Updating KVM Hosts

Important:

If you are upgrading your environment, refer to Before You Beginin the Upgrading Your Environment to 4.5 section.

Before you update a KVM host, here are a few considerations.

  • If migration is enabled at the cluster level, virtual machines are automatically migrated to another host in the cluster.

  • The cluster must contain more than one host before performing an update.

  • Do not attempt to update all hosts at the same time because one host must remain available to perform Storage Pool Manager (SPM) tasks.

  • The cluster must have sufficient memory reserve in order for its hosts to perform maintenance. If a cluster lacks sufficient memory, the virtual machine migration hangs and then fails. You can reduce the memory usage of virtual machine migration by shutting down some or all virtual machines before updating the host.

  • You cannot migrate a virtual machine using a vGPU to a different host. Virtual machines with vGPUs installed must be shut down before updating the host.

To update a KVM host, follow the instructions below.

Connect to the KVM host:

  1. Open a terminal.
  2. Connect to the KVM host.
  3. Update the release rpm.
    • If you are updating from 4.4 to the latest version of 4.4, run:
      # dnf update oracle-ovirt-release-el8
    • If you are updating from 4.5 to the latest version of 4.5, run:
      # dnf update oracle-ovirt-release-45-el8

After you are connected to the KVM host, complete the following steps in the Administration Portal:

  1. In the Administration portal, go to Compute and then click Hosts.

  2. In the Hosts pane, click a blank or non-linked cell for a host to select it.

  3. Click Installation and then Check for Upgrade.

  4. From the Upgrade Host window, click OK.

    The engine checks the KVM host to see if it requires an update.

  5. Using your mouse, hover over the icon next to the host name to see if an update is available.

  6. To proceed with the update, click Installation and then Upgrade.

  7. From the Upgrade Host window, click OK to begin the update process.

    On the Hosts pane you can watch the host transition through the update stages: Maintenance, Installing, Up. The host is rebooted after the update and displays a status of Up if successful. If any virtual machines were migrated off the host, they are migrated back.

    Note:

    If the update fails, the host’s status changes to Install Failed and you must click Installation and then Upgrade again.

  8. (Optional) Repeat the previous steps for any KVM host in your environment that you want to update.