The code in this repository will:

• generate cloud-init ready rhel images for rhel8 and rhel9 (or other rhel based distributions).
• automates the provisioning of virtual machines via terraform.
• the dnsmasq configuration wil make the virtual machines resolvable via from the local machine.

Tested on Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 9.0 (Plow)

Download the needed rhel iso files and put them in the packer/iso-files directory.
(check the rhel8.pkr.hcl and rhel9.pkr.hcl packer config files what iso files are needed).

$ cd packer/<rhel_version>
$ packer init .
$ packer build .

The libvirt configuration is based on the following instructions:
howto-automated-dns-resolution-for-kvmlibvirt-guests-with-a-local-domain.
This configuration uses home.arpa for the domain name. (see rfc8375).

Check the current network configuration of the default network.

$ sudo virsh net-dumpxml default

<network connections='1'>
  <name>default</name>
  <uuid>158880c3-9adb-4a44-ab51-d0bc1c18cddc</uuid>
  <forward mode='nat'>
    <nat>
      <port start='1024' end='65535'/>
    </nat>
  </forward>
  <bridge name='virbr0' stp='on' delay='0'/>
  <mac address='52:54:00:fa:cb:e5'/>
  <domain name='home.arpa' localOnly='yes'/>
  <ip address='192.168.122.1' netmask='255.255.255.0'>
    <dhcp>
      <range start='192.168.122.128' end='192.168.122.254'/>
    </dhcp>
  </ip>
</network>

Make sure this contains the following configuration:

<domain name='home.arpa' localOnly='yes'/>

Configure via:

virsh net-edit default

$ cat /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/localdns.conf 
[main]
dns=dnsmasq

$ cat /etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d/libvirt_dnsmasq.conf
server=/home.arpa/192.168.122.1

sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager

Steps:

• Install terraform.
• Configure the required virtual machines and sizing in terraform/variables.tf.
• terraform init, plan and apply the configuration.

$ cd terraform
$ terraform init
$ terraform plan
$ terraform apply