CloudForms as a Container

The CloudForms 4.1 release (June ’16) delivered a new format for the CloudForms appliance: as a container in docker format. CloudForms has led the way by offering the appliance in several different virtualization and cloud formats, such as:

• Red Hat Virtualization
• Red Hat OpenStack Platform
• Google Cloud Platform
• Microsoft Azure
• Microsoft SCVMM (Hyper-v)
• VMware vSphere

With the new CloudForms container you can now host CloudForms on:

• Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise 3
• Red Hat Atomic Host (7.2 or higher)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (7.2 or higher)
• Anywhere using docker

This is really ground breaking for a cloud management platform, as Container technology brings additional levels of portability, scalability and security.

Another great benefit is the simplicity to instantiate the container.

NOTE: Red Hat CloudForms 4.1 availability as a container image is currently a TECHNICAL PREVIEW, therefore is UNSUPPORTED for production use. See Technology Preview Features Support Scope for more information. You can obtain the Red Hat CloudForms container image from https://registry.access.redhat.com.

Here are the various ways you can instantiate CloudForms across the different container platforms available.

Red Hat Atomic Host

1. Install Red Hat Atomic Host.
2. Log in via SSH to your Atomic Host.
3. Download the CloudForms container:

# atomic install cloudforms/cfme4:latest

4. Run the CloudForms container:

# atomic run cloudforms/cfme4:latest

Alternatively you can also use the docker command to run the CloudForms container:

# docker run --privileged -di -p 80:80 -p 443:443 cloudforms/cfme4:latest

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

1. Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2
2. Log in via SSH to your Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2
3. Register your system with Red Hat:

# subscription-manager register --username=<rhnuser> --password=<pwd>
# subscription-manager list --available    
# subscription-manager attach --pool=<pool_id>
# subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-7-server-extras-rpms
# subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-7-server-optional-rpms

4. Install docker and needed dependencies:

# yum install docker device-mapper-libs device-mapper-event-libs

5. Start the docker service:

# systemctl start docker.service

6. Enable the docker service:

# systemctl enable docker.service

7. Run the CloudForms container:

# docker run --privileged -di -p 80:80 -p 443:443 cloudforms/cfme4:latest

8. Login using a browser to http://<hostname>

Anywhere with docker

1. Install docker.
2. Edit /etc/sysconfig/docker and amend the Red Hat registry to the ADD_REGISTRY key:

ADD_REGISTRY='--add-registry registry.access.redhat.com'

3. Restart the docker service.
4. Execute the following command:

# docker run --privileged -di -p 80:80 -p 443:443 cloudforms/cfme4:latest

Lastly….SSH Access

Execute the following command to obtain a bash prompt on the CloudForms container to do things like import items or view log files:

# sudo docker exec -i -t <container ID/name> /bin/bash

You will be given access under /var/www/miq/vmdb path.