RHEL 9 lab image file.

[Tracy_Baker]

Does anyone have a set of instructions on how I might take the RH124 / RH134 .img file from the Red Hat Academy Learning Portal and install it as a lab environment under VMware?

(I have RHEL 8.2 for RH124 and RH134 that Lee Toderick and his students did a while back. I may have had instructions at one point but, if I did, I can't find them.)

I have the usb-9.0-33G-rhcsa9.0-r2022053122.img file.

I'd like to do this so I can start to work on getting RH124 and RH134 developed.

Yes, I know I can use the provided RHALP space but. I'd like to do it on my own system.

Thanks for any help!

[jackieb]

I'd be interested in this too as we predominately use VMWare for all our training.

[Travis]

@Tracy_Baker -

I'm not 100% sure what format that file is in or what is in that file. Assuming it is a nested VM with the standalone foundation ...

qemu-img convert -f qcow2 -O vmdk usb-9.0-33G-rhcsa9.0-r2022053122.img RHCSA.vmdk

 However, given the name of the file, it is most likely an Image of our USB Installation media which is a bootable installer.

If it is the bootable installer, you can use Fedora Media Writer or another utility that takes a source file and creates a USB media from it, or using Linux you can use the DD command.

sudo dd if=usb-9.0-33G-rhcsa9.0-r2022053122.img of=/dev/<USB_Device> bs=1M status=progress

 The above command will take the file and generate a bootable USB stick that you can then use to build the environment. 

As I don't have access to the file, I can't tell you exactly what it is, but I strongly suspect this is the image of the bootable classroom USB stick. If that is the case, based on the filename you will most likely need to use a 64GB USB Drive as the filename indicates it is 33GB in size.

Hope that helps!!!

[Travis]

@JeffDube -

Maybe we should get me an account there so I can look at the file referenced so I know what it is.

[Travis]

@Tracy_Baker -

I just got access and as I suspected, the file is actually the USB Image file of the instructor installation.

Introduction to RHA DIY Labs (redhat.com)

I've pasted the guide to some useful instructions here. Keep in mind, this is meant to be utilized for a bare-metal installation as it installs a virtualization layer and a foundation operating system on the base machine.

I've used this method many times in VMware (Fusion/Workstation) to create a virtual classroom environment on a laptop. It is necessary to create a "dummy" network and also create the machine with enough memory/CPU (including enabling nested virtualization) so that the lab environment can run.

Generally, I use the USB-Passthru option for booting from the USB, however, sometimes that doesn't work. If you can't get that to work to boot from CD, there is an RHCIFoundation ISO that can be added to the VM to be a boot ISO, then you can pass the USB to the VM as the source for the rest of the Kickstart installation.

[Tracy_Baker]

@Travis 

I mounted the .img file on my Windows 10 system (right-click on image and mount)

Then, when creating the VM in VMware Workstation (v15.5.6) Select install from and point it to the mounted image (drive K: on my system).

It seems to start like a normal DIY installation. I get the menu and can type in f0 rh128

The it sits for quit a long time, then I get a lot of errors mentioning anaconda.

At this time, I'm downloading it again... Unlike last evening, the .img file now tells me it isn't a valid image when I try to mount it in Windows.

I'll post more after it downloads...

Incidentally... and maybe this is something: the file says in its name 33G. The download size is under 30.3G

[BrianH]

The last time I did it with the RHEL 8 material for Lee I fed the usb image into qemu-img with something something like:

qemu-img convert -O vmdk usb-9.0*.img installmedia.vmdk

and attached the vmdk. The usb passthrough was finicky and slow for me and we needed to feed it into vCenter.

Video I made from way back. (Please excuse the poor audio, I hadn't figured out sound engineering back then.)

I don't have access to the new image (yet) so I'm not sure how it'll go.

-Brian

[tharindul]

How can i got the lab