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RightScale Cloud Management Support Portal > Guides > RightLink > Create RightScale-Enabled Images with RightLink > RightLink Installer for RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

RightLink Installer for RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

1. Objective
2. Overview
3. Steps
1. 3.1. Launch a Bare RHEL EC2 Instance
2. 3.2. SSH Into the Instance
  1. 3.2.1. Set the Cloud Type
  2. 3.2.2. Install EPEL Package
    1. 3.2.2.1. Install Dependencies
  3. 3.2.3. Install RightLink
    1. 3.2.3.1. Latest Package
    2. 3.2.3.2. Specific Package
  4. 3.2.4. Set the RightLink version
3. 3.3. Bundle the Instance
4. 3.4. Test the Bundled Image (optional)
5. 3.5. Create a MultiCloud Image
6. 3.6. Tag the MultiCloud Image (mandatory)
4. See also

Objective

Boot a non-RightScale-enabled RHEL instance, perform some manual configuration, install the RightLink package, and re-bundle the instance into a new, RightScale-enabled AMI. Optionally: test compatibility before bundling, and create an MCI (MultiCloud Image) for your new image.

Important!

Do not forget to tag the MultiCloud Image! Any MCI that points to custom images that have RightLink installed must be tagged appropriately to successfully operate with the RightScale management platform; see the last step in this article for more information.
These instructions apply only to RightLink v5.5 and above. RightLink packages prior to v5.5 did not install clean under RHEL and required extensive changes.

1. Objective
2. Overview
3. Steps
1. 3.1. Launch a Bare RHEL EC2 Instance
2. 3.2. SSH Into the Instance
  1. 3.2.1. Set the Cloud Type
  2. 3.2.2. Install EPEL Package
    1. 3.2.2.1. Install Dependencies
  3. 3.2.3. Install RightLink
    1. 3.2.3.1. Latest Package
    2. 3.2.3.2. Specific Package
  4. 3.2.4. Set the RightLink version
3. 3.3. Bundle the Instance
4. 3.4. Test the Bundled Image (optional)
5. 3.5. Create a MultiCloud Image
6. 3.6. Tag the MultiCloud Image (mandatory)
4. See also

Overview

RightScale officially supports AWS pay-by-the-hour AMIs for RHEL, or custom RHEL amis that use a customer-supported satellite server. RightScale RHEL RightImages are coming soon. In the meantime, you can install RightLink on a RHEL AMI.

Steps

Launch a Bare RHEL EC2 Instance

If you do not wish to prepare your image for testing, you can launch a "bare" instance that is not attached to a RightScale Server.

In the RightScale Dashboard, navigate to the appropriate cloud in the menu (e.g. Clouds -> AWS Region -> Instances -> New) and launch a new instance with the AMI you would like to RightLink-enable.

SSH Into the Instance

Once the instance or server becomes operational, click on its 'SSH' button in the RightScale Dashboard.

Set the Cloud Type

Run the following command to set the cloud type to Amazon EC2:

mkdir -p /etc/rightscale.d; echo -n ec2 > /etc/rightscale.d/cloud

This file is used by the RightLink agent to recognize which cloud type the instance is running in.

Install EPEL Package

The Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) project provides thousands of prebuilt RPMs for supplemental packages that are built and maintained by the Fedora open-source community. The RightLink RPM depends on some of these packages as prerequisites and cannot be installed unless EPEL is available to satisfy the dependencies.

You can EPEL-enable your system by installing the EPEL repository package. The repository package configures your system's yum or up2date system to use EPEL's repositories. You can then install packages with your usual method, and the EPEL repository will be included and used to satisfy any dependencies.

rpm -Uvh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-7.noarch.rpm

Or (for a different bitness or version)

rpm -Uvh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/5/x86_64/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm

Install Dependencies

Install the RPM package dependencies manually (no Yum repository for RightLink is available at this stage).

yum -y install git curl bash lsb

Install RightLink

Browse RightScale's mirror (http://mirror.rightscale.com/rightscale_rightlink/) for available RightLink packages. Although we recommend using the latest available RightLink package, it may not be available for your particular release. The most recently published packages can be found in the "latest" RightLink packages directory. If you do not find a suitable package in one of the "latest" directories, you can also browse for a different version from one of the archived directories. You must choose the distribution package that's most appropriate for your purposes, based upon your instance's operating system and CPU architecture (32- or 64-bit).

Install the appropriate RPM package. You can copy and paste the link from your browser if desired.

Latest Package

The following script downloads the latest x86_64 RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) package from the mirror. Use arch=i386 for 32bit instances.

#!/bin/bash
arch=x86_64
rpms=$(curl -s http://mirror.rightscale.com/rightscale_rightlink/latest/rhel/ | perl -0ne 'print "$1\n" while (/<a\s*href\s*=\s*\"(.*?)\">.*?<\/a>/igs)' | grep .rpm | grep "$arch") && rpm=$(grep "$arch" <<<"$rpms") && \
echo Installing "$rpm". && rpm -iv http://mirror.rightscale.com/rightscale_rightlink/latest/rhel/"$rpm" || echo 'RightLink installation failed!'

Specific Package

Alternatively, install a specific version from the mirror (only recommended if a specific reason to not use the latest exists). Change RHEL version as needed.

The following installs RightLink 5.8.8.

64-bit instance

rpm -iv http://mirror.rightscale.com/rightscale_rightlink/latest/rhel/rightscale_5.8.8-rhel_5.8-x86_64.rpm

Set the RightLink version

Run the following command to specify which version of RightLink you installed:

echo -n 5.8.8 > /etc/rightscale.d/rightscale-release

Bundle the Instance

To create a new AMI from the running instance, click the Bundle button in the Dashboard.
Once the bundle worker has completed the task, view the audit entry and take note of the AWS ID that was used to register the new AMI.

Note: the RightScale BundleWorker requires the SFTP subsystem to be enabled on your instance. This is disabled in many images.
You can usually re-enable with:

sed -i s/#Subsystem/Subsystem/g /etc/ssh/sshd_config && service sshd restart

Note: Free space required when bundling an instance-store (S3-based) AMI/instance (the below is is not required for EBS AMIs).
You may also need to mount an ephemeral disk if /mnt does not have enough room to store the bundle created (instance-store images have a 10GB size limit). The instance or image you are running must have the correct device block mapping and using an instance type which provides instance storage. You can ensure the first default ephemeral device is mounted using the following:

mkdir -pv /mnt; mount | grep /mnt ||  mount /dev/sdb /mnt

Test the Bundled Image (optional)

To perform a compatibility test on the new private RightLink-enabled image that you just created, see Testing your Private RightLink-enabled Image.

Create a MultiCloud Image

In order to properly use the new RightScale-enabled image with ServerTemplates, you should create a MultiCloud Image (MCI) that references the new image. See Create a New MultiCloud Image. The MCI can then be added to any local (HEAD) ServerTemplates in your account. If you need to make that image available in a different AWS region, follow the Replicate an Image to different AWS regions.

Tag the MultiCloud Image (mandatory)

Once you've created the MCI, you will need to add the following tag to the MCI so that RightScale will be able to identify the created image as a RightLink-enabled image:

provides:rs_agent_type=right_link

You now have an MCI that points to a RightLink-enabled image for launching RHEL instances. Just like any other instance that's launched using one of our v5 RightImages (which are RightLink-enabled), you will be able to see monitoring graphs and execute scripts inside the Dashboard.

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