oVirt 4.4.0 Release is now generally available

The oVirt Project is excited to announce the general availability of the oVirt 4.4.0 Release, as of May 20th, 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, as compared to oVirt 4.3.

Important notes before you install / upgrade

Some of the features included in the oVirt 4.4.0 release require content that will be available in CentOS Linux 8.2 but cannot be tested on RHEL 8.2 yet due to some incompatibility in the openvswitch package that is shipped in CentOS Virt SIG, which requires rebuilding openvswitch on top of CentOS 8.2. The cluster switch type OVS is not implemented for CentOS 8 hosts.

Please note that oVirt 4.4 only supports clusters and datacenters with compatibility version 4.2 and above. If clusters or datacenters are running with an older compatibility version, you need to upgrade them to at least 4.2 (4.3 is recommended).

Please note that in RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 several devices that worked on EL7 are no longer supported.

For example, megaraid_sas driver is removed. If you use Enterprise Linux 8 hosts you can try to provide the necessary drivers for the deprecated hardware using the DUD method (See users mailing list thread on this at https://lists.ovirt.org/archives/list/users@ovirt.org/thread/NDSVUZSESOXEFJNPHOXUH4HOOWRIRSB4/ )

Installation instructions

For the engine: either use the oVirt appliance or install CentOS Linux 8 minimal by following these steps:

- Install the CentOS Linux 8 image 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.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, selecting the minimal installation.

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

- dnf update (reboot if needed)

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

Update instructions

Update from oVirt 4.4 Release Candidate

On the engine side and on CentOS hosts, you’ll need to switch from ovirt44-pre to ovirt44 repositories.

In order to do so, you need to:

1. dnf remove ovirt-release44-pre

2. rm -f /etc/yum.repos.d/ovirt-4.4-pre-dependencies.repo

3. rm -f /etc/yum.repos.d/ovirt-4.4-pre.repo

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

5. dnf update

On the engine side you’ll need to run engine-setup only if you were not already on the latest release candidate.

On oVirt Node, you’ll need to upgrade with:

1. Move node to maintenance

2. dnf install https://resources.ovirt.org/pub/ovirt-4.4/rpm/el8/noarch/ovirt-node-ng-image-update-4.4.0-2.el8.noarch.rpm

3. Reboot

4. Activate the host

Update from oVirt 4.3

oVirt 4.4 is available only for CentOS 8. In-place upgrades from previous installations, based on CentOS 7, are not possible. For the engine, use backup, and restore that into a new engine. Nodes will need to be reinstalled.

A 4.4 engine can still manage existing 4.3 hosts, but you can’t add new ones.

For a standalone engine, please refer to upgrade procedure at https://ovirt.org/documentation/upgrade_guide/#Upgrading_from_4-3

If needed, run ovirt-engine-rename (see engine rename tool documentation at https://www.ovirt.org/documentation/admin-guide/chap-Utilities.html )

When upgrading hosts:

You need to upgrade one host at a time.

1. Turn host to maintenance. Virtual machines on that host should migrate automatically to a different host.

2. Remove it from the engine

3. Re-install it with el8 or oVirt Node as per installation instructions

4. Re-add the host to the engine

Please note that you may see some issues live migrating VMs from el7 to el8. If you hit such a case, please turn off the vm on el7 host and get it started on the new el8 host in order to be able to move the next el7 host to maintenance.

What’s new in oVirt 4.4.0 Release?

• 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 API/SDK v3 support deprecated in past versions.

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

• You can export a VM to a data domain.

• You can edit floating disks.

• Ansible Runner (ansible-runner) is integrated within the engine, enabling more detailed monitoring of playbooks executed from the engine.

• Adding and reinstalling hosts is now completely based on Ansible, replacing ovirt-host-deploy, which is not used anymore.

• 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/iso/