ICMP
In OKD version 4.11, you can install a cluster on your
VMware vSphere instance by using installer-provisioned infrastructure. To customize the installation, you modify parameters in the install-config.yaml
file before you install the cluster.
OKD supports deploying a cluster to a single VMware vCenter only. Deploying a cluster with machines/machine sets on multiple vCenters is not supported. |
You reviewed details about the OKD installation and update processes.
You read the documentation on selecting a cluster installation method and preparing it for users.
You provisioned persistent storage for your cluster. To deploy a private image registry, your storage must provide ReadWriteMany
access modes.
The OKD installer requires access to port 443 on the vCenter and ESXi hosts. You verified that port 443 is accessible.
If you use a firewall, you confirmed with the administrator that port 443 is accessible. Control plane nodes must be able to reach vCenter and ESXi hosts on port 443 for the installation to succeed.
If you use a firewall, you configured it to allow the sites that your cluster requires access to.
Be sure to also review this site list if you are configuring a proxy. |
You must install the OKD cluster on a VMware vSphere version 7 instance that meets the requirements for the components that you use.
OKD version 4.11 does not support VMware vSphere version 8.0. |
You can host the VMware vSphere infrastructure on-premise or on a VMware Cloud Verified provider that meets the requirements outlined in the following table:
Virtual environment product | Required version |
---|---|
VM hardware version |
15 or later |
vSphere ESXi hosts |
7 |
vCenter host |
7 |
Installing a cluster on VMware vSphere version 7.0 Update 1 or earlier is now deprecated. These versions are still fully supported, but version 4.11 of OKD requires vSphere virtual hardware version 15 or later. Hardware version 15 is now the default for vSphere virtual machines in OKD. To update the hardware version for your vSphere nodes, see the "Updating hardware on nodes running in vSphere" article. If your vSphere nodes are below hardware version 15 or your VMware vSphere version is earlier than 6.7.3, upgrading from OKD 4.10 to OKD 4.11 is not available. |
Component | Minimum supported versions | Description |
---|---|---|
Hypervisor |
vSphere 7 with HW version 15 |
This version is the minimum version that Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) supports. For more information about supported hardware on the latest version of Fedora that is compatible with FCOS, see Hardware on the Red Hat Customer Portal. |
Storage with in-tree drivers |
vSphere 7 |
This plugin creates vSphere storage by using the in-tree storage drivers for vSphere included in OKD. |
Optional: Networking (NSX-T) |
vSphere 7 |
vSphere 7 is required for OKD. For more information about the compatibility of NSX and OKD, see the Release Notes section of VMware’s NSX container plugin documentation. |
You must ensure that the time on your ESXi hosts is synchronized before you install OKD. See Edit Time Configuration for a Host in the VMware documentation. |
You must configure the network connectivity between machines to allow OKD cluster components to communicate.
Review the following details about the required network ports.
Protocol | Port | Description |
---|---|---|
ICMP |
N/A |
Network reachability tests |
TCP |
|
Metrics |
|
Host level services, including the node exporter on ports |
|
|
The default ports that Kubernetes reserves |
|
|
openshift-sdn |
|
UDP |
|
virtual extensible LAN (VXLAN) |
|
Geneve |
|
|
Host level services, including the node exporter on ports |
|
|
IPsec IKE packets |
|
|
IPsec NAT-T packets |
|
TCP/UDP |
|
Kubernetes node port |
ESP |
N/A |
IPsec Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) |
Protocol | Port | Description |
---|---|---|
TCP |
|
Kubernetes API |
Protocol | Port | Description |
---|---|---|
TCP |
|
etcd server and peer ports |
To install the vSphere CSI Driver Operator, the following requirements must be met:
VMware vSphere version 7.0 Update 1 or later
Virtual machines of hardware version 15 or later
No third-party vSphere CSI driver already installed in the cluster
If a third-party vSphere CSI driver is present in the cluster, OKD does not overwrite it. If you continue with the third-party vSphere CSI driver when upgrading to the next major version of OKD, the
The previous message informs you that Red Hat does not support the third-party vSphere CSI driver during an OKD upgrade operation. You can choose to ignore this message and continue with the upgrade operation. |
To remove a third-party vSphere CSI driver, see Removing a third-party vSphere CSI Driver.
To update the hardware version for your vSphere nodes, see Updating hardware on nodes running in vSphere.
Before you install an OKD cluster on your vCenter that uses infrastructure that the installer provisions, you must prepare your environment.
To install an OKD cluster in a vCenter, the installation program requires access to an account with privileges to read and create the required resources. Using an account that has global administrative privileges is the simplest way to access all of the necessary permissions.
If you cannot use an account with global administrative privileges, you must create roles to grant the privileges necessary for OKD cluster installation. While most of the privileges are always required, some are required only if you plan for the installation program to provision a folder to contain the OKD cluster on your vCenter instance, which is the default behavior. You must create or amend vSphere roles for the specified objects to grant the required privileges.
An additional role is required if the installation program is to create a vSphere virtual machine folder.
vSphere object for role | When required | Required privileges in vSphere API |
---|---|---|
vSphere vCenter |
Always |
|
vSphere vCenter Cluster |
If VMs will be created in the cluster root |
|
vSphere vCenter Resource Pool |
If an existing resource pool is provided |
|
vSphere Datastore |
Always |
|
vSphere Port Group |
Always |
|
Virtual Machine Folder |
Always |
|
vSphere vCenter Datacenter |
If the installation program creates the virtual machine folder |
|
vSphere object for role | When required | Required privileges in vCenter GUI |
---|---|---|
vSphere vCenter |
Always |
|
vSphere vCenter Cluster |
If VMs will be created in the cluster root |
|
vSphere vCenter Resource Pool |
If an existing resource pool is provided |
|
vSphere Datastore |
Always |
|
vSphere Port Group |
Always |
|
Virtual Machine Folder |
Always |
|
vSphere vCenter Datacenter |
If the installation program creates the virtual machine folder |
|
Additionally, the user requires some ReadOnly
permissions, and some of the roles require permission to propogate the permissions to child objects. These settings vary depending on whether or not you install the cluster into an existing folder.
vSphere object | When required | Propagate to children | Permissions required |
---|---|---|---|
vSphere vCenter |
Always |
False |
Listed required privileges |
vSphere vCenter Datacenter |
Existing folder |
False |
|
Installation program creates the folder |
True |
Listed required privileges |
|
vSphere vCenter Cluster |
Existing resource pool |
False |
|
VMs in cluster root |
True |
Listed required privileges |
|
vSphere vCenter Datastore |
Always |
False |
Listed required privileges |
vSphere Switch |
Always |
False |
|
vSphere Port Group |
Always |
False |
Listed required privileges |
vSphere vCenter Virtual Machine Folder |
Existing folder |
True |
Listed required privileges |
vSphere vCenter Resource Pool |
Existing resource pool |
True |
Listed required privileges |
For more information about creating an account with only the required privileges, see vSphere Permissions and User Management Tasks in the vSphere documentation.
If you intend on using vMotion in your vSphere environment, consider the following before installing a OKD cluster.
OKD generally supports compute-only vMotion, where generally implies that you meet all VMware best practices for vMotion.
To help ensure the uptime of your compute and control plane nodes, ensure that you follow the VMware best practices for vMotion, and use VMware anti-affinity rules to improve the availability of OKD during maintenance or hardware issues.
For more information about vMotion and anti-affinity rules, see the VMware vSphere documentation for vMotion networking requirements and VM anti-affinity rules.
Using Storage vMotion can cause issues and is not supported. If you are using vSphere volumes in your pods, migrating a VM across datastores, either manually or through Storage vMotion, causes invalid references within OKD persistent volume (PV) objects that can result in data loss.
OKD does not support selective migration of VMDKs across datastores, using datastore clusters for VM provisioning or for dynamic or static provisioning of PVs, or using a datastore that is part of a datastore cluster for dynamic or static provisioning of PVs.
When you deploy an OKD cluster that uses installer-provisioned infrastructure, the installation program must be able to create several resources in your vCenter instance.
A standard OKD installation creates the following vCenter resources:
1 Folder
1 Tag category
1 Tag
Virtual machines:
1 template
1 temporary bootstrap node
3 control plane nodes
3 compute machines
Although these resources use 856 GB of storage, the bootstrap node is destroyed during the cluster installation process. A minimum of 800 GB of storage is required to use a standard cluster.
If you deploy more compute machines, the OKD cluster will use more storage.
Available resources vary between clusters. The number of possible clusters within a vCenter is limited primarily by available storage space and any limitations on the number of required resources. Be sure to consider both limitations to the vCenter resources that the cluster creates and the resources that you require to deploy a cluster, such as IP addresses and networks.
You must use the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) for the network and ensure that the DHCP server is configured to provide persistent IP addresses to the cluster machines. In the DHCP lease, you must configure the DHCP to use the default gateway. All nodes must be in the same VLAN. You cannot scale the cluster using a second VLAN as a Day 2 operation. Additionally, you must create the following networking resources before you install the OKD cluster:
It is recommended that each OKD node in the cluster must have access to a Network Time Protocol (ntp) server that is discoverable via DHCP. Installation is possible without an ntp server. However, asynchronous server clocks will cause errors, which ntp server prevents. |
An installer-provisioned vSphere installation requires two static IP addresses:
The API address is used to access the cluster API.
The Ingress address is used for cluster ingress traffic.
You must provide these IP addresses to the installation program when you install the OKD cluster.
You must create DNS records for two static IP addresses in the appropriate DNS server for the vCenter instance that hosts your OKD cluster. In each record, <cluster_name>
is the cluster name and <base_domain>
is the cluster base domain that you specify when you install the cluster. A complete DNS record takes the form: <component>.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>.
.
Component | Record | Description |
---|---|---|
API VIP |
|
This DNS A/AAAA or CNAME record must point to the load balancer for the control plane machines. This record must be resolvable by both clients external to the cluster and from all the nodes within the cluster. |
Ingress VIP |
|
A wildcard DNS A/AAAA or CNAME record that points to the load balancer that targets the machines that run the Ingress router pods, which are the worker nodes by default. This record must be resolvable by both clients external to the cluster and from all the nodes within the cluster. |
During an OKD installation, you can provide an SSH public key to the installation program. The key is passed to the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) nodes through their Ignition config files and is used to authenticate SSH access to the nodes. The key is added to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
list for the core
user on each node, which enables password-less authentication.
After the key is passed to the nodes, you can use the key pair to SSH in to the FCOS nodes as the user core
. To access the nodes through SSH, the private key identity must be managed by SSH for your local user.
If you want to SSH in to your cluster nodes to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, you must provide the SSH public key during the installation process. The ./openshift-install gather
command also requires the SSH public key to be in place on the cluster nodes.
Do not skip this procedure in production environments, where disaster recovery and debugging is required. |
You must use a local key, not one that you configured with platform-specific approaches such as AWS key pairs. |
On clusters running Fedora CoreOS (FCOS), the SSH keys specified in the Ignition config files are written to the |
If you do not have an existing SSH key pair on your local machine to use for authentication onto your cluster nodes, create one. For example, on a computer that uses a Linux operating system, run the following command:
$ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N '' -f <path>/<file_name> (1)
1 | Specify the path and file name, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 , of the new SSH key. If you have an existing key pair, ensure your public key is in the your ~/.ssh directory. |
If you plan to install an OKD cluster that uses FIPS validated or Modules In Process cryptographic libraries on the |
View the public SSH key:
$ cat <path>/<file_name>.pub
For example, run the following to view the ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
public key:
$ cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
Add the SSH private key identity to the SSH agent for your local user, if it has not already been added. SSH agent management of the key is required for password-less SSH authentication onto your cluster nodes, or if you want to use the ./openshift-install gather
command.
On some distributions, default SSH private key identities such as |
If the ssh-agent
process is not already running for your local user, start it as a background task:
$ eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
Agent pid 31874
If your cluster is in FIPS mode, only use FIPS-compliant algorithms to generate the SSH key. The key must be either RSA or ECDSA. |
Add your SSH private key to the ssh-agent
:
$ ssh-add <path>/<file_name> (1)
1 | Specify the path and file name for your SSH private key, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 |
Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)
When you install OKD, provide the SSH public key to the installation program.
Before you install OKD, download the installation file on a local computer.
You have a machine that runs Linux, for example Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, with 500 MB of local disk space.
If you attempt to run the installation program on macOS, a known issue related to the |
Download installer from https://github.com/openshift/okd/releases
The installation program creates several files on the computer that you use to install your cluster. You must keep the installation program and the files that the installation program creates after you finish installing the cluster. Both files are required to delete the cluster. |
Deleting the files created by the installation program does not remove your cluster, even if the cluster failed during installation. To remove your cluster, complete the OKD uninstallation procedures for your specific cloud provider. |
Extract the installation program. For example, on a computer that uses a Linux operating system, run the following command:
$ tar -xvf openshift-install-linux.tar.gz
Download your installation pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager. This pull secret allows you to authenticate with the services that are provided by the included authorities, including Quay.io, which serves the container images for OKD components.
Using a pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager is not required. You can use a pull secret for another private registry. Or, if you do not need the cluster to pull images from a private registry, you can use {"auths":{"fake":{"auth":"aWQ6cGFzcwo="}}}
as the pull secret when prompted during the installation.
If you do not use the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager:
Red Hat Operators are not available.
The Telemetry and Insights operators do not send data to Red Hat.
Content from the Red Hat Container Catalog registry, such as image streams and Operators, are not available.
Because the installation program requires access to your vCenter’s API, you must add your vCenter’s trusted root CA certificates to your system trust before you install an OKD cluster.
From the vCenter home page, download the vCenter’s root CA certificates. Click Download trusted root CA certificates in the vSphere Web Services SDK section. The <vCenter>/certs/download.zip
file downloads.
Extract the compressed file that contains the vCenter root CA certificates. The contents of the compressed file resemble the following file structure:
certs ├── lin │ ├── 108f4d17.0 │ ├── 108f4d17.r1 │ ├── 7e757f6a.0 │ ├── 8e4f8471.0 │ └── 8e4f8471.r0 ├── mac │ ├── 108f4d17.0 │ ├── 108f4d17.r1 │ ├── 7e757f6a.0 │ ├── 8e4f8471.0 │ └── 8e4f8471.r0 └── win ├── 108f4d17.0.crt ├── 108f4d17.r1.crl ├── 7e757f6a.0.crt ├── 8e4f8471.0.crt └── 8e4f8471.r0.crl 3 directories, 15 files
Add the files for your operating system to the system trust. For example, on a Fedora operating system, run the following command:
# cp certs/lin/* /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors
Update your system trust. For example, on a Fedora operating system, run the following command:
# update-ca-trust extract
You can customize the OKD cluster you install on VMware vSphere.
Obtain the OKD installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
Obtain service principal permissions at the subscription level.
Create the install-config.yaml
file.
Change to the directory that contains the installation program and run the following command:
$ ./openshift-install create install-config --dir <installation_directory> (1)
1 | For <installation_directory> , specify the directory name to store the
files that the installation program creates. |
When specifying the directory:
Verify that the directory has the execute
permission. This permission is required to run Terraform binaries under the installation directory.
Use an empty directory. Some installation assets, such as bootstrap X.509 certificates, have short expiration intervals, therefore you must not reuse an installation directory. If you want to reuse individual files from another cluster installation, you can copy them into your directory. However, the file names for the installation assets might change between releases. Use caution when copying installation files from an earlier OKD version.
At the prompts, provide the configuration details for your cloud:
Optional: Select an SSH key to use to access your cluster machines.
For production OKD clusters on which you want to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, specify an SSH key that your |
Select vsphere as the platform to target.
Specify the name of your vCenter instance.
Specify the user name and password for the vCenter account that has the required permissions to create the cluster.
The installation program connects to your vCenter instance.
Select the datacenter in your vCenter instance to connect to.
Select the default vCenter datastore to use.
Select the vCenter cluster to install the OKD cluster in. The installation program uses the root resource pool of the vSphere cluster as the default resource pool.
Select the network in the vCenter instance that contains the virtual IP addresses and DNS records that you configured.
Enter the virtual IP address that you configured for control plane API access.
Enter the virtual IP address that you configured for cluster ingress.
Enter the base domain. This base domain must be the same one that you used in the DNS records that you configured.
Enter a descriptive name for your cluster. The cluster name you enter must match the cluster name you specified when configuring the DNS records.
Paste the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager. This field is optional.
Modify the install-config.yaml
file. You can find more information about
the available parameters in the "Installation configuration parameters" section.
Back up the install-config.yaml
file so that you can use
it to install multiple clusters.
The |
Before you deploy an OKD cluster, you provide parameter values to describe your account on the cloud platform that hosts your cluster and optionally customize your cluster’s platform. When you create the install-config.yaml
installation configuration file, you provide values for the required parameters through the command line. If you customize your cluster, you can modify the install-config.yaml
file to provide more details about the platform.
After installation, you cannot modify these parameters in the |
Required installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:
Parameter | Description | Values |
---|---|---|
|
The API version for the |
String |
|
The base domain of your cloud provider. The base domain is used to create routes to your OKD cluster components. The full DNS name for your cluster is a combination of the |
A fully-qualified domain or subdomain name, such as |
|
Kubernetes resource |
Object |
|
The name of the cluster. DNS records for the cluster are all subdomains of |
String of lowercase letters and hyphens ( |
|
The configuration for the specific platform upon which to perform the installation: |
Object |
You can customize your installation configuration based on the requirements of your existing network infrastructure. For example, you can expand the IP address block for the cluster network or provide different IP address blocks than the defaults.
Only IPv4 addresses are supported.
Globalnet is not supported with Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation disaster recovery solutions. For regional disaster recovery scenarios, ensure that you use a nonoverlapping range of private IP addresses for the cluster and service networks in each cluster. |
Parameter | Description | Values | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
|
The configuration for the cluster network. |
Object
|
||
|
The cluster network provider Container Network Interface (CNI) cluster network provider to install. |
Either |
||
|
The IP address blocks for pods. The default value is If you specify multiple IP address blocks, the blocks must not overlap. |
An array of objects. For example:
|
||
|
Required if you use An IPv4 network. |
An IP address block in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation.
The prefix length for an IPv4 block is between |
||
|
The subnet prefix length to assign to each individual node. For example, if |
A subnet prefix. The default value is |
||
|
The IP address block for services. The default value is The OpenShift SDN and OVN-Kubernetes network providers support only a single IP address block for the service network. |
An array with an IP address block in CIDR format. For example:
|
||
|
The IP address blocks for machines. If you specify multiple IP address blocks, the blocks must not overlap. |
An array of objects. For example:
|
||
|
Required if you use |
An IP network block in CIDR notation. For example,
|
Optional installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:
Parameter | Description | Values |
---|---|---|
|
A PEM-encoded X.509 certificate bundle that is added to the nodes' trusted certificate store. This trust bundle may also be used when a proxy has been configured. |
String |
|
Controls the installation of optional core cluster components. You can reduce the footprint of your OKD cluster by disabling optional components. |
String array |
|
Selects an initial set of optional capabilities to enable. Valid values are |
String |
|
Extends the set of optional capabilities beyond what you specify in |
String array |
|
Enables Linux control groups version 2 (cgroups v2) on specific nodes in your cluster. The OKD process for enabling cgroups v2 disables all cgroup version 1 controllers and hierarchies. The OKD cgroups version 2 feature is in Developer Preview and is not supported by Red Hat at this time. |
|
|
The configuration for the machines that comprise the compute nodes. |
Array of |
|
Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are |
String |
|
Required if you use |
|
|
Required if you use |
|
|
The number of compute machines, which are also known as worker machines, to provision. |
A positive integer greater than or equal to |
|
The configuration for the machines that comprise the control plane. |
Array of |
|
Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are |
String |