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Manually creating IAM for Azure

In environments where the cloud identity and access management (IAM) APIs are not reachable, or the administrator prefers not to store an administrator-level credential secret in the cluster kube-system namespace, you can put the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) into manual mode before you install the cluster.

Alternatives to storing administrator-level secrets in the kube-system project

The Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) manages cloud provider credentials as Kubernetes custom resource definitions (CRDs). You can configure the CCO to suit the security requirements of your organization by setting different values for the credentialsMode parameter in the install-config.yaml file.

If you prefer not to store an administrator-level credential secret in the cluster kube-system project, you can set the credentialsMode parameter for the CCO to Manual when installing OpenShift Container Platform and manage your cloud credentials manually.

Using manual mode allows each cluster component to have only the permissions it requires, without storing an administrator-level credential in the cluster. You can also use this mode if your environment does not have connectivity to the cloud provider public IAM endpoint. However, you must manually reconcile permissions with new release images for every upgrade. You must also manually supply credentials for every component that requests them.

Additional resources

Manually create IAM

The Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) can be put into manual mode prior to installation in environments where the cloud identity and access management (IAM) APIs are not reachable, or the administrator prefers not to store an administrator-level credential secret in the cluster kube-system namespace.

Procedure

  1. Change to the directory that contains the installation program and create the install-config.yaml file by running the following command:

    $ openshift-install create install-config --dir <installation_directory>

    where <installation_directory> is the directory in which the installation program creates files.

  2. Edit the install-config.yaml configuration file so that it contains the credentialsMode parameter set to Manual.

    Example install-config.yaml configuration file
    apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: cluster1.example.com
credentialsMode: Manual (1)
compute:
- architecture: amd64
  hyperthreading: Enabled
...
    1 This line is added to set the credentialsMode parameter to Manual.

  3. Generate the manifests by running the following command from the directory that contains the installation program:

    $ openshift-install create manifests --dir <installation_directory>

    where <installation_directory> is the directory in which the installation program creates files.

  4. From the directory that contains the installation program, obtain details of the OpenShift Container Platform release image that your openshift-install binary is built to use by running the following command:

    $ openshift-install version
    Example output
    release image quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-release:4.y.z-x86_64

  5. Locate all CredentialsRequest objects in this release image that target the cloud you are deploying on by running the following command:

    $ oc adm release extract quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-release:4.y.z-x86_64 \
  --credentials-requests \
  --cloud=azure

    This command creates a YAML file for each CredentialsRequest object.

    Sample CredentialsRequest object
    apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
kind: CredentialsRequest
metadata:
  name: <component-credentials-request>
  namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator
  ...
spec:
  providerSpec:
    apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
    kind: AzureProviderSpec
    roleBindings:
    - role: Contributor
  ...

  6. Create YAML files for secrets in the openshift-install manifests directory that you generated previously. The secrets must be stored using the namespace and secret name defined in the spec.secretRef for each CredentialsRequest object.

    Sample CredentialsRequest object with secrets
    apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
kind: CredentialsRequest
metadata:
  name: <component-credentials-request>
  namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator
  ...
spec:
  providerSpec:
    apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
    kind: AzureProviderSpec
    roleBindings:
    - role: Contributor
      ...
  secretRef:
    name: <component-secret>
    namespace: <component-namespace>
  ...
    Sample Secret object
    apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: <component-secret>
  namespace: <component-namespace>
data:
  azure_subscription_id: <base64_encoded_azure_subscription_id>
  azure_client_id: <base64_encoded_azure_client_id>
  azure_client_secret: <base64_encoded_azure_client_secret>
  azure_tenant_id: <base64_encoded_azure_tenant_id>
  azure_resource_prefix: <base64_encoded_azure_resource_prefix>
  azure_resourcegroup: <base64_encoded_azure_resourcegroup>
  azure_region: <base64_encoded_azure_region>

    The release image includes CredentialsRequest objects for Technology Preview features that are enabled by the TechPreviewNoUpgrade feature set. You can identify these objects by their use of the release.openshift.io/feature-gate: TechPreviewNoUpgrade annotation.

    • If you are not using any of these features, do not create secrets for these objects. Creating secrets for Technology Preview features that you are not using can cause the installation to fail.

    • If you are using any of these features, you must create secrets for the corresponding objects.

    • To find CredentialsRequest objects with the TechPreviewNoUpgrade annotation, run the following command:

      $ grep "release.openshift.io/feature-gate" *
      Example output
      0000_30_capi-operator_00_credentials-request.yaml:  release.openshift.io/feature-gate: TechPreviewNoUpgrade

  7. From the directory that contains the installation program, proceed with your cluster creation:

    $ openshift-install create cluster --dir <installation_directory>

    Before upgrading a cluster that uses manually maintained credentials, you must ensure that the CCO is in an upgradeable state.
Additional resources

Next steps