ICMP
In OKD version 4.9, you can install a cluster on your VMware vSphere instance by using installer-provisioned infrastructure.
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 6 or 7 instance that meets the requirements for the components that you use.
Virtual environment product | Required version |
---|---|
VM hardware version |
13 or later |
vSphere ESXi hosts |
6.5 or later |
vCenter host |
6.5 or later |
Installing a cluster on VMware vSphere version 6.7U2 or earlier and virtual hardware version 13 is now deprecated. These versions are still fully supported, but support will be removed in a future version of OKD. 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. |
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 plugin creates vSphere storage by using the in-tree storage drivers for vSphere included in OKD. |
Optional: Networking (NSX-T) |
vSphere 6.5U3 or vSphere 6.7U2 and later |
vSphere 6.5U3 or vSphere 6.7U2+ are 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. |
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. |
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 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 |
Always |
|
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 | Folder type | 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 |
Always |
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 |
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. 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.
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 DHCP for the network and ensure that the DHCP server is configured to provide persistent IP addresses to the cluster machines. You must configure the default gateway to use the DHCP server. 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 / 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 computer that runs Linux or macOS, with 500 MB of local disk space
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 install OKD on a compatible cloud platform.
You can run the |
Obtain the OKD installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
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
directory name to store the files that the installation program creates. |
2 | To view different installation details, specify warn , debug , or
error instead of info . |
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. |
Provide values at the prompts:
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.
Datastore and cluster names cannot exceed 60 characters; therefore, ensure the combined string length does not exceed the 60 character limit. |
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 must be the same one that you used in the DNS records that you configured.
Datastore and cluster names cannot exceed 60 characters; therefore, ensure the combined string length does not exceed the 60 character limit. |
Paste the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager.
If you do not have a pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager, you can paste the pull secret another private registry.
If you do not need the cluster to pull images from a private registry, you can paste {"auths":{"fake":{"auth":"aWQ6cGFzcwo="}}}
as the pull secret.
+
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 |
+
|
+
You must not delete the installation program or the files that the installation program creates. Both are required to delete the cluster. |
You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc
) 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 |
You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc
) binary on Linux by using the following procedure.
Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.
Download oc.tar.gz
.
Unpack the archive:
$ tar xvf <file>
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>
You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc
) binary on Windows by using the following procedure.
Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.
Download oc.zip
.
Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.
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>
You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc
) binary on macOS by using the following procedure.
Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.
Download oc.tar.gz
.
Unpack and unzip the archive.
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>
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.
You deployed an OKD cluster.
You installed the oc
CLI.
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. |
Verify you can run oc
commands successfully using the exported configuration:
$ oc whoami
system:admin
After you install the cluster, you must create storage for the registry Operator.
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 "Image Registry has been removed. |
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.
As a cluster administrator, following installation you must configure your registry to use storage.
Cluster administrator permissions.
A cluster on VMware vSphere.
Persistent storage provisioned for your cluster, such as Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage.
OKD supports |
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. |
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. |
Verify that you do not have a registry pod:
$ oc get pod -n openshift-image-registry -l docker-registry=default
No resourses found in openshift-image-registry namespace
If you do have a registry pod in your output, you do not need to continue with this procedure. |
Check the registry configuration:
$ oc edit configs.imageregistry.operator.openshift.io
storage:
pvc:
claim: (1)
1 | Leave the claim field blank to allow the automatic creation of an image-registry-storage persistent volume claim (PVC). The PVC is generated based on the default storage class. However, be aware that the default storage class might provide ReadWriteOnce (RWO) volumes, such as a RADOS Block Device (RBD), which can cause issues when replicating to more than one replica. |
Check the clusteroperator
status:
$ oc get clusteroperator image-registry
NAME VERSION AVAILABLE PROGRESSING DEGRADED SINCE MESSAGE
image-registry 4.7 True False False 6h50m
To allow the image registry to use block storage types such as vSphere Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) during upgrades as a cluster administrator, you can use the Recreate
rollout strategy.
Block storage volumes are supported but not recommended for use with image registry on production clusters. An installation where the registry is configured on block storage is not highly available because the registry cannot have more than one replica. |
To set the image registry storage as a block storage type, patch the registry so that it uses the Recreate
rollout strategy and runs with only 1
replica:
$ oc patch config.imageregistry.operator.openshift.io/cluster --type=merge -p '{"spec":{"rolloutStrategy":"Recreate","replicas":1}}'
Provision the PV for the block storage device, and create a PVC for that volume. The requested block volume uses the ReadWriteOnce (RWO) access mode.
Create a pvc.yaml
file with the following contents to define a VMware vSphere PersistentVolumeClaim
object:
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
name: image-registry-storage (1)
namespace: openshift-image-registry (2)
spec:
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce (3)
resources:
requests:
storage: 100Gi (4)
1 | A unique name that represents the PersistentVolumeClaim object. |
2 | The namespace for the PersistentVolumeClaim object, which is openshift-image-registry . |
3 | The access mode of the persistent volume claim. With ReadWriteOnce , the volume can be mounted with read and write permissions by a single node. |
4 | The size of the persistent volume claim. |
Create the PersistentVolumeClaim
object from the file:
$ oc create -f pvc.yaml -n openshift-image-registry
Edit the registry configuration so that it references the correct PVC:
$ oc edit config.imageregistry.operator.openshift.io -o yaml
storage:
pvc:
claim: (1)
1 | Creating a custom PVC allows you to leave the claim field blank for the default automatic creation of an image-registry-storage PVC. |
For instructions about configuring registry storage so that it references the correct PVC, see Configuring the registry for vSphere.
OKD provisions new volumes as independent persistent disks to freely attach and detach the volume on any node in the cluster. As a consequence, it is not possible to back up volumes that use snapshots, or to restore volumes from snapshots. See Snapshot Limitations for more information.
To create a backup of persistent volumes:
Stop the application that is using the persistent volume.
Clone the persistent volume.
Restart the application.
Create a backup of the cloned volume.
Delete the cloned volume.
By default, the installation program provisions the cluster’s virtual machines without enabling the steal clock accounting parameter (stealclock.enabled
). Enabling steal clock accounting can help with troubleshooting cluster issues. After the cluster is deployed, use the vSphere Client to enable this parameter on each of the virtual machines.
For more information, see this Red Hat knowledge base article.
See About remote health monitoring for more information about the Telemetry service
If necessary, you can opt out of remote health reporting.
Optional: View the events from the vSphere Problem Detector Operator to determine if the cluster has permission or storage configuration issues.