oVirt 4.4.0 Beta release refresh is now available for testing

The oVirt Project is excited to announce the availability of the beta release of oVirt 4.4.0 refresh (beta 4) for testing, as of April 17th, 2020

This release unleashes an altogether more powerful and flexible open source virtualization solution that encompasses hundreds of individual changes and a wide range of enhancements across the engine, storage, network, user interface, and analytics on top of oVirt 4.3.

Important notes before you try it

Please note this is a Beta release.

The oVirt Project makes no guarantees as to its suitability or usefulness.

This pre-release must not to be used in production.

In particular, please note that upgrades from 4.3 and future upgrades from this beta to the final 4.4 release from this version are not supported.

Some of the features included in oVirt 4.4.0 Beta require content that will be available in CentOS Linux 8.2 but can’t be tested on RHEL 8.2 beta yet due to some incompatibility in openvswitch package shipped in CentOS Virt SIG which requires to rebuild openvswitch on top of CentOS 8.2.

Known Issues

• ovirt-imageio development is still in progress. In this beta you can’t upload images to data domains using the engine web application. You can still copy iso images into the deprecated ISO domain for installing VMs or upload and download to/from data domains is fully functional via the REST API and SDK.
  For uploading and downloading via the SDK, please see: 
    - https://github.com/oVirt/ovirt-engine-sdk/blob/master/sdk/examples/upload_disk.py
    - https://github.com/oVirt/ovirt-engine-sdk/blob/master/sdk/examples/download_disk.py
  Both scripts are standalone command line tool, try --help for more info.

Installation instructions

For the engine: either use appliance or:

- Install CentOS Linux 8 minimal from http://centos.mirror.garr.it/centos/8.1.1911/isos/x86_64/CentOS-8.1.1911-x86_64-dvd1.iso

- dnf install https://resources.ovirt.org/pub/yum-repo/ovirt-release44-pre.rpm

- dnf update (reboot if needed)

- dnf module enable -y javapackages-tools pki-deps postgresql:12

- dnf install ovirt-engine

- engine-setup

For the nodes:

Either use oVirt Node ISO or:

- Install CentOS Linux 8 from http://centos.mirror.garr.it/centos/8.1.1911/isos/x86_64/CentOS-8.1.1911-x86_64-dvd1.iso ; select minimal installation

- dnf install https://resources.ovirt.org/pub/yum-repo/ovirt-release44-pre.rpm

- dnf update (reboot if needed)

- Attach the host to engine and let it be deployed.

What’s new in oVirt 4.4.0 Beta?

• Hypervisors based on CentOS Linux 8 (rebuilt from award winning RHEL8), for both oVirt Node and standalone CentOS Linux hosts

• Easier network management and configuration flexibility with NetworkManager

• VMs based on a more modern Q35 chipset with legacy seabios and UEFI firmware

• Support for direct passthrough of local host disks to VMs

• Live migration improvements for High Performance guests.

• New Windows Guest tools installer based on WiX framework now moved to VirtioWin project

• Dropped support for cluster level prior to 4.2

• Dropped SDK3 support

• 4K disks support only for file based storage. iSCSI/FC storage do not support 4k disks yet.

• Exporting a VM to a data domain

• Editing of floating disks

• Integrating ansible-runner into engine, which allows a more detailed monitoring of playbooks executed from engine

• Adding/reinstalling hosts are now completely based on Ansible

• The OpenStack Neutron Agent cannot be configured by oVirt anymore, it should be configured by TripleO instead

This release is available now on x86_64 architecture for:

* Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1

* CentOS Linux (or similar) 8.1

This release supports Hypervisor Hosts on x86_64 and ppc64le architectures for:

* Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1

* CentOS Linux (or similar) 8.1

* oVirt Node 4.4 based on CentOS Linux 8.1 (available for x86_64 only)

See the release notes [1] for installation instructions and a list of new features and bugs fixed.

If you manage more than one oVirt instance, OKD or RDO we also recommend to try ManageIQ.

In such a case, please be sure  to take the qc2 image and not the ova image.

Notes:

- oVirt Appliance is already available for CentOS Linux 8

- oVirt Node NG is already available for CentOS Linux 8

Additional Resources:

* Read more about the oVirt 4.4.0 release highlights: http://www.ovirt.org/release/4.4.0/

* Get more oVirt project updates on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ovirt

* Check out the latest project news on the oVirt blog: http://www.ovirt.org/blog/

[1] http://www.ovirt.org/release/4.4.0/

[2] http://resources.ovirt.org/pub/ovirt-4.4-pre/iso/