Chapter 7. Deploying a RHEL for Edge image in a non-network-based environment The RHEL for Edge Container ( .tar ) in combination with the RHEL for Edge Installer ( .iso ) image type result in a ISO image. The ISO image can be used in disconnected environments during the image deployment to a device. However, network access might require network access to build the different artifacts. Deploying a RHEL for Edge image in a non-network-based environment involves the following high-level steps: Download the RHEL for Edge Container. See Downloading a RHEL for Edge image for information about how to download the RHEL for Edge image. Load the RHEL for Edge Container image into Podman Run the RHEL for Edge Container image into Podman Load the RHEL for Edge Installer blueprint Build the RHEL for Edge Installer image Prepare a .qcow2 disk Boot the Virtual Machine (VM) Install the image 7.1. Creating a RHEL for Edge Container image for non-network-based deployments You can build a running container by loading the downloaded RHEL for Edge Container OSTree commit into Podman. For that, follow the steps: Prerequisites You created and downloaded a RHEL for Edge Container OSTree commit. You have installed Podman on your system. See the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution How do I install Podman in RHEL . Procedure Navigate to the directory where you have downloaded the RHEL for Edge Container OSTree commit. Load the RHEL for Edge Container OSTree commit into Podman . The command output provides the image ID, for example: @8e0d51f061ff1a51d157804362bc875b649b27f2ae1e66566a15e7e6530cec63 Tag the new RHEL for Edge Container image, using the image ID generated by the step. The podman tag command assigns an additional name to the local image. Run the container named edge-container . The podman run -d --name=edge-container command assigns a name to your container-based on the localhost/edge-container image. List containers: As a result, Podman runs a container that serves an OSTree repository with the RHEL for Edge Container commit. 7.2. Creating a RHEL for Edge Installer image for non-network-based deployments After you have built a running container to serve a repository with the RHEL for Edge Container commit, create an RHEL for Edge Installer (.iso) image. The RHEL for Edge Installer (.iso) pulls the commit served by RHEL for Edge Container (.tar) . After the RHEL for Edge Container commit is loaded in Podman, it exposes the OSTree in the URL format. To create the RHEL for Edge Installer image in the CLI, follow the steps: Prerequisites You created a blueprint for RHEL for Edge image. You created a RHEL for Edge Container image and deployed it using a web server. Procedure Begin to create the RHEL for Edge Installer image. Where, ref is the same value that customer used to build OSTree repository URL-OSTree-repository is the URL to the OSTree repository of the commit to embed in the image. For example, http://10.0.2.2:8080/repo/. See Creating a RHEL for Edge Container image for non-network-based deployments . blueprint-name is the RHEL for Edge Installer blueprint name. image-type is edge-installer . A confirmation that the composer process has been added to the queue appears. It also shows a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) number for the image created. Use the UUID number to track your build. Also keep the UUID number handy for further tasks. Check the image compose status. The command output displays the status in the following format: Note The image creation process takes a few minutes to complete. To interrupt the image creation process, run: To delete an existing image, run: RHEL image builder pulls the commit that is being served by the running container during the image build. After the image build is complete, you can download the resulting ISO image. Download the image. See Downloading a RHEL for Edge image. After the image is ready, you can use it for non-network deployments . See Installing the RHEL for Edge image for non-network-based deployments . Additional resources Creating a RHEL for Edge Installer image by using the command-line interface for non-network-based deployments 7.3. Installing the RHEL for Edge image for non-network-based deployments To install the RHEL for Edge image, follow the steps: Prerequisites You created a RHEL for Edge Installer ISO image. You stopped the running container. A disk image to install the commit you created. You installed the edk2-ovmf package. You installed the virt-viewer package. You customized your blueprint with a user account. See Creating a blueprint for a RHEL for Edge image using RHEL image builder in RHEL web console . Warning If you do not define a user account customization in your blueprint, you will not be able to login to the ISO image. Procedure Create a qcow VM disk file to install the ( .iso ) image. That is an image of a hard disk drive for the virtual machine (VM). For example: Use the virt-install command to boot the VM using the disk as a drive and the installer ISO image as a CD-ROM. For example: This command instructs virt-install to: Instructs the VM to use UEFI to boot, instead of the BIOS. Mount the installation ISO. Use the hard disk drive image created in the first step. It gives you an Anaconda Installer. The RHEL Installer starts, loads the Kickstart file from the ISO and executes the commands, including the command to install the RHEL for Edge image commit. Once the installation is complete, the RHEL installer prompts for login details. Note Anaconda is preconfigured to use the Container commit during the installation. However, you need to set up system configurations, such as disk partition, timezone, between others. Connect to Anaconda GUI with virt-viewer to setup the system configuration: Reboot the system to finish the installation. On the login screen, specify your user account credentials and click Enter . Verification Verify whether the RHEL for Edge image is successfully installed. The command output provides the image commit ID and shows that the installation is successful.

Commands:
sudo podman load -i UUID -container.tar
sudo podman tag image-ID localhost/edge-container
sudo podman run -d --name= edge-container -p 8080:8080 localhost/edge-container
sudo podman ps -a CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 2988198c4c4b ..../localhost/edge-container /bin/bash 3 seconds ago Up 2 seconds ago edge-container
composer-cli compose start-ostree --ref rhel/8/x86_64/edge --url URL-OSTree-repository blueprint-name image-type
composer-cli compose status
<UUID> RUNNING date blueprint-name blueprint-version image-type
composer-cli compose cancel <UUID>
composer-cli compose delete <UUID>
qemu-img create -f qcow2 diskfile .qcow2 20G
virt-install --boot uefi --name VM_NAME --memory 2048 --vcpus 2 --disk path= diskfile.qcow2 --cdrom /var/lib/libvirt/images/ UUID -installer.iso --os-variant rhel9.0
virt-viewer --connect qemu:///system --wait VM_NAME
rpm-ostree status