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Chapter 11 Installing and Configuring the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance

The Oracle VM Exporter Appliance is a special type of virtual machine used to export another virtual machine from the Oracle VM environment to a tenancy account in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Before you can use the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance, in addition to a valid Oracle VM account, you need an active tenancy and user account in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Note

SSH is disabled on the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance for security reasons. To log on to the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance, you have to use the console.

The Oracle VM Exporter Appliance uses Oracle Cloud Infrastructure APIs to perform the export. You need to upload the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance public key to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to export a virtual machine.

For more information about uploading keys to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, see https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/API/Concepts/apisigningkey.htm#three.

Additionally, before using the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance, you need to know Oracle Cloud Infrastructure:

Region
Compartment
Availability Domain
Instance Shapes (and their quotas)

For more information about finding the above values, see https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/API/Concepts/apisigningkey.htm.

For more information about exporting virtual machines and the parameters needed see the Exporting Virtual Machines section of the Oracle VM Concepts Guide .

11.1 Considerations

This section contains useful information to consider when using the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance.

Oracle VM Considerations

You can export hardware virtual machines (HVMs) or paravirtual hardware virtual machines (PVHVM).
You cannot export paravirtual virtual machines (PVMs).
An Oracle VM usually has Storage Networks defined for storage like NFS, iSCSI, and so on. If virtual machines that are to be exported to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure have virtual disks accessed through Storage Networks (or other types of networks), the Oracle VM Storage Network's configuration must be modified to add virtual machine use.
VNICs tied to Storage Networks are needed for accessing resources that can be accessed via one or more Storage Networks.
If you need to access resources that can only be reached through one or more Storage Networks, then you must also attach a VNIC to each Storage Network in Oracle VM Exporter Appliance.
If Oracle VM Exporter Appliance requires static IP address configuration, then you must configure these IP addresses on all VNICs for the virtual machines and storage networks.
Once all of these parameters have been set successfully in the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine, configuration is complete. For information on using the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance, see see the Export a Virtual Machines section of the Oracle VM Manager User's Guide .

Virtual Machine Specifics

You can export any virtual machine listed in https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Compute/References/bringyourownimage.htm to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
You cannot export a SOLARIS11U3_X86_PVHVM virtual machine to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Exporting Windows Virtual Machines

You cannot export a Windows virtual machine to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure unless it has the latest VirtIO drivers. These drivers can be downloaded from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud (OSDC) at https://edelivery.oracle.com.

NFS Server Considerations

The Oracle VM Exporter Appliance needs read-only access to NFS shares of repositories that contain virtual machine resources. Modify the NFS export on the NFS server to export these resources to the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance IP address on the appropriate Storage Network.
The Oracle VM Exporter Appliance needs an NFS Share with read-write permission to hold temporary, converted disk images. Create an NFS share on the NFS server and export it to the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance IP address on the appropriate Storage Network

LUN or Local Storage Considerations

For repositories on LUN or local storage physical disks, check the firewall for NFS export from the Oracle VM Server host.
Add "Repository Export" on one of the Oracle VM Server hosts on which the LUN or Local Disk exists. The repository must be presented to the Oracle VM Server host in order to export the repository to an IP address that reaches the Oracle VM Server host.
If you have a Repository on a LUN or Local Storage (physical disk), the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance must have export access to that LUIN or Local Storage on the hosts or servers in the server pool that is presented to that LUN or Local Storage repository. To add export access in Oracle VM, highlight the host or server and change the Perspective to Repository Exports. Click on the + symbol to add the IP address of the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine to the LUN or Local Storage Repository.

11.2 Installing the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance

Before exporting a virtual machine to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure with the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance, you must download the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance Open Virtualization Appliance (OVA), create the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine, and configure the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine.

You can download the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance from the following location:

Oracle Software Delivery Cloud (OSDC) at https://edelivery.oracle.com.

Once there, search for the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance.

You have to agree to the same terms and conditions as the Oracle VM software.

Note

You can only use the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance in a valid Oracle VM environment and with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure parameters listed above.

11.3 Creating the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance Virtual Machine

Once the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance software has been successfully downloaded, you can create the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine. The Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine can be installed as part of an Oracle VM Server Pool or stand-alone as an unassigned virtual machine. However, the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine, like any other virtual machine, cannot be run as an unassigned virtual machine.

Follow these steps to create the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine:

Create the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine from the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance OVA.
By default, the name of the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine is OVA_name_Exporter_Appliance. Once this virtual machine is created, you should edit it to Exporter Appliance.This name is highly recommended, but not strictly required. However, using this name enables the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance wizard to make several user interface steps easier.

Important

Using a different name means that other information such as hostname and IP address have to be entered manually when the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance is used.
Configure the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine's network. For information on creating, editing and removing VNICs on virtual machines, please refer to the Edit Virtual Machine and Create Virtual Machine sections of the Oracle VM Manager User's Guide .
- The Oracle VM Manager needs to communicate with the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine. We recommend tying the virtual machine's Virtual Network Interface Card (VNIC) in slot 0 (eth0 in the virtual machine) to the virtual machine network. The IP address associated with this VNIC is what the user interface for the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance wizard finds.
- (Optional) You can add an additional VNIC to enable the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine to access the Network File System (NFS) repository or the repositories where the virtual machines to be exported have their disks.
  
  Note
  
  The Oracle VM networks used above must have the "Virtual Machine" role to tie the VNICs to these networks.
- (Optional)You can add an additional VNIC to enable the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machines to access Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Start the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine.

The virtual machine boots up and uses auto-provisioning to complete configuration.

11.4 Configuring the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance Virtual Machine

After you successfully create Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine, you can perform configuration tasks to customize the virtual machine. These configuration tasks include setting the system host name, network interfaces, boot protocol, and more. Some parameters are mandatory for the auto-provisioning configuration to complete. If the settings are not configured correctly for the local environment, then Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine functions incorrectly and provides unexpected results.

The local Oracle VM Exporter Appliance parameters are:

Local host and local domain name
Network host name
Network device
Activate or deactivate the network interface
Use DHCP or static configuration of network parameters

The network parameters used by Oracle VM Exporter Appliance can be configured manually (static addressing). You can also use DHCP to supply these parameters.

If you choose static configuration for the network parameters, then you must also configure the following for Oracle VM Exporter Appliance:

IP address
Gateway (router) IP address
DNS server IP address

There are also sharing and security parameters to configure for Oracle VM Exporter Appliance:

NFS share path
CA certificate
Root password

Parameters are sent as VM Messages to the automated virtual machine provisioning process. For more information on sending VM Messages, see the the Send VM Messages section of the Oracle VM Manager User's Guide .

In the parameter configuration listing, replace the parameter.n ending with parameter.0 to configure the eth0 interface, and replace the parameter.n ending with parameter.1 to configure the eth1 interface. You can have more than two interfaces.

The parameters and values used to configure the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance virtual machine are

To set the system host name entry:

                  
                    com.oracle.linux.hostname host-name

where host-name is the host name, such as example-hostname.domain.

To set the host name entry for the /etc/hosts file:

                  
                    com.oracle.linux.network.host.n host-name-info

where n is the interface number and host-name-info is the host name, such as 127.0.0.1 example-hostname.domain example-hostname.

To configure the network device:

                  
                    com.oracle.linux.network.device.n network-device

where n is the interface number and network-device is the local network information, such as eth0.

To activate or deactivate the interface on the system:

                  
                    com.oracle.linux.network.onboot.n yes or no

where n is the interface number and yes or no determines if the interface is active or not.

To configure the boot protocol:

                  
                    com.oracle.linux.network.bootproto.n dhcp or static

where n is the interface and dhcp or static determines if the interface uses DHCP or has a static IP address.

To configure the IP address of the interface:

                  
                    com.oracle.linux.network.ipaddr.n n.n.n.n

where n is the interface and n.n.n.n is the IPv4 address in dotted decimal notation.

To configure the netmask of the interface:

                  
                    com.oracle.linux.network.netmask.n n.n.n.n

where n is the interface and n.n.n.n is the IPv4 netmask in dotted decimal notation.

To configure the IP address of the interface's network gateway (router):

                  
                    com.oracle.linux.network.gateway.n n.n.n.n

where n is the interface and n.n.n.n is the IPv4 address in dotted decimal notation.

To configure the IP addresses of the Domain Name System (DNS) servers, separated by commas:
```
                  
                    com.oracle.linux.network.dns-servers.n n.n.n.n,n.n.n.n,...
                  
                
```
where n is the interface and n.n.n.n is the IPv4 address of one or more DNS servers in dotted decimal notation.

To configure the NFS share (path) to hold temporary converted disk images:

                  
                    com.oracle.ovm.vmexporter.nfs_share path

where path is the path to the temporary disk images.

To configure Oracle VM Manager's Certificate Authority (CA) certificate:
```
                  
                    com.oracle.ovm.vmexporter.ca_certificate certificate
                  
                
```
where certificate is the value of the certificate, passed as a string with carriage returns in the certificate replaced with new lines (\n). For more invformation on obtaining and exporting the CA certificate, see Section 2.2.4, “Exporting the CA Certificate” and related sections.
Note

Before setting the Oracle VM CA certificate for the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance, the certificate must be converted from a multi-line string to a single-line string. Use this Linux command to convert carriage-return and any "/" (forward slash) in the certificate to a compatible format:
```
# sed 's-/-//-g;1h;1!H;$!d;x;;s-\n-/\\n-g' ca.crt
```
When selecting the single-line string certificate, include the "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----" and "-----END CERTIFICATE-----"

To configure Oracle VM Manager's root password:

                  
                    com.oracle.linux.network.root-password password

where password is the root password.

You set these parameters in the Oracle VM Exporter Appliance by sending messages to the virtual machine. If you have named the virtual machine "Exporter Appliance" then you can pass these parameters as shown in this example:

sendVmMessage Vm name="Exporter Appliance" key=com.oracle.linux.hostname message=
     example-hostname.domain log=no
sendVmMessage Vm name="Exporter Appliance" key=com.oracle.linux.network.host.0 message=
     127.0.0.1 example-hostname.domain example-hostname log=no
sendVmMessage vm name="Exporter Appliance" key=com.oracle.linux.network.device.0 message=
     eth0 log=no
sendVmMessage vm name="Exporter Appliance" key=com.oracle.linux.network.onboot.0 
     message=yes log=no
sendVmMessage vm name="Exporter Appliance" key=com.oracle.linux.network.bootproto.0 
     message=dhcp log=no
sendVmMessage Vm name="Exporter Appliance" key=com.oracle.ovm.vmexporter.nfs_share
     message="ca-ovmstor101://export//<user-id>//converteddisks" log=no
sendVmMessage Vm name="Exporter Appliance" key=com.oracle.ovm.vmexporter.ca_certificate 
     message="-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----/\nMIID+zCCAuOgAwIBAgIUZwL8sCLKIaknyZMNFmPtcc
     Vc86MwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEL/\nBQAwgaQxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMRMwEQYDVQQIEwpDYWxpZm9ybmlhMRUw
     EwYDVQQH/\nEwxSZWR3b29kIENpdHkxGzAZBgNVBAoTEk9yYWNsZSBDb3Jwb3JhdGlvbjEaMBgG/\nA1U
     ECxMRT3JhY2xlIFZNIE1hbmFnZXIxMDAuBgNVBAMTJ09WTSBDQSAwMDA0ZmIw/\nMDAwMDEwMDAwMDgwN
     mM5OGJiMWRiMDRkYzAeFw0yMDA0MjMwMDUwMDhaFw0zMDA0/\nMjQwMDUwMDhaMIGkMQswCQYDVQQGEwJ
     VUzETMBEGA1UECBMKQ2FsaWZvcm5pYTEV/\nMBMGA1UEBxMMUmVkd29vZCBDaXR5MRswGQYDVQQKExJPc
     mFjbGUgQ29ycG9yYXRp/\nb24xGjAYBgNVBAsTEU9yYWNsZSBWTSBNYW5hZ2VyMTAwLgVDVQQDEydPVk0
     gQ0Eg/\nMDAwNGZiMDAwMDAxMDAwMDA4MDZjOThiYjFkYjA0ZGMwggEiMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEB/\nAQUAA4
     IBDwAwggEKAoIBAQCSma4RrVJ5//TR7Iz2j0zq3e3cmGL82kFbqhVtG2ufz/\nqbeOkYD2cpObpP0KUAF
     pQ9UHQxVbkWSKKTAhn2UPAPdA6mMjKZ17PMIpBiEmnD/\n0N1zE3a9IBp7wMd3X2zdpBQadVVD3v7P9k+
     rFhprlbqXG4BZxUnc//SYsgBdrDkOj/\nn6RrGJoufpIc5TADOOcpu3HaDaZ4DUj3tASzMesXRPnj45d/
     /F8axJnxxRzC2+L3b/\nJIVPdzyBK5ZSqU2rGPesQixC56yW//iywgj2i1n0+O60Uv2ypBZ4GAjYSGY5A
     I+qE/\ne//DRsrE6FtI+cmoUHckoWRtu0f8QdNBiYzmQzDYqOs+5AgMBAAGjIzAhMA8GA1Ud/\nEwEB//
     wQFMAMBAf8wDgYDVR0PAQH//BAQDAgAFMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAA4IBAQBY/\niZosYxc35hIEYbUqxz
     qBes9Bg3fdxZXNIFs1mdxQJUNSd1QSd526lna4kN1hpc70/\nnoAVn8AF3Ct7t8qltc710E8xI9mUO2Us
     ISZtdVvWhUUbeZaLiH0x4SEIZT9BwrxW/\n7ZB//BjCuENCRjTCsZpjj8X9c//nZyB+LqHS7W6VznsDry
     UYhJ6hiHe9//dcnBLlXPH/\nWnqvCiZLHFeletI6c1ahMA6R7+arx9EPp5MjZfXU8slLmzSCrZaYwFd0z
     F//Gy8Xz/\nfEYbjAkO6T3T//OnLBC1Q4fs80jD5n2y13YKpTPSaFgO0An//YgbWecd7JjJE//5BVQ/\n
     g37A8ZcQkMxBZyELRv1C/\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----/\n" log=no
sendVmMessage Vm name="Exporter Appliance" key=com.oracle.linux.root-password 
     message=<root-pw> log=no

Note

You must also set the date and time correctly. See Section 8.8.2, “Enabling and Disabling Configuration Modules (ovm-chkconfig)” for more information on setting the date and time and related parameters.