[ovirt-users] Hosted Engine on oVirt Node Hypervisor

[Jason Keltz]

I'm setting up some new oVirt infrastructure, and wanted to give hosted 
engine a try.  I downloaded and installed the oVirt Node Hypervisor ISO 
(3.5-0.999.201502231653.el7.centos) on one of 3 nodes.  One of the 
options in the hypervisor menu is "Hosted Engine".  This requires an 
"Engine ISO/OVA URL for download".  The thing is - as far as I can tell, 
there is no download link for this ISO/OVA on the ovirt release web 
site.  I also can't find anything in the documentation that refers to it 
(or even this menu in the hypervisor). I did find this after some searching:

http://jenkins.ovirt.org/user/fabiand/my-views/view/Node/job/ovirt-appliance_engine-3.5_master_merged/oVirt-Engine-Appliance-CentOS-x86_64-7-20150319.424.ova

(Now replaced with a build from 0322).  I asked on the ovirt IRC channel 
and was told that this "might" work, but because of new functionality 
introduced recently that it also might not. If the feature is available 
in the node ISO, shouldn't there be an appropriate release of the hosted 
engine ISO/OVA that works hand in hand with the node that I've 
downloaded?   If it's not there because it isn't ready, isn't this 
functionality something that should be added to maybe a "beta" node 
release and tested before being released into the stable node hypervisor 
release?

I asked on the IRC channel whether it might be possible for me to 
kickstart my own engine from the node.  I ran into trouble with that as 
well.   On the installed node, I can only configure one network 
interface.  This is, of course, intended to enable ovirtmgmt for 
communication with engine which would take over and configure everything 
else for you.  Of course, when you don't yet have engine installed and 
need to get it, this leads to a chicken and egg problem.  To kickstart 
engine on node, I need an IP (from mgmt), an image (I guess it could 
come from the mgmt network), but then I also need access to the external 
network (on another NIC) to be able to install the appropriate ovirt yum 
repository, and download the engine!  If I installed my own node 
manually instead if using ISO, I guess I could configure the network, 
and make it work, but I'm trying to take advantage of the work that has 
already been put into node to make this all possible.

Anyway, I'm certainly interested in any feedback from users who have 
been able to make this work.  I guess I could kickstart one node as an 
engine, create the virtual image there, suck the ova down to the mgmt 
server, install node, then use node to re-suck down the hosted engine 
image, but it just seems like a lot of extra work.  Somehow I think it's 
intended to be a little more straightforward than that.

Jason.