Create the Fabric Services System virtual machine

To deploy a Fabric Services System node as a virtual machine, complete the appropriate procedure for your deployment scenario:

Creating the VM on bridged networks on KVM

Complete the following steps to deploy a Fabric Services System node as a virtual machine on KVM. The OAM network is referred to as br0 and the fabric management network is referred to as br1.

Ensure that the virt-install tool is installed on the KVM hypervisor.
If you need to install the tool, use the following command:
```
# yum install virt-install
```
Copy the base OS image to the appropriate location on the hypervisor where the virtual disks should be stored.
```
# cp fss-baseos-rocky-0.0.0-alpha.1+20240430.191213-f50a660.qcow2 /path/to/fss-compute-01.qcow2
```
Resize the base OS image.
By default, the Fabric Services System base OS image comes with a small partition to reduce the download size of the image. To assign the appropriate size to the image, execute the following commands:
```
# qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o preallocation=metadata /path/to/fss-compute-01.qcow2.temp 200G
# virt-resize --quiet --expand /dev/sda5 /path/to/fss-compute-01.qcow2 /path/to/fss-compute-01.qcow2.temp
# mv /path/to/fss-compute-01.qcow2.temp /path/to/fss-compute-01.qcow2
```
These commands create a temporary qcow2 file of 200GB and then resizes the root partition of fss-compute-01.qcow2 and writes it to the temporary file. Then, the .temp file is renamed to the actual qcow2 file used to create the compute VM.
Optional: If the node is also going to be used as a storage node, create the necessary extra disk for the storage cluster to be formed.
Create the virtual disk of 300GB using the following command:
```
# qemu-img create -f qcow2 /path/to/fss-node01-storage.qcow2 300G
```

Create the virtual machine.

The following command creates a node that also serves as a storage node. If a storage node is not needed, omit the second line that starts with --disk.

# virt-install --import --name fss-node01 \
 --memory 65536 --vcpus 32 --cpu host \
 --disk /path/to/fss-node01.qcow2,format=qcow2,bus=virtio \
 --disk /path/to/fss-node01-storage.qcow2,format=qcow2,bus=virtio \
 --network bridge=br0,model=virtio \
 --network bridge=br1,model=virtio \
 --os-variant=centos7.0 \
 --noautoconsole

After the VM boots, use the lsblk command to verify the partition sizes.

Note:
Log in using the following credentials:

user: root

password: N0ki@FSSb4se!
```
# lsblk 
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT 
vda 252:0 0 200G 0 disk 
├─vda1 252:1 0 99M 0 part /boot/efi 
├─vda2 252:2 0 1000M 0 part /boot 
├─vda3 252:3 0 4M 0 part 
├─vda4 252:4 0 1M 0 part 
└─vda5 252:5 0 198.9G 0 part / 
vdb 252:16 0 300G 0 disk
```
In the output, verify that the vda5 partition is resized to 198GB and the vdb partition is 300GB. You can use the vdb partition for the storage cluster.

Configuring the Fabric Services System virtual machine

Creating the VM on bridged networks on VMware vSphere

You can use one of the following methods to deploy the VM on VMware vSphere:

the VMware vSphere vCenter or ESXi UI
For instructions, see Deploy an OVF or OVA Template in the VMware vSphere documentation.
the VMware Open Virtualization Format Tool CLI
The following section provides an example of how to use the VMware OVF Tool CLI.

Note: The VMware OVA for the base image comes with a 128GB disk during deployment. This disk is sufficient as a base disk for the OS partition. During the initial boot of the VM, cloud-init grows the root partition to fill the free space on that 128GB disk.

Download and install the latest version of the VMware OVF Tool from the VMware Developer website.

Display details about the OVA image.

Execute the ovftool command with just the OVA image name as the argument.

$ ovftool fss-baseos-24.8.1-414.ova
OVF version: 1.0
VirtualApp: false
Name: fss-baseos


Download Size: 2.32 GB


Deployment Sizes:
Flat disks: 128.00 GB
Sparse disks: 4.08 GB


Networks:
Name: OAM
Description: The Fabric Services System OAM (UI and API) network


Name: FABRIC
Description: The Fabric Services System Fabric Management network


Virtual Machines:
Name: fss-baseos
Operating System: centos7_64guest
Virtual Hardware:
Families: vmx-14
Number of CPUs: 16
Cores per socket: 1
Memory: 64.00 GB


Disks:
Index: 0
Instance ID: 4
Capacity: 128.00 GB
Disk Types: SCSI-lsilogic


NICs:
Adapter Type: VmxNet3
Connection: OAM


Adapter Type: VmxNet3
Connection: FABRIC


References:
File: fss-baseos-disk1.vmdk

Deploy the OVA image using the OVF Tool.

For details about command line arguments, see the OVF Tool documentation from the VMware website.

Note: Ensure that you use thick provisioning for the disk and to connect all the interfaces to a network. The secondary interface can be disconnected and disabled after the deployment and before you power on.

$ ovftool --acceptAllEulas -dm=thick -ds=VSAN -n=fss-node01 --net:"OAM=OAM-network" --net:"FABRIC=Fabric-network" fss-baseos_24.8.1-414.ova vi://administrator%40vsphere.local@vcenter.domain.tld/My-Datacenter/host/My-Cluster/Resources/My-Resource-Group

Opening OVA source: fss-base_24.8.1-414.ova
The manifest validates
Enter login information for target vi://vcenter.domain.tld/
Username: administrator%40vsphere.local
Password: ***********
Opening VI target: vi://administrator%40vsphere.local@vcenter.domain.tld/My-Datacenter/host/My-Cluster/Resources/My-Resource-Group
Deploying to VI: vi://administrator%40vsphere.local@vcenter.domain.tld/My-Datacenter/host/My-Cluster/Resources/My-Resource-Group
Transfer Completed
Completed successfully

Optional: If you are using this node as a storage node, create the necessary extra disk for the storage cluster to be formed.
To create the extra disk, edit the VM in the VMware vCenter and add a new 300 GB disk.
Enable 100% resource reservation for both CPU and memory for the VM.
You can configure the resource reservation for CPU and memory by editing the VM in vCenter.

Configuring the Fabric Services System virtual machine