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Prerequisites

Read this before the first local build or rebuild.

What You Need On The Host​

  • a local checkout of this repo
  • ansible-core
  • ssh and a working SSH keypair
  • libvirt, virsh, and a functioning KVM host
  • enough local disk for guest images and runtime artifacts

Install the required Ansible collection with:

cd <project-root>
ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml

What You Need From Red Hat​

  • RHSM credentials:
    • activation key plus organization ID, or
    • username plus password
  • a RHEL KVM guest image in qcow2 format for local guest bootstrap

Local Secrets And Ignored Files​

The main local secret file is:

  • inventory/group_vars/all/lab_credentials.yml

Start from:

cp inventory/group_vars/all/lab_credentials.yml.example \
  inventory/group_vars/all/lab_credentials.yml
ansible-vault encrypt inventory/group_vars/all/lab_credentials.yml

Typical local content includes:

  • lab_default_password
  • lab_operator_ssh_public_key
  • lab_rhsm_activation_key
  • lab_rhsm_organization_id
  • or the username/password RHSM variant

Keep real secrets out of tracked files.

Quick Preflight​

Before you start a build, the practical checks are:

ansible --version
ansible-galaxy collection list | grep freeipa.ansible_freeipa
test -f inventory/group_vars/all/lab_credentials.yml
test -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
test -f /path/to/rhel-10.1.qcow2

For the local IdM path, also confirm:

ip link show bridge0
virsh net-list --all