18 February 2019

Install Vagrant and libvirt (KVM) on RHEL7

Written by Peter Gustafsson

The Challenge - Vagrant and libvirt (KVM) on RHEL7

While working with Molecule-based tests on our Ansible roles, I had to install vagrant and libvirt (KVM) on my RHEL7 machine to quickly spin up instances for test purposes. (will cover the Molecule stuff in a later post). The advantage of using Vagrant is that it downloads the pre-built Vagrant boxes that are ready to be consumed with in no-time.

A Box is a package that contains the base image of the VM. (Image of the operating system (template)) Boxes are stored in repositories and by default vagrant uses the HashiCorp repository at https://vagrantcloud.com/search but you can also create your own Box and store it in ~/.vagrant.d/boxes.

NOTE! Vagrant is Not a virtualization software, it is a tool for building and managing virtual machine environments in a single workflow.

Installation

Enable needed repositories
```
sudo subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-7-server-rpms --enable=rhel-7-server-optional-rpms
```
In case you have installed “workstation” variant, replace “server” with “workstation” in above.
Install the ‘Virtualization Host’ package group
```
sudo yum groupinstall "@Virtualization Platform"
```

Start the libvirtd service and have it start at boot time

sudo systemctl start libvirtd.service
sudo systemctl enable libvirtd.service

Add your user to the libvirt group (make life easier for yourself)
```
sudo usermod -aG libvirt USER
```

install the vagrant rpm from a remote repo.

sudo yum install https://releases.hashicorp.com/vagrant/2.2.3/vagrant_2.2.3_x86_64.rpm

Install build dependencies for vagrant-libvirt plugin installation
```
sudo yum install libvirt-devel ruby-devel gcc
```

Install the Libvirt vagrant plugin

vagrant plugin install vagrant-libvirt
vagrant plugin list

Setup environment variable to let vagrant know that we would like to use the Libvirt plugin (vagrant defaults to VirtualBox)
```
export VAGRANT_DEFAULT_PROVIDER=libvirt
export VAGRANT_PREFERRED_PROVIDERS=libvirt
```

Did I really execute all those commands manually?

Nah, since I’m practicing an Automation first policy, I only executed one command;)

ansible-playbook -e "user=USER" vagrant-libvirt.yml

And the playbook look like this:

- hosts: localhost
  become: true
  connection: local
  vars:
  tasks:
    - name: install the 'Virtualization Host' package group
      yum:
        name: "@Virtualization Platform"
        state: present

    - name: Start the libvirtd service and have it start at boot time
      service:
        name: libvirtd.service
        state: started
        enabled: yes

    - name: Adding existing user {{ user }} to group libvirt
      user:
        name: "{{ user }}"
        groups: libvirt
        append: yes

    - name: install the vagrant rpm from a remote repo
      yum:
        name: https://releases.hashicorp.com/vagrant/2.2.3/vagrant_2.2.3_x86_64.rpm
        state: present

    - name: Install build dependencies for vagrant-libvirt plugin installation.
      yum:
        name:
          - libvirt-devel
          - ruby-devel
          - gcc
        state: present

    - name: List installed Vagrant plugins
      shell: "vagrant plugin list"
      changed_when: False
      register: vagrant_initial_plugins_list

    - name: Install Vagrant plugins
      shell: "vagrant plugin install vagrant-libvirt"
      when:
        - '"vagrant-libvirt" not in vagrant_initial_plugins_list.stdout'

BR, pgustafs

Written by Peter Gustafsson Linkedin

tags: random