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Installing a cluster on VMC in a restricted network - Installing on VMC | Installing | OKD 4.6
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Installing a cluster on VMC in a restricted network

In OKD version 4.6, you can install a cluster on VMware vSphere infrastructure in a restricted network by deploying it to VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS.

Once you configure your VMC environment for OKD deployment, you use the OKD installation program from the bastion management host, co-located in the VMC environment. The installation program and control plane automates the process of deploying and managing the resources needed for the OKD 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.

Setting up VMC for vSphere

You can install OKD on VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS hosted vSphere clusters to enable applications to be deployed and managed both on-premise and off-premise, across the hybrid cloud.

VMC on AWS Architecture

You must configure several options in your VMC environment prior to installing OKD on VMware vSphere. Ensure your VMC environment has the following prerequisites:

  • Create a non-exclusive, DHCP-enabled, NSX-T network segment and subnet. Other virtual machines (VMs) can be hosted on the subnet, but at least eight IP addresses must be available for the OKD deployment.

  • Allocate two IP addresses, outside the DHCP range, and configure them with reverse DNS records.

    • A DNS record for api.<cluster_name>.<base_domain> pointing to the allocated IP address.

    • A DNS record for *.apps.<cluster_name>.<base_domain> pointing to the allocated IP address.

  • Configure the following firewall rules:

    • An ANY:ANY firewall rule between the installation host and the software-defined data center (SDDC) management network on port 443. This allows you to upload the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) OVA during deployment.

    • An HTTPS firewall rule between the OKD compute network and vCenter. This connection allows OKD to communicate with vCenter for provisioning and managing nodes, persistent volume claims (PVCs), and other resources.

  • You must have the following information to deploy OKD:

    • The OKD cluster name, such as vmc-prod-1.

    • The base DNS name, such as companyname.com.

    • If not using the default, the pod network CIDR and services network CIDR must be identified, which are set by default to 10.128.0.0/14 and 172.30.0.0/16, respectively. These CIDRs are used for pod-to-pod and pod-to-service communication and are not accessible externally; however, they must not overlap with existing subnets in your organization.

    • The following vCenter information:

      • vCenter hostname, username, and password

      • Datacenter name, such as SDDC-Datacenter

      • Cluster name, such as Cluster-1

      • Network name

      • Datastore name, such as WorkloadDatastore

        It is recommended to move your vSphere cluster to the VMC Compute-ResourcePool resource pool after your cluster installation is finished.

  • A Linux-based host deployed to VMC as a bastion.

    • The bastion host can be Fedora or any another Linux-based host; it must have Internet connectivity and the ability to upload an OVA to the ESXi hosts.

    • Download and install the OpenShift CLI tools to the bastion host.

      • The openshift-install installation program

      • The OpenShift CLI (oc) tool

You cannot use the VMware NSX Container Plugin for Kubernetes (NCP), and NSX is not used as the OpenShift SDN. The version of NSX currently available with VMC is incompatible with the version of NCP certified with OKD.

However, the NSX DHCP service is used for virtual machine IP management with the full-stack automated OKD deployment and with nodes provisioned, either manually or automatically, by the Machine API integration with vSphere. Additionally, NSX firewall rules are created to enable access with the OKD cluster and between the bastion host and the VMC vSphere hosts.

VMC Sizer tool

VMware Cloud on AWS is built on top of AWS bare metal infrastructure; this is the same bare metal infrastructure which runs AWS native services. When a VMware cloud on AWS software-defined data center (SDDC) is deployed, you consume these physical server nodes and run the VMware ESXi hypervisor in a single tenant fashion. This means the physical infrastructure is not accessible to anyone else using VMC. It is important to consider how many physical hosts you will need to host your virtual infrastructure.

To determine this, VMware provides the VMC on AWS Sizer. With this tool, you can define the resources you intend to host on VMC:

  • Types of workloads

  • Total number of virtual machines

  • Specification information such as:

    • Storage requirements

    • vCPUs

    • vRAM

    • Overcommit ratios

With these details, the sizer tool can generate a report, based on VMware best practices, and recommend your cluster configuration and the number of hosts you will need.

vSphere prerequisites

About installations in restricted networks

In OKD 4.6, you can perform an installation that does not require an active connection to the Internet to obtain software components. Restricted network installations can be completed using installer-provisioned infrastructure or user-provisioned infrastructure, depending on the cloud platform to which you are installing the cluster.

If you choose to perform a restricted network installation on a cloud platform, you still require access to its cloud APIs. Some cloud functions, like Amazon Web Service’s Route 53 DNS and IAM services, require internet access. Depending on your network, you might require less Internet access for an installation on bare metal hardware or on VMware vSphere.

To complete a restricted network installation, you must create a registry that mirrors the contents of the OKD registry and contains the installation media. You can create this registry on a mirror host, which can access both the Internet and your closed network, or by using other methods that meet your restrictions.

Additional limits

Clusters in restricted networks have the following additional limitations and restrictions:

  • The ClusterVersion status includes an Unable to retrieve available updates error.

  • By default, you cannot use the contents of the Developer Catalog because you cannot access the required image stream tags.

VMware vSphere infrastructure requirements

You must install the OKD cluster on a VMware vSphere version 6 or 7 instance that meets the requirements for the components that you use.

Table 1. Minimum supported vSphere version for VMware components
Component Minimum supported versions Description

Hypervisor

vSphere 6.5 and later with HW version 13

This version is the minimum version that Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) supports. See the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 supported hypervisors list.

Storage with in-tree drivers

vSphere 6.5 and later

This plug-in creates vSphere storage by using the in-tree storage drivers for vSphere included in OKD.

If you use a vSphere version 6.5 instance, consider upgrading to 6.7U3 or 7.0 before you install OKD.

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.

Network connectivity requirements

You must configure the network connectivity between machines to allow OKD cluster components to communicate.

Review the following details about the required network ports.

Table 2. Ports used for all-machine to all-machine communications
Protocol Port Description

ICMP

N/A

Network reachability tests

TCP

1936

Metrics

9000-9999

Host level services, including the node exporter on ports 9100-9101 and the Cluster Version Operator on port 9099.

10250-10259

The default ports that Kubernetes reserves

10256

openshift-sdn

UDP

4789

virtual extensible LAN (VXLAN)

6081

Geneve

9000-9999

Host level services, including the node exporter on ports 9100-9101.

500

IPsec IKE packets

4500

IPsec NAT-T packets

TCP/UDP

30000-32767

Kubernetes node port

ESP

N/A

IPsec Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)
Table 3. Ports used for all-machine to control plane communications
Protocol Port Description

TCP

6443

Kubernetes API
Table 4. Ports used for control plane machine to control plane machine communications
Protocol Port Description

TCP

2379-2380

etcd server and peer ports

vCenter requirements

Before you install an OKD cluster on your vCenter that uses infrastructure that the installer provisions, you must prepare your environment.

Required vCenter account privileges

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.

Roles and privileges required for installation
vSphere object for role When required Required privileges

vSphere vCenter

Always

Cns.Searchable
InventoryService.Tagging.AttachTag
InventoryService.Tagging.CreateCategory
InventoryService.Tagging.CreateTag
InventoryService.Tagging.DeleteCategory
InventoryService.Tagging.DeleteTag
InventoryService.Tagging.EditCategory
InventoryService.Tagging.EditTag
Sessions.ValidateSession
StorageProfile.View

vSphere vCenter Cluster

Always

Host.Config.Storage
Resource.AssignVMToPool
VApp.AssignResourcePool
VApp.Import
VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk

vSphere Datastore

Always

Datastore.AllocateSpace
Datastore.Browse
Datastore.FileManagement

vSphere Port Group

Always

Network.Assign

Virtual Machine Folder

Always

Resource.AssignVMToPool
VApp.Import
VirtualMachine.Config.AddExistingDisk
VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk
VirtualMachine.Config.AddRemoveDevice
VirtualMachine.Config.AdvancedConfig
VirtualMachine.Config.Annotation
VirtualMachine.Config.CPUCount
VirtualMachine.Config.DiskExtend
VirtualMachine.Config.DiskLease
VirtualMachine.Config.EditDevice
VirtualMachine.Config.Memory
VirtualMachine.Config.RemoveDisk
VirtualMachine.Config.Rename
VirtualMachine.Config.ResetGuestInfo
VirtualMachine.Config.Resource
VirtualMachine.Config.Settings
VirtualMachine.Config.UpgradeVirtualHardware
VirtualMachine.Interact.GuestControl
VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOff
VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOn
VirtualMachine.Interact.Reset
VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create
VirtualMachine.Inventory.CreateFromExisting
VirtualMachine.Inventory.Delete
VirtualMachine.Provisioning.Clone

vSphere vCenter Datacenter

If the installation program creates the virtual machine folder

Resource.AssignVMToPool
VApp.Import
VirtualMachine.Config.AddExistingDisk
VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk
VirtualMachine.Config.AddRemoveDevice
VirtualMachine.Config.AdvancedConfig
VirtualMachine.Config.Annotation
VirtualMachine.Config.CPUCount
VirtualMachine.Config.DiskExtend
VirtualMachine.Config.DiskLease
VirtualMachine.Config.EditDevice
VirtualMachine.Config.Memory
VirtualMachine.Config.RemoveDisk
VirtualMachine.Config.Rename
VirtualMachine.Config.ResetGuestInfo
VirtualMachine.Config.Resource
VirtualMachine.Config.Settings
VirtualMachine.Config.UpgradeVirtualHardware
VirtualMachine.Interact.GuestControl
VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOff
VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOn
VirtualMachine.Interact.Reset
VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create
VirtualMachine.Inventory.CreateFromExisting
VirtualMachine.Inventory.Delete
VirtualMachine.Provisioning.Clone
Folder.Create
Folder.Delete

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.

Required permissions and propagation settings
vSphere object Folder type Propagate to children Permissions required

vSphere vCenter

Always

False

Listed required privileges

vSphere vCenter Datacenter

Existing folder

False

ReadOnly permission

Installation program creates the folder

True

Listed required privileges

vSphere vCenter Cluster

Always

True

Listed required privileges

vSphere vCenter Datastore

Always

False

Listed required privileges

vSphere Switch

Always

False

ReadOnly permission

vSphere Port Group

Always

False

Listed required privileges

vSphere vCenter Virtual Machine Folder

Existing folder

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.

Using OKD with vMotion

If you intend on using vMotion in your vSphere environment, consider the following before installing a OKD cluster.

  • OKD generally supports compute-only vMotion. Using Storage vMotion can cause issues and is not supported.

    To help ensure the uptime of your compute and control plane nodes, it is recommended that you follow the VMware best practices for vMotion. It is also recommended to 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.

  • 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. These references prevent affected pods from starting up and can result in data loss.

  • Similarly, 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.

Cluster resources

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.

Cluster limits

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.

Networking requirements

You must use DHCP for the network and ensure that the DHCP server is configured to provide persistent IP addresses to the cluster machines.

Persistent IP addresses are not available before the installation begins. Allocate a DHCP range and, after installation, manually replace the allocation with the persistent IP addresses.

The VM in your restricted network must have access to vCenter so that it can provision and manage nodes, persistent volume claims (PVCs), and other resources. 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.

Required IP Addresses

An installer-provisioned vSphere installation requires these static IP addresses:

  • The API address is used to access the cluster API.

  • The Ingress address is used for cluster ingress traffic.

  • The control plane node addresses are used when upgrading a cluster from version 4.5 to 4.6.

You must provide these IP addresses to the installation program when you install the OKD cluster.

DNS records

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>..

Table 5. Required DNS records
Component Record Description

API VIP

api.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>.

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

*.apps.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>.

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.

Generating an SSH private key and adding it to the agent

If you want to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery on your cluster, you must provide an SSH key to both your ssh-agent and the installation program. You can use this key to access the bootstrap machine in a public cluster to troubleshoot installation issues.

In a production environment, you require disaster recovery and debugging.

You can use this key to SSH into the master nodes as the user core. When you deploy the cluster, the key is added to the core user’s ~/.ssh/authorized_keys list.

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 /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys.d/core file. However, the Machine Config Operator manages SSH keys in the /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys file and configures sshd to ignore the /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys.d/core file. As a result, newly provisioned OKD nodes are not accessible using SSH until the Machine Config Operator reconciles the machine configs with the authorized_keys file. After you can access the nodes using SSH, you can delete the /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys.d/core file.
Procedure

  1. If you do not have an SSH key that is configured for password-less authentication on your computer, 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_rsa, of the new SSH key. If you have an existing key pair, ensure your public key is in the your ~/.ssh directory.

    Running this command generates an SSH key that does not require a password in the location that you specified.

    If you plan to install an OKD cluster that uses FIPS Validated / Modules in Process cryptographic libraries on the x86_64 architecture, do not create a key that uses the ed25519 algorithm. Instead, create a key that uses the rsa or ecdsa algorithm.

  2. Start the ssh-agent process as a background task:

    $ eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
    Example output
    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.

  3. Add your SSH private key to the ssh-agent:

    $ ssh-add <path>/<file_name> (1)
    Example output
    Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)
    1 Specify the path and file name for your SSH private key, such as ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Next steps

  • When you install OKD, provide the SSH public key to the installation program.

Adding vCenter root CA certificates to your system trust

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.

Procedure

  1. 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.

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. Update your system trust. For example, on a Fedora operating system, run the following command:

    # update-ca-trust extract

Creating the FCOS image for restricted network installations

Download the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) image to install OKD on a restricted network VMware vSphere environment.

Prerequisites

  • Obtain the OKD installation program. For a restricted network installation, the program is on your mirror registry host.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the Red Hat Customer Portal’s Product Downloads page.

  2. Under Version, select the most recent release of OKD 4.6 for RHEL 8.

    The FCOS images might not change with every release of OKD. You must download images with the highest version that is less than or equal to the OKD version that you install. Use the image versions that match your OKD version if they are available.

  3. Download the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) - vSphere image.

  4. Upload the image you downloaded to a location that is accessible from the bastion server.

The image is now available for a restricted installation. Note the image name or location for use in OKD deployment.

Creating the installation configuration file

You can customize the OKD cluster you install on VMware vSphere.

Prerequisites

  • Obtain the OKD installation program and the pull secret for your cluster. For a restricted network installation, these files are on your mirror host.

  • Have the imageContentSources values that were generated during mirror registry creation.

  • Obtain the contents of the certificate for your mirror registry.

  • Retrieve a Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) image and upload it to an accessible location.

Procedure

  1. Create the install-config.yaml file.

    1. 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.

      Specify an empty directory. Some installation assets, like bootstrap X.509 certificates have short expiration intervals, so 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.

    2. At the prompts, provide the configuration details for your cloud:

      1. 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 ssh-agent process uses.

      2. Select vsphere as the platform to target.

      3. Specify the name of your vCenter instance.

      4. 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.

      5. Select the datacenter in your vCenter instance to connect to.

      6. Select the default vCenter datastore to use.

      7. 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.

      8. Select the network in the vCenter instance that contains the virtual IP addresses and DNS records that you configured.

      9. Enter the virtual IP address that you configured for control plane API access.

      10. Enter the virtual IP address that you configured for cluster ingress.

      11. Enter the base domain. This base domain must be the same one that you used in the DNS records that you configured.

      12. Enter a descriptive name for your cluster. The cluster name must be the same one that you used in the DNS records that you configured.

      13. Paste the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager. This field is optional.

  2. In the install-config.yaml file, set the value of platform.vsphere.clusterOSImage to the image location or name. For example:

    platform:
  vsphere:
      clusterOSImage: http://mirror.example.com/images/rhcos-43.81.201912131630.0-vmware.x86_64.ova?sha256=ffebbd68e8a1f2a245ca19522c16c86f67f9ac8e4e0c1f0a812b068b16f7265d

  3. Edit the install-config.yaml file to provide the additional information that is required for an installation in a restricted network.

    1. Update the pullSecret value to contain the authentication information for your registry:

      pullSecret: '{"auths":{"<mirror_host_name>:5000": {"auth": "<credentials>","email": "you@example.com"}}}'

      For <mirror_host_name>, specify the registry domain name that you specified in the certificate for your mirror registry, and for <credentials>, specify the base64-encoded user name and password for your mirror registry.

    2. Add the additionalTrustBundle parameter and value.

      additionalTrustBundle: |
  -----BEGIN certificate-----
  ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
  -----END certificate-----

      The value must be the contents of the certificate file that you used for your mirror registry, which can be an existing, trusted certificate authority or the self-signed certificate that you generated for the mirror registry.

    3. Add the image content resources, which look like this excerpt:

      imageContentSources:
- mirrors:
  - <mirror_host_name>:5000/<repo_name>/release
  source: quay.example.com/openshift-release-dev/ocp-release
- mirrors:
  - <mirror_host_name>:5000/<repo_name>/release
  source: registry.example.com/ocp/release

      To complete these values, use the imageContentSources that you recorded during mirror registry creation.

  4. Make any other modifications to the install-config.yaml file that you require. You can find more information about the available parameters in the Installation configuration parameters section.

  5. Back up the install-config.yaml file so that you can use it to install multiple clusters.

    The install-config.yaml file is consumed during the installation process. If you want to reuse the file, you must back it up now.

Installation configuration parameters

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 install-config.yaml file.

The openshift-install command does not validate field names for parameters. If an incorrect name is specified, the related file or object is not created, and no error is reported. Ensure that the field names for any parameters that are specified are correct.

Required configuration parameters

Required installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 6. Required parameters
Parameter Description Values

apiVersion

The API version for the install-config.yaml content. The current version is v1. The installer may also support older API versions.

String

baseDomain

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 baseDomain and metadata.name parameter values that uses the <metadata.name>.<baseDomain> format.

A fully-qualified domain or subdomain name, such as example.com.

metadata

Kubernetes resource ObjectMeta, from which only the name parameter is consumed.

Object

metadata.name

The name of the cluster. DNS records for the cluster are all subdomains of {{.metadata.name}}.{{.baseDomain}}.

String of lowercase letters and hyphens (-), such as dev.

platform

The configuration for the specific platform upon which to perform the installation: aws, baremetal, azure, openstack, ovirt, vsphere. For additional information about platform.<platform> parameters, consult the following table for your specific platform.

Object

Network configuration parameters

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.

Table 7. Network parameters
Parameter Description Values

networking

The configuration for the cluster network.

Object

You cannot modify parameters specified by the networking object after installation.

networking.networkType

The cluster network provider Container Network Interface (CNI) plug-in to install.

Either OpenShiftSDN or OVNKubernetes. The default value is OVNKubernetes.

networking.clusterNetwork

The IP address blocks for pods.

The default value is 10.128.0.0/14 with a host prefix of /23.

If you specify multiple IP address blocks, the blocks must not overlap.

An array of objects. For example:

networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23

networking.clusterNetwork.cidr

Required if you use networking.clusterNetwork. An IP address block.

An IPv4 network.

An IP address block in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation. The prefix length for an IPv4 block is between 0 and 32.

networking.clusterNetwork.hostPrefix

The subnet prefix length to assign to each individual node. For example, if hostPrefix is set to 23 then each node is assigned a /23 subnet out of the given cidr. A hostPrefix value of 23 provides 510 (2^(32 - 23) - 2) pod IP addresses.

A subnet prefix.

The default value is 23.

networking.serviceNetwork

The IP address block for services. The default value is 172.30.0.0/16.

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:

networking:
  serviceNetwork:
   - 172.30.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork

The IP address blocks for machines.

If you specify multiple IP address blocks, the blocks must not overlap.

An array of objects. For example:

networking:
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork.cidr

Required if you use networking.machineNetwork. An IP address block. The default value is 10.0.0.0/16 for all platforms other than libvirt. For libvirt, the default value is 192.168.126.0/24.

An IP network block in CIDR notation.

For example, 10.0.0.0/16.

Set the networking.machineNetwork to match the CIDR that the preferred NIC resides in.

Optional configuration parameters

Optional installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 8. Optional parameters
Parameter Description Values

additionalTrustBundle

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

compute

The configuration for the machines that comprise the compute nodes.

Array of machine-pool objects. For details, see the following "Machine-pool" table.

compute.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, heteregeneous clusters are not supported, so all pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

String

compute.hyperthreading

Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading, on compute machines. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores.

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance.

Enabled or Disabled

compute.name

Required if you use compute. The name of the machine pool.

worker

compute.platform

Required if you use compute. Use this parameter to specify the cloud provider to host the worker machines. This parameter value must match the controlPlane.platform parameter value.

aws, azure, gcp, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

compute.replicas

The number of compute machines, which are also known as worker machines, to provision.

A positive integer greater than or equal to 2. The default value is 3.

controlPlane

The configuration for the machines that comprise the control plane.

Array of MachinePool objects. For details, see the following "Machine-pool" table.

controlPlane.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, heterogeneous clusters are not supported, so all pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

String

controlPlane.hyperthreading

Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading, on control plane machines. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores.

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance.

Enabled or Disabled

controlPlane.name

Required if you use controlPlane. The name of the machine pool.

master

controlPlane.platform

Required if you use controlPlane. Use this parameter to specify the cloud provider that hosts the control plane machines. This parameter value must match the compute.platform parameter value.

aws, azure, gcp, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

controlPlane.replicas

The number of control plane machines to provision.

The only supported value is 3, which is the default value.

credentialsMode

The Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) mode. If no mode is specified, the CCO dynamically tries to determine the capabilities of the provided credentials, with a preference for mint mode on the platforms where multiple modes are supported.

Not all CCO modes are supported for all cloud providers. For more information on CCO modes, see the Cloud Credential Operator entry in the Red Hat Operators reference content.

Mint, Passthrough, Manual, or an empty string ("").

imageContentSources

Sources and repositories for the release-image content.

Array of objects. Includes a source and, optionally, mirrors, as described in the following rows of this table.

imageContentSources.source

Required if you use imageContentSources. Specify the repository that users refer to, for example, in image pull specifications.

String

imageContentSources.mirrors

Specify one or more repositories that may also contain the same images.

Array of strings

publish

How to publish or expose the user-facing endpoints of your cluster, such as the Kubernetes API, OpenShift routes.

Internal or External. The default value is External.

Setting this field to Internal is not supported on non-cloud platforms.

If the value of the field is set to Internal, the cluster will become non-functional. For more information, refer to BZ#1953035.

sshKey

The SSH key or keys to authenticate 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 ssh-agent process uses.

One or more keys. For example:

sshKey:
  <key1>
  <key2>
  <key3>

Additional VMware vSphere configuration parameters

Additional VMware vSphere configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 9. Additional VMware vSphere cluster parameters
Parameter Description Values

platform.vsphere.vCenter

The fully-qualified hostname or IP address of the vCenter server.

String

platform.vsphere.username

The user name to use to connect to the vCenter instance with. This user must have at least the roles and privileges that are required for static or dynamic persistent volume provisioning in vSphere.

String

platform.vsphere.password

The password for the vCenter user name.

String

platform.vsphere.datacenter

The name of the datacenter to use in the vCenter instance.

String

platform.vsphere.defaultDatastore

The name of the default datastore to use for provisioning volumes.

String

platform.vsphere.folder

Optional. The absolute path of an existing folder where the installation program creates the virtual machines. If you do not provide this value, the installation program creates a folder that is named with the infrastructure ID in the datacenter virtual machine folder.

String, for example, /<datacenter_name>/vm/<folder_name>/<subfolder_name>.

platform.vsphere.network

The network in the vCenter instance that contains the virtual IP addresses and DNS records that you configured.

String

platform.vsphere.cluster

The vCenter cluster to install the OKD cluster in.

String

platform.vsphere.apiVIP

The virtual IP (VIP) address that you configured for control plane API access.

An IP address, for example 128.0.0.1.

platform.vsphere.ingressVIP

The virtual IP (VIP) address that you configured for cluster ingress.

An IP address, for example 128.0.0.1.

Optional VMware vSphere machine pool configuration parameters

Optional VMware vSphere machine pool configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10. Optional VMware vSphere machine pool parameters
Parameter Description Values

platform.vsphere.clusterOSImage

The location from which the installer downloads the FCOS image. You must set this parameter to perform an installation in a restricted network.

An HTTP or HTTPS URL, optionally with a SHA-256 checksum. For example, https://mirror.openshift.com/images/rhcos-<version>-vmware.<architecture>.ova.

platform.vsphere.osDisk.diskSizeGB

The size of the disk in gigabytes.

Integer

platform.vsphere.cpus

The total number of virtual processor cores to assign a virtual machine.

Integer

platform.vsphere.coresPerSocket

The number of cores per socket in a virtual machine. The number of virtual sockets on the virtual machine is platform.vsphere.cpus/platform.vsphere.coresPerSocket. The default value is 1

Integer

platform.vsphere.memoryMB

The size of a virtual machine’s memory in megabytes.

Integer

Sample install-config.yaml file for an installer-provisioned VMware vSphere cluster

You can customize the install-config.yaml file to specify more details about your OKD cluster’s platform or modify the values of the required parameters.

apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: example.com (1)
compute: (2)
- hyperthreading: Enabled (3)
  name: worker
  replicas: 3
  platform:
    vsphere: (4)
      cpus: 2
      coresPerSocket: 2
      memoryMB: 8192
      osDisk:
        diskSizeGB: 120
controlPlane: (2)
  hyperthreading: Enabled (3)
  name: master
  replicas: 3
  platform:
    vsphere: (4)
      cpus: 4
      coresPerSocket: 2
      memoryMB: 16384
      osDisk:
        diskSizeGB: 120
metadata:
  name: cluster (5)
platform:
  vsphere:
    vcenter: your.vcenter.server
    username: username
    password: password
    datacenter: datacenter
    defaultDatastore: datastore
    folder: folder
    network: VM_Network
    cluster: vsphere_cluster_name (6)
    apiVIP: api_vip
    ingressVIP: ingress_vip
    clusterOSImage: http://mirror.example.com/images/rhcos-48.83.202103221318-0-vmware.x86_64.ova (7)
pullSecret: '{"auths":{"<local_registry>": {"auth": "<credentials>","email": "you@example.com"}}}' (8)
sshKey: 'ssh-ed25519 AAAA...'
additionalTrustBundle: | (9)
  -----BEGIN certificate-----
  ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
  -----END certificate-----
imageContentSources: (10)
- mirrors:
  - <local_registry>/<local_repository_name>/release
  source: quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-release
- mirrors:
  - <local_registry>/<local_repository_name>/release
  source: quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-v4.0-art-dev
1 The base domain of the cluster. All DNS records must be sub-domains of this base and include the cluster name.
2 The controlPlane section is a single mapping, but the compute section is a sequence of mappings. To meet the requirements of the different data structures, the first line of the compute section must begin with a hyphen, -, and the first line of the controlPlane section must not. Only one control plane pool is used.
3 Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores. You can disable it by setting the parameter value to Disabled. If you disable simultaneous multithreading in some cluster machines, you must disable it in all cluster machines.

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance. Your machines must use at least 8 CPUs and 32 GB of RAM if you disable simultaneous multithreading.
4 Optional: Provide additional configuration for the machine pool parameters for the compute and control plane machines.
5 The cluster name that you specified in your DNS records.
6 The vSphere cluster to install the OKD cluster in. The installation program uses the root resource pool of the vSphere cluster as the default resource pool.
7 The location of the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) image that is accessible from the bastion server.
8 For <local_registry>, specify the registry domain name, and optionally the port, that your mirror registry uses to serve content. For example registry.example.com or registry.example.com:5000. For <credentials>, specify the base64-encoded user name and password for your mirror registry.
9 Provide the contents of the certificate file that you used for your mirror registry.
10 Provide the imageContentSources section from the output of the command to mirror the repository.

Configuring the cluster-wide proxy during installation

Production environments can deny direct access to the Internet and instead have an HTTP or HTTPS proxy available. You can configure a new OKD cluster to use a proxy by configuring the proxy settings in the install-config.yaml file.

Prerequisites

  • You have an existing install-config.yaml file.

  • You reviewed the sites that your cluster requires access to and determined whether any of them need to bypass the proxy. By default, all cluster egress traffic is proxied, including calls to hosting cloud provider APIs. You added sites to the Proxy object’s spec.noProxy field to bypass the proxy if necessary.

    The Proxy object status.noProxy field is populated with the values of the networking.machineNetwork[].cidr, networking.clusterNetwork[].cidr, and networking.serviceNetwork[] fields from your installation configuration.

    For installations on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, and Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP), the Proxy object status.noProxy field is also populated with the instance metadata endpoint (169.254.169.254).
Procedure

  1. Edit your install-config.yaml file and add the proxy settings. For example:

    apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: my.domain.com
proxy:
  httpProxy: http://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> (1)
  httpsProxy: https://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> (2)
  noProxy: example.com (3)
additionalTrustBundle: | (4)
    -----BEGIN certificate-----
    <MY_TRUSTED_CA_CERT>
    -----END certificate-----
...
    1 A proxy URL to use for creating HTTP connections outside the cluster. The URL scheme must be http.
    2 A proxy URL to use for creating HTTPS connections outside the cluster.
    3 A comma-separated list of destination domain names, IP addresses, or other network CIDRs to exclude from proxying. Preface a domain with . to match subdomains only. For example, .y.com matches x.y.com, but not y.com. Use * to bypass the proxy for all destinations. You must include vCenter’s IP address and the IP range that you use for its machines.
    4 If provided, the installation program generates a config map that is named user-ca-bundle in the openshift-config namespace to hold the additional CA certificates. If you provide additionalTrustBundle and at least one proxy setting, the Proxy object is configured to reference the user-ca-bundle config map in the trustedCA field. The Cluster Network Operator then creates a trusted-ca-bundle config map that merges the contents specified for the trustedCA parameter with the FCOS trust bundle. The additionalTrustBundle field is required unless the proxy’s identity certificate is signed by an authority from the FCOS trust bundle.

    The installation program does not support the proxy readinessEndpoints field.

  2. Save the file and reference it when installing OKD.

The installation program creates a cluster-wide proxy that is named cluster that uses the proxy settings in the provided install-config.yaml file. If no proxy settings are provided, a cluster Proxy object is still created, but it will have a nil spec.

Only the Proxy object named cluster is supported, and no additional proxies can be created.

Deploying the cluster

You can install OKD on a compatible cloud platform.

You can run the create cluster command of the installation program only once, during initial installation.
Prerequisites

  • Configure an account with the cloud platform that hosts your cluster.

  • Obtain the OKD installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.

Procedure

  1. Change to the directory that contains the installation program and initialize the cluster deployment:

    $ ./openshift-install create cluster --dir <installation_directory> \ (1)
    --log-level=info (2)
    1 For <installation_directory>, specify the location of your customized ./install-config.yaml file.
    2 To view different installation details, specify warn, debug, or error instead of info.

    Use the openshift-install command from the bastion hosted in the VMC environment.

    If the cloud provider account that you configured on your host does not have sufficient permissions to deploy the cluster, the installation process stops, and the missing permissions are displayed.

    When the cluster deployment completes, directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to its web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user, display in your terminal.

    Example output
    ...
INFO Install complete!
INFO To access the cluster as the system:admin user when using 'oc', run 'export KUBECONFIG=/home/myuser/install_dir/auth/kubeconfig'
INFO Access the OpenShift web-console here: https://console-openshift-console.apps.mycluster.example.com
INFO Login to the console with user: "kubeadmin", and password: "4vYBz-Ee6gm-ymBZj-Wt5AL"
INFO Time elapsed: 36m22s

    The cluster access and credential information also outputs to <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log when an installation succeeds.

    • The Ignition config files that the installation program generates contain certificates that expire after 24 hours, which are then renewed at that time. If the cluster is shut down before renewing the certificates and the cluster is later restarted after the 24 hours have elapsed, the cluster automatically recovers the expired certificates. The exception is that you must manually approve the pending node-bootstrapper certificate signing requests (CSRs) to recover kubelet certificates. See the documentation for Recovering from expired control plane certificates for more information.

    • It is recommended that you use Ignition config files within 12 hours after they are generated because the 24-hour certificate rotates from 16 to 22 hours after the cluster is installed. By using the Ignition config files within 12 hours, you can avoid installation failure if the certificate update runs during installation.

    You must not delete the installation program or the files that the installation program creates. Both are required to delete the cluster.

Installing the OpenShift CLI by downloading the binary

You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) in order to interact with OKD from a command-line interface. You can install oc on Linux, Windows, or macOS.

If you installed an earlier version of oc, you cannot use it to complete all of the commands in OKD 4.6. Download and install the new version of oc.

Installing the OpenShift CLI on Linux

You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) binary on Linux by using the following procedure.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.

  2. Download oc.tar.gz.

  3. Unpack the archive:

    $ tar xvzf <file>

  4. Place the oc binary in a directory that is on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, execute the following command:

    $ echo $PATH

After you install the OpenShift CLI, it is available using the oc command:

$ oc <command>

Installing the OpenShift CLI on Windows

You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) binary on Windows by using the following procedure.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.

  2. Download oc.zip.

  3. Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.

  4. Move the oc binary to a directory that is on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, open the command prompt and execute the following command:

    C:\> path

After you install the OpenShift CLI, it is available using the oc command:

C:\> oc <command>

Installing the OpenShift CLI on macOS

You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) binary on macOS by using the following procedure.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.

  2. Download oc.tar.gz.

  3. Unpack and unzip the archive.

  4. Move the oc binary to a directory on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, open a terminal and execute the following command:

    $ echo $PATH

After you install the OpenShift CLI, it is available using the oc command:

$ oc <command>

Logging in to the cluster by using the CLI

You can log in to your cluster as a default system user by exporting the cluster kubeconfig file. The kubeconfig file contains information about the cluster that is used by the CLI to connect a client to the correct cluster and API server. The file is specific to a cluster and is created during OKD installation.

Prerequisites

  • You deployed an OKD cluster.

  • You installed the oc CLI.

Procedure

  1. Export the kubeadmin credentials:

    $ export KUBECONFIG=<installation_directory>/auth/kubeconfig (1)
    1 For <installation_directory>, specify the path to the directory that you stored the installation files in.

  2. Verify you can run oc commands successfully using the exported configuration:

    $ oc whoami
    Example output
    system:admin

Disabling the default OperatorHub sources

Operator catalogs that source content provided by Red Hat and community projects are configured for OperatorHub by default during an OKD installation. In a restricted network environment, you must disable the default catalogs as a cluster administrator.

Procedure

  • Disable the sources for the default catalogs by adding disableAllDefaultSources: true to the OperatorHub object:

    $ oc patch OperatorHub cluster --type json \
    -p '[{"op": "add", "path": "/spec/disableAllDefaultSources", "value": true}]'

Alternatively, you can use the web console to manage catalog sources. From the Administration → Cluster Settings → Global Configuration → OperatorHub page, click the Sources tab, where you can create, delete, disable, and enable individual sources.

Creating registry storage

After you install the cluster, you must create storage for the Registry Operator.

Image registry removed during installation

On platforms that do not provide shareable object storage, the OpenShift Image Registry Operator bootstraps itself as Removed. This allows openshift-installer to complete installations on these platform types.

After installation, you must edit the Image Registry Operator configuration to switch the managementState from Removed to Managed.

The Prometheus console provides an ImageRegistryRemoved alert, for example:

"Image Registry has been removed. ImageStreamTags, BuildConfigs and DeploymentConfigs which reference ImageStreamTags may not work as expected. Please configure storage and update the config to Managed state by editing configs.imageregistry.operator.openshift.io."

Image registry storage configuration

The Image Registry Operator is not initially available for platforms that do not provide default storage. After installation, you must configure your registry to use storage so that the Registry Operator is made available.

Instructions are shown for configuring a persistent volume, which is required for production clusters. Where applicable, instructions are shown for configuring an empty directory as the storage location, which is available for only non-production clusters.

Additional instructions are provided for allowing the image registry to use block storage types by using the Recreate rollout strategy during upgrades.

Configuring registry storage for VMware vSphere

As a cluster administrator, following installation you must configure your registry to use storage.

Prerequisites

  • Cluster administrator permissions.

  • A cluster on VMware vSphere.

  • Persistent storage provisioned for your cluster, such as Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage.

    OKD supports ReadWriteOnce access for image registry storage when you have only one replica. To deploy an image registry that supports high availability with two or more replicas, ReadWriteMany access is required.

  • Must have "100Gi" capacity.

Testing shows issues with using the NFS server on RHEL as storage backend for core services. This includes the OpenShift Container Registry and Quay, Prometheus for monitoring storage, and Elasticsearch for logging storage. Therefore, using RHEL NFS to back PVs used by core services is not recommended.

Other NFS implementations on the marketplace might not have these issues. Contact the individual NFS implementation vendor for more information on any testing that was possibly completed against these OKD core components.
Procedure

  1. To configure your registry to use storage, change the spec.storage.pvc in the configs.imageregistry/cluster resource.

    When using shared storage, review your security settings to prevent outside access.

  2. Verify that you do not have a registry pod:

    $ oc get pod -n openshift-image-registry

    If the storage type is emptyDIR, the replica number cannot be greater than 1.

  3. Check the registry configuration:

    $ oc edit configs.imageregistry.operator.openshift.io
    Example output
    storage:
  pvc:
    claim: (1)
    1 Leave the claim field blank to allow the automatic creation of an image-registry-storage PVC.

  4. Check the clusteroperator status:

    $ oc get clusteroperator image-registry
Additional resources

Next steps