Adding Gold Images to the Fleet Patching and Provisioning Server

You can add new gold images to your Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning Server, create working copies from the gold images, and provision Oracle homes. Use RHPCTL to add gold images for later provisioning of software.

The Fleet Patching and Provisioning Server stores and serves gold images of software homes. These images must be instantiated on the Fleet Patching and Provisioning Server. Images are read-only, and you cannot run programs from them. To create a usable software home from an image, you must create a working copy of a gold image. You cannot directly use images as software homes. You can, however, use images to create working copies (software homes).

Note:

Oracle FPP allows you to install the gold images without transferring them to the destination host. This feature is known as zipcopy and you can use it to provision Oracle AI Database homes. You can also use this feature to provision Oracle Grid Infrastructure homes that exists on the destination hosts, but not to provision new Oracle Grid Infrastructure homes.

You can import software to the Fleet Patching and Provisioning Server using any one of the following methods:

You can import an image from an installed home on the Fleet Patching and Provisioning Server using the following command:
```
rhpctl import image -image image_name -path path_to_installed_home
  [-imagetype ORACLEDBSOFTWARE | ORACLEGISOFTWARE | ORACLEGGSOFTWARE | SOFTWARE]
```
ORACLEDBSOFTWARE is the default if -imagetype is not specified.
You can import a new image from a zip file using the -zip parameter or use the zipcopy feature with the -zip and -location parameters:
```
$ rhpctl import image -image image_name -zip zip_file_path -location 
  location_on_destination_host_where_image_is_available
```
The -zip parameter specifies the location from which you can import the image to the Oracle FPP server. The -location parameter specifies a location where the image is available on the destination host as a zip file. The -location parameter also instructs the Oracle FPP server to not copy the image-related files from the Oracle FPP server to the destination host.

You can make the image zip files available on the destination hosts using either local or shared storage. For shared storage, you can use NFS file system shared with servers, clients, and rhpclient-less targets. For local storage, you can copy the zip file using any option that guarantees its consistency on the destination because Oracle FPP does not verify consistency of the zip file. You can use SFTP, SCP, or download the zip file using curl or wget methods from a shared location. The file must be available at the specified location.
You can import an image from an installed home on a Fleet Patching and Provisioning Client, using the following command run from the Fleet Patching and Provisioning Client:
```
rhpctl import image -image image_name -path path_to_installed_home
```

Use the first two commands in the preceding list to seed the image repository, and to add additional images over time. Use the third command on the Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning Server as part of the workflow for creating a gold image that includes patches applied to a pre-existing gold image.

The preceding three commands also create an Oracle ACFS file system in the Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning root directory, similar to the following:

/u01/rhp/images/images/RDBMS_121020617524

Image State

Am image state is a way to restrict provisioning of an image for users with specified roles.

You can set the state of an image to TESTABLE or RESTRICTED so that only users with the GH_IMG_TESTABLE or GH_IMG_RESTRICT roles can provision working copies from this image. Once the image has been tested or validated, you can change the state and make the image available for general use by running the rhpctl promote image -image image_name -state PUBLISHED command. The default image state is PUBLISHED when you add a new gold image, but you can optionally specify a different state with the rhpctl add image and rhpctl import image commands.

Image Series

An image series is a convenient way to group different gold images into a logical sequence.

Fleet Patching and Provisioning treats each image as an independent entity with respect to other images. No relationship is assumed between images, even if they follow some specific nomenclature. The image administrator may choose to name images in a logical manner that makes sense to the user community, but this does not create any management grouping within the Fleet Patching and Provisioning framework.

Use the rhpctl add series command to create an image series and associate one or more images to this series. The list of images in an image series is an ordered list. Use the rhpctl insertimage series and rhpctl deleteimage series to add and delete images in an image series. You can also change the order of images in a series using these commands.

The insertimage and deleteimage commands do not instantiate or delete actual gold images but only change the list. Also, an image can belong to more than one series (or no series at all).

Image Type

When you add or import a gold image, you must specify an image type.

Oracle Clusterware provides the following built-in base image types:

ORACLEDBSOFTWARE
ORACLEGISOFTWARE
ORACLEGGSOFTWARE
EXAPATCHSOFTWARE
SOFTWARE

Every gold image must have an image type, and you can create your own image types. A new image type must be based on one of the built-in types. The image type directs Fleet Patching and Provisioning to apply its capabilities for managing Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle Database homes. Fleet Patching and Provisioning also uses image type to organize the custom workflow support framework.

Creating a Custom Image Type

Use the rhpctl add imagetype command to create custom image types.

For example, to create an image type called DBTEST, which is based on the ORACLEDBSOFTWARE image type:

$ rhpctl add imagetype -imagetype DBTEST -basetype ORACLEDBSOFTWARE

Note:

When you create an image type that is based on an existing image type, the new image type does not inherit any user actions (for custom workflow support) from the base type.