelinux.0"/>
     </dhcp>
   </ip>
   <dnsmasq:options>
     <dnsmasq:option value="dhcp-vendorclass=set:efi-http,HTTPClient:Arch:00016"/>
     <dnsmasq:option value="dhcp-option-force=tag:efi-http,60,HTTPClient"/>
     <dnsmasq:option value="dhcp-boot=tag:efi-http,&quot;http://192.168.122.128:8091/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI&quot;"/>
   </dnsmasq:options>
 </network>

For DHCP servers like dhcpd, something like this:

   class "pxeclients" {
      match if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = "PXEClient";
      next-server 192.168.111.1;
      filename "/bootx64.efi";
    }
    class "httpclients" {
      match if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 10) = "HTTPClient";
      option vendor-class-identifier "HTTPClient";
      filename "http://192.168.122.128:8091/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI";
    }

Non-network based deployment

For deploying RHEL for Edge in isolated environments where you cannot reach the OSTree repo server, you also have multiple options. In these scrips you have three:

Option 1) Offline unattended deployment ISO

Non-network based unattended deployement with custom (OSTree repo) RHEL ISO

With this option you create an ISO that installs the OSTree repo in unattended installation.

If you want to use this approach you need to:

1. Create the RHEL for Edge image with 1-create-image.sh script and copy the image ID.

./1-create-image.sh -b <blueprint-filename>

2. Publish the image with this command:

./2-publish-image.sh -i <image-id>

3. Create the automated ISO using the OSTree repository published in the previous step (in this case using the default IP and port):

 ./3-create-offline-deployment.sh

NOTE: With the latests releases, this kind of deployment (edge-simplified-installer) needs to use FDO! You can find examples in the demos directory.

4. Install the Edge server by booting from the created ISO that you will find in images directory (the file name will be something like <image-id>-simplified-installer.iso)

NOTE: Install using this ISO with UEFI boot loader otherwise you will get error code 0009

NOTE: If you are deploying on VMs be sure that the disk is using SATA drivers instead of VirtIO, in order to get a fully unattendant installation

Option 2) Offline attended deployment ISO

Non-network based attended deployement with custom (OSTree repo) RHEL ISO

This option is similar to the previous one, but instead of a fully automated install, you will get the Anaconda installer screen where you can for example select the drive where to install the system and configure the network.

If you want to use this approach you need to:

1. Create the RHEL for Edge image with 1-create-image.sh script and copy the image ID.

./1-create-image.sh -b <blueprint-filename>

2. Publish the image with this command:

./2-publish-image.sh -i <image-id>

3. Create the semi-automated ISO using the OSTree repository published in the previous step (in this case using the default IP and port):

 ./3-create-offline-deployment.sh -a

4. Install the Edge server by booting from the created ISO that you will find in images directory (the file name will be something like <image-id>-installer.iso). You will need to complete all the information (mainly root disk and network info) once Anaconda screen is presented in order to proceed with the install

NOTE: Install using this ISO with UEFI boot loader otherwise you will get error code 0009

Option 3) RAW/QCOW2 unattended image

Non-network based deployement with RAW/QCOW2 image

With this option you will create a RAW and a QCOW2 image file instead of an ISO.

If you want to use this approach you need to:

1. Create the RHEL for Edge image with 1-create-image.sh script and copy the image ID.

./1-create-image.sh -b <blueprint-filename>

2. Publish the image with this command:

./2-publish-image.sh -i <image-id>

3. Create the RAW and QCOW2 files using the OSTree repository published in the previous step (in this case using the default IP and port):

 ./3-create-offline-deployment.sh -r

4. You can use the files (<image-id>-image.raw and <image-id>-image.qcow2 in images directory) to directly dd to a hard drive or to create a VM using it as main disk.

NOTE: If you want to use your RHEL for Edge image into a Raspberry Pi 4 (remember that's not under Red Hat's support), you might want to take a look to the pify RHEL script that I've created to simplify the deployment.

RHEL for Edge image update

The 1-create-image.sh can create a new version of an OSTree repository to update running systems.

Creating an update

You just need to follow two steps:

1. Make changes or create a new blueprint file and then use the -u argument to create an update to the last image commit (remember to copy the image ID):

./1-create-image.sh -b <updated-blueprint> -u

2. Publish the updated OSTree repo

./2-publish-image.sh -i <image-id>

Updating a system

Updating a system that is using an "online" OSTree repository is different that one that only points to the system-local repository.

Updating a system using a network repository

This method is valid for the "Network based deployments" explained in the previous section. You can check how those systems have a remote OSTree repository configured:

# cat /etc/ostree/remotes.d/edge.conf

[remote "edge"]
url=http://192.168.122.128:8090/repo/
gpg-verify=false

Or you can use this command:

ostree remote list

You can check that there is a new update for the image with rpm-ostree update --check or rpm-ostree update --preview and apply the update with the following command as a privileged user on the edge system:

# rpm-ostree update -r

NOTE: The -r makes the system reboot after downloading the update (not the default), since the new image is only used after the next reboot

Updating a system using a local repository

If you use the ISO install you will be using the system-local repository. You can check it by running these command:

# ostree remote list
rhel

# ostree remote show-url rhel
file://run/install/repo/ostree/repo

If you want to update these systems, you will need to either create a new build on the system or by using a new build comming from an external resource such as an USB or SD card.

The steps to complete an offline upload are:

1. Copy the commit file from the image-builder which contains the new build with the OSTree update (it should be in the images directory with a name similar to <image-id>-commit.tar) to edge system (with an USB, SD card, DVD, ...)

2. Untar the <image-id>-commit.tar into a local directory on the edge server

# mkdir new-build
# tar xvf <image-id>-commit.tar -C new-build/

3. Pull from the local repository

# ostree pull-local new-build/repo

NOTE: You need to reference to the repo directory that you will find in the directory where you untar the TAR file

4. Update using rpm-ostree update as we shown in the previous section

# rpm-ostree update -r

NOTE: It's a good practice to take a look to the changes before with this command

# rpm-ostree update --preview

AvailableUpdate:
        Version: 8.5 (2022-04-18T17:26:14Z)
         Commit: 045c135c710585ab095a5bf2fd4d4c3553d3bccd6d759805eb24829519228a07
        Removed: zsh-5.5.1-6.el8_1.2.x86_64

Demos

You can find some demos to test RHEL for Edge on the demos directory.