Install Packages in the Virtual Container Host Endpoint VM

In certain circumstances, you might need to install a capability in the virtual container host (VCH) endpoint VM that does not exist by default. For example, you might want to install an NFS client in the endpoint VM, to test or debug connections from the VCH to an NFS server.

The VCH endpoint VM runs Photon OS. Photon OS provides a package manager named Tiny DNF, or tdnf, that is the default means of installing packages. For information about Tiny DNF, see Tiny DNF for Package Management in the Photon OS Administration Guide.

Before you can use Tiny DNF to install packages in the endpoint VM, you must run the rpm --rebuilddb command to rebuild the embedded database. To run rpm --rebuilddb, you must first modify the Photon OS configuration to satisfy certain dependencies that are not present in the VCH endpoint VM by default. If you do not successfully run rpm --rebuilddb, attempts to run certain Tiny DNF commands in the endpoint VM result in the following error:

root@ [ ~ ]# tdnf info
Error(1304) : Hawkey - I/O error

IMPORTANT: Any changes that you make to the VCH endpoint VM, including installing packages, are non-persistent and are lost if the endpoint VM reboots.

Prerequisite

• Enable SSH access to the VCH endpoint VM. For information about enabling SSH access, see Debug Running Virtual Container Hosts.
• Ensure that the VCH can access the Photon OS repositories at https://vmware.bintray.com/, either via the Internet or via a mirror on the local network.

Procedure

1. Use SSH to connect to the VCH endpoint VM as root user.
2. Open the Photon OS updates repository configuration file in a text editor.

   vi /etc/yum.repos.d/photon-updates-local.repo

3. Update the entry for the repository URL and save the change.

   baseurl=https://vmware.bintray.com/photon_updates_1.0_x86_64/

4. Open the Photon OS repository configuration file in a text editor.

   vi /etc/yum.repos.d/photon-local.repo

5. Update the entry for the repository URL and save the change.

   baseurl=https://vmware.bintray.com/photon_release_1.0_x86_64/

6. Create a folder for rpm and initialize the rpm database.

   1. mkdir /root/rpm
   2. rpm --root /root/rpm -initdb
7. Install the dependencies that Tiny DNF requires to install packages.

   tdnf --installroot /root/rpm --nogpgcheck install haveged systemd openssh iptables e2fsprogs procps-ng iputils iproute2 iptables net-tools sudo tdnf vim gzip lsof logrotate photon-release

8. Copy the /root/rpm/var/lib/rpm/Packages file to the following location.

   cp /root/rpm/var/lib/rpm/Packages /var/lib/rpm/Packages

9. Run the command to rebuild the database in the endpoint VM.

   rpm --rebuilddb

10. Run a Tiny DNF command to test the reconfiguration.

    tdnf list installed

    The tdnf list installed command should display information about the installed packages.

Result

You can now use Tiny DNF to install new packages in the VCH endpoint VM.

IMPORTANT:

• Any installations and configurations that you perform by using Tiny DNF in the endpoint VM do not persist if you reboot the endpoint VM.
• Running rpm --rebuilddb results in an unpopulated database. Consequently, when you use Tiny DNF to install a package, it tries to install all of the dependencies for that package in the endpoint VM, even if those dependencies are already present.

What to Do Next

For an example of how to install a package in the VCH endpoint VM, see Mount an NFS Share Point in the VCH Endpoint VM.