Welcome | About | OpenShift Container Platform 4.1

Welcome to the OpenShift Container Platform 4.1 documentation, where you can find information to help you learn about OpenShift Container Platform and start exploring its features.

To navigate the OpenShift Container Platform 4.1 documentation, you can either

Use the left navigation bar to browse the documentation or
Select the activity that interests you from the contents of this Welcome page

You can start with an Introduction to OpenShift Container Platform and the OpenShift Container Platform 4.1 Release Notes.

Cluster installation activities

As someone setting out to install an OpenShift Container Platform 4.1 cluster, this documentation will help you:

Install a cluster on AWS: You have the most installation options when you deploy a cluster on Amazon Web Services (AWS). You can deploy clusters with default settings, custom AWS settings, or custom networking settings. You can also deploy a cluster on AWS infrastructure that you provisioned yourself. You can modify the provided AWS CloudFormation templates to meet your needs.
Install a cluster on VMware vSphere: You can install OpenShift Container Platform on supported versions of vSphere.
Install a cluster on bare metal: If none of the available platform and cloud providers meet your needs, you can install OpenShift Container Platform on bare metal.
Check installation logs: Access installation logs to evaluate issues that occur during OpenShift Container Platform 4.1 installation.
Access OpenShift Container Platform: Use credentials output at the end of the installation process to log in to the OpenShift Container Platform cluster from the command line or web console.

Developer activities

Ultimately, OpenShift is a platform for developing and deploying containerized applications. As an application developer, OpenShift Container Platform documentation will help you:

Understand OpenShift Container Platform development: Learn the different types of containerized applications, from simple containers to advanced Kubernetes deployments and Operators.
Work with projects: Create projects from the web console or CLI to organize and share the software you develop.
Understand Operators: Operators are the preferred method for creating on-cluster applications for OpenShift Container Platform 4.1. Learn about the Operator Framework and how to deploy applications using installed Operators into your projects.
Understand image builds: Choose from different build strategies (Docker, S2I, custom, and pipeline) that can include different kinds of source materials (from places like Git repositories, local binary inputs, and external artifacts). Then, follow examples of build types from basic builds to advanced builds.
Create container images: A container image is the most basic building block in OpenShift (and Kubernetes) applications. Defining imagestreams lets you gather multiple versions of an image in one place as you continue its development. S2I containers let you insert your source code into a base container that is set up to run code of a particular type (such as Ruby, Node.js, or Python).
Create deployments and deploymentConfigs: Use deployments and deploymentConfigs to exert fine-grained management over applications. Use the Workloads page or oc CLI to manage deploymentConfigs. Learn Rolling, Recreate, and Custom deployment strategies.
Create templates: Use existing templates or create your own templates that describe how an application is built or deployed. A template can combine images with descriptions, parameters, replicas, exposed ports and other content that defines how an application can be run or built.
Create Operators: Operators are the preferred method for creating on-cluster applications for OpenShift Container Platform 4.1. Learn the workflow for building, testing, and deploying Operators. Then create your own Operators based on Ansible or Helm, or configure built-in Prometheus monitoring using the Operator SDK.
Use Template Service Broker or OpenShift Ansible Broker applications: Service brokers are a mechanism for provisioning applications outside of an OpenShift Container Platform environment.

Cluster administrator activities

Ongoing tasks on your OpenShift Container Platform 4.1 cluster include various activities for managing machines, providing services to users, and following monitoring and logging features that watch over the cluster. As a cluster administrator, this documentation will help you:

Understand OpenShift Container Platform management: Learn about components of the OpenShift Container Platform 4.1 control plane. See how OpenShift masters and workers are managed and updated through the Machine API and Operators.

Manage cluster components

Manage machines: Manage machines in your OpenShift cluster by deploying health checks and applying autoscaling to machines.
Manage container registries: Each OpenShift Container Platform cluster includes a built-in container registry for storing its images. You can also configure a separate Red Hat Quay registry to use with OpenShift. The Quay.io site provides a public container registry that stores OpenShift containers and Operators.
Manage users and groups: Add users and groups that have different levels of permissions to use or modify clusters.
Manage authentication: Learn how user, group, and API authentication works in OpenShift Container Platform. OpenShift Container Platform supports multiple identity providers, including HTPasswd, Keystone, LDAP, basic, request header, GitHub, GitLab, Google, and OpenID identity providers.
Manage Ingress, API server, and service certificates: OpenShift Container Platform creates certificates by default for the Ingress Operator, the API server, and for services needed by complex middleware applications that require encryption. At some point, you may need to change, add, and rotate these certificates.
Manage networking: Networking in OpenShift Container Platform is managed by the Cluster Network Operator (CNO). The CNO uses iptables rules in kube-proxy to direct traffic between nodes and pods running on those nodes. The Multis Container Network interface adds the capability to attach multiple network interfaces to a Pod. Using NetworkPolicy features, you can isolate your networks or permit selected traffic.
Manage storage: OpenShift Container Platform allows cluster administrators to configure persistent storage using AWS Elastic Block Store, NFS, iSCSI, and Container Storage Interface (CSI). As needed, you can expand persistent volumes and configure dynamic provisioning.
Manage Operators: Lists of Red Hat, ISV, and community Operators can be reviewed by cluster administrators and installed on their clusters. Once installed, you can run, upgrade, back up or otherwise manage the Operator on your cluster (based on what the Operator is designed to do).

Change cluster components

Use Custom Resource Definition (CRDs) to modify the cluster: Cluster features that are implemented with Operators, can be modified with CRDs. Learn to create a CRD and manage resources from CRDs.
Set resource quotas: Choose from CPU, memory and other system resources to set quotas.
Prune and reclaim resources: You can reclaim spaceby pruning unneeded Operators, groups, deployments, builds, images, registries, and cron jobs.
Scale and tune clusters: Set cluster limits, tune nodes, scale cluster monitoring, and optimize networking, storage, and routes for your environment.
Update a cluster: To upgrade your OpenShift Container Platform to a later version, use the Cluster Version Operator (CVO). If an update is available from the Container Platform update service, you apply that cluster update from the web console.

Monitor the cluster

Work with cluster logging: Learn about cluster logging and configure different cluster logging types, such as Elasticsearch, Fluentd, Kibana, and Curator.
Monitor clusters: Learn to configure the monitoring. With the Alertmanager user interface, learn to manage alerts. Once your monitoring is configured, use the oc tool and Web UI to access Prometheus, Alertmanager, and Grafana. To monitor applications, configure custom metrics for each selected namespace.
View Telemetry data: Telemetry collects anonymous data about your cluster so that data can be used to improve the OpenShift Container Platform platform. You can view the data being collected from your cluster.