it does sound as if, my problems are around the fact that i am using an
all-in-one box, (host and engine all in one);

https://www.ovirt.org/download/alternate_downloads.html

This explains how that you can install all-in-one when engine is a VM
running on the single host, not as a program running on the host.

How did you managed to get engine installed on the same host?

I would expect that the installer would fail or at least warn about this.

The alternate install method is essentially, install packages and run engine-setup, which doesn't setup the hosted vm. The default installer via cockpit always installs engine as vm.

perhaps a warning is needed on the alternate installer page for epel8.

at the moment there is only a recommendation to use the normal installer.

the download / upload function is important to me as my backup solution
is dependent on this.

Until the sort this out, you should know that you can transfer images
without the
proxy. The proxy is needed only for the UI, for cases when engine and hosts are
on different networks, so the only way to transfer images is via the
engine host.

I use vprotect which i think is dependent on the proxy, but I'll definitely checkout the sdk/scripts you linked.

I'll post an update once the new host is setup the normal way / working.

Thanks again.

Michael Jones