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Installing a cluster on RHV with user-provisioned infrastructure

In OpenShift Container Platform version 4.12, you can install a customized OpenShift Container Platform cluster on Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) and other infrastructure that you provide. The OpenShift Container Platform documentation uses the term user-provisioned infrastructure to refer to this infrastructure type.

The following diagram shows an example of a potential OpenShift Container Platform cluster running on a RHV cluster.

Diagram of an OpenShift Container Platform cluster on a RHV cluster

The RHV hosts run virtual machines that contain both control plane and compute pods. One of the hosts also runs a Manager virtual machine and a bootstrap virtual machine that contains a temporary control plane pod.]

Prerequisites

The following items are required to install an OpenShift Container Platform cluster on a RHV environment.

Internet access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, you require access to the internet to install your cluster.

You must have internet access to:

  • Access OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console to download the installation program and perform subscription management. If the cluster has internet access and you do not disable Telemetry, that service automatically entitles your cluster.

  • Access Quay.io to obtain the packages that are required to install your cluster.

  • Obtain the packages that are required to perform cluster updates.

If your cluster cannot have direct internet access, you can perform a restricted network installation on some types of infrastructure that you provision. During that process, you download the required content and use it to populate a mirror registry with the installation packages. With some installation types, the environment that you install your cluster in will not require internet access. Before you update the cluster, you update the content of the mirror registry.

Requirements for the RHV environment

To install and run an OpenShift Container Platform version 4.12 cluster, the RHV environment must meet the following requirements.

Not meeting these requirements can cause the installation or process to fail. Additionally, not meeting these requirements can cause the OpenShift Container Platform cluster to fail days or weeks after installation.

The following requirements for CPU, memory, and storage resources are based on default values multiplied by the default number of virtual machines the installation program creates. These resources must be available in addition to what the RHV environment uses for non-OpenShift Container Platform operations.

By default, the installation program creates seven virtual machines during the installation process. First, it creates a bootstrap virtual machine to provide temporary services and a control plane while it creates the rest of the OpenShift Container Platform cluster. When the installation program finishes creating the cluster, deleting the bootstrap machine frees up its resources.

If you increase the number of virtual machines in the RHV environment, you must increase the resources accordingly.

Requirements

  • The RHV version is 4.4.

  • The RHV environment has one data center whose state is Up.

  • The RHV data center contains an RHV cluster.

  • The RHV cluster has the following resources exclusively for the OpenShift Container Platform cluster:

    • Minimum 28 vCPUs: four for each of the seven virtual machines created during installation.

    • 112 GiB RAM or more, including:

      • 16 GiB or more for the bootstrap machine, which provides the temporary control plane.

      • 16 GiB or more for each of the three control plane machines which provide the control plane.

      • 16 GiB or more for each of the three compute machines, which run the application workloads.

  • The RHV storage domain must meet these etcd backend performance requirements.

  • In production environments, each virtual machine must have 120 GiB or more. Therefore, the storage domain must provide 840 GiB or more for the default OpenShift Container Platform cluster. In resource-constrained or non-production environments, each virtual machine must have 32 GiB or more, so the storage domain must have 230 GiB or more for the default OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

  • To download images from the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog during installation and update procedures, the RHV cluster must have access to an internet connection. The Telemetry service also needs an internet connection to simplify the subscription and entitlement process.

  • The RHV cluster must have a virtual network with access to the REST API on the RHV Manager. Ensure that DHCP is enabled on this network, because the VMs that the installer creates obtain their IP address by using DHCP.

  • A user account and group with the following least privileges for installing and managing an OpenShift Container Platform cluster on the target RHV cluster:

    • DiskOperator

    • DiskCreator

    • UserTemplateBasedVm

    • TemplateOwner

    • TemplateCreator

    • ClusterAdmin on the target cluster

Apply the principle of least privilege: Avoid using an administrator account with SuperUser privileges on RHV during the installation process. The installation program saves the credentials you provide to a temporary ovirt-config.yaml file that might be compromised.

Verifying the requirements for the RHV environment

Verify that the RHV environment meets the requirements to install and run an OpenShift Container Platform cluster. Not meeting these requirements can cause failures.

These requirements are based on the default resources the installation program uses to create control plane and compute machines. These resources include vCPUs, memory, and storage. If you change these resources or increase the number of OpenShift Container Platform machines, adjust these requirements accordingly.
Procedure

  1. Check that the RHV version supports installation of OpenShift Container Platform version 4.12.

    1. In the RHV Administration Portal, click the ? help icon in the upper-right corner and select About.

    2. In the window that opens, make a note of the RHV Software Version.

    3. Confirm that the RHV version is 4.4. For more information about supported version combinations, see Support Matrix for OpenShift Container Platform on RHV.

  2. Inspect the data center, cluster, and storage.

    1. In the RHV Administration Portal, click Compute → Data Centers.

    2. Confirm that the data center where you plan to install OpenShift Container Platform is accessible.

    3. Click the name of that data center.

    4. In the data center details, on the Storage tab, confirm the storage domain where you plan to install OpenShift Container Platform is Active.

    5. Record the Domain Name for use later on.

    6. Confirm Free Space has at least 230 GiB.

    7. Confirm that the storage domain meets these etcd backend performance requirements, which you can measure by using the fio performance benchmarking tool.

    8. In the data center details, click the Clusters tab.

    9. Find the RHV cluster where you plan to install OpenShift Container Platform. Record the cluster name for use later on.

  3. Inspect the RHV host resources.

    1. In the RHV Administration Portal, click Compute > Clusters.

    2. Click the cluster where you plan to install OpenShift Container Platform.

    3. In the cluster details, click the Hosts tab.

    4. Inspect the hosts and confirm they have a combined total of at least 28 Logical CPU Cores available exclusively for the OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

    5. Record the number of available Logical CPU Cores for use later on.

    6. Confirm that these CPU cores are distributed so that each of the seven virtual machines created during installation can have four cores.

    7. Confirm that, all together, the hosts have 112 GiB of Max free Memory for scheduling new virtual machines distributed to meet the requirements for each of the following OpenShift Container Platform machines:

      • 16 GiB required for the bootstrap machine

      • 16 GiB required for each of the three control plane machines

      • 16 GiB for each of the three compute machines

    8. Record the amount of Max free Memory for scheduling new virtual machines for use later on.

  4. Verify that the virtual network for installing OpenShift Container Platform has access to the RHV Manager’s REST API. From a virtual machine on this network, use curl to reach the RHV Manager’s REST API:

    $ curl -k -u <username>@<profile>:<password> \ (1)
https://<engine-fqdn>/ovirt-engine/api (2)
    1 For <username>, specify the user name of an RHV account with privileges to create and manage an OpenShift Container Platform cluster on RHV. For <profile>, specify the login profile, which you can get by going to the RHV Administration Portal login page and reviewing the Profile dropdown list. For <password>, specify the password for that user name.
    2 For <engine-fqdn>, specify the fully qualified domain name of the RHV environment.

    For example:

    $ curl -k -u ocpadmin@internal:pw123 \
https://rhv-env.virtlab.example.com/ovirt-engine/api

Networking requirements for user-provisioned infrastructure

All the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machines require networking to be configured in initramfs during boot to fetch their Ignition config files.

During the initial boot, the machines require an IP address configuration that is set either through a DHCP server or statically by providing the required boot options. After a network connection is established, the machines download their Ignition config files from an HTTP or HTTPS server. The Ignition config files are then used to set the exact state of each machine. The Machine Config Operator completes more changes to the machines, such as the application of new certificates or keys, after installation.

It is recommended to use a DHCP server for long-term management of the cluster machines. Ensure that the DHCP server is configured to provide persistent IP addresses, DNS server information, and hostnames to the cluster machines.

If a DHCP service is not available for your user-provisioned infrastructure, you can instead provide the IP networking configuration and the address of the DNS server to the nodes at RHCOS install time. These can be passed as boot arguments if you are installing from an ISO image. See the Installing RHCOS and starting the OpenShift Container Platform bootstrap process section for more information about static IP provisioning and advanced networking options.

The Kubernetes API server must be able to resolve the node names of the cluster machines. If the API servers and worker nodes are in different zones, you can configure a default DNS search zone to allow the API server to resolve the node names. Another supported approach is to always refer to hosts by their fully-qualified domain names in both the node objects and all DNS requests.

Firewall

Configure your firewall so your cluster has access to required sites.

See also:

Load balancers

Configure one or preferably two layer-4 load balancers:

  • Provide load balancing for ports 6443 and 22623 on the control plane and bootstrap machines. Port 6443 provides access to the Kubernetes API server and must be reachable both internally and externally. Port 22623 must be accessible to nodes within the cluster.

  • Provide load balancing for port 443 and 80 for machines that run the Ingress router, which are usually compute nodes in the default configuration. Both ports must be accessible from within and outside the cluster.

DNS

Configure infrastructure-provided DNS to allow the correct resolution of the main components and services. If you use only one load balancer, these DNS records can point to the same IP address.

  • Create DNS records for api.<cluster_name>.<base_domain> (internal and external resolution) and api-int.<cluster_name>.<base_domain> (internal resolution) that point to the load balancer for the control plane machines.

  • Create a DNS record for *.apps.<cluster_name>.<base_domain> that points to the load balancer for the Ingress router. For example, ports 443 and 80 of the compute machines.

Setting the cluster node hostnames through DHCP

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machines, the hostname is set through NetworkManager. By default, the machines obtain their hostname through DHCP. If the hostname is not provided by DHCP, set statically through kernel arguments, or another method, it is obtained through a reverse DNS lookup. Reverse DNS lookup occurs after the network has been initialized on a node and can take time to resolve. Other system services can start prior to this and detect the hostname as localhost or similar. You can avoid this by using DHCP to provide the hostname for each cluster node.

Additionally, setting the hostnames through DHCP can bypass any manual DNS record name configuration errors in environments that have a DNS split-horizon implementation.

Network connectivity requirements

You must configure the network connectivity between machines to allow OpenShift Container Platform cluster components to communicate. Each machine must be able to resolve the hostnames of all other machines in the cluster.

This section provides details about the ports that are required.

In connected OpenShift Container Platform environments, all nodes are required to have internet access to pull images for platform containers and provide telemetry data to Red Hat.
Table 1. 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

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

123

Network Time Protocol (NTP) on UDP port 123

If an external NTP time server is configured, you must open UDP port 123.

TCP/UDP

30000-32767

Kubernetes node port

ESP

N/A

IPsec Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)
Table 2. Ports used for all-machine to control plane communications
Protocol Port Description

TCP

6443

Kubernetes API
Table 3. Ports used for control plane machine to control plane machine communications
Protocol Port Description

TCP

2379-2380

etcd server and peer ports

NTP configuration for user-provisioned infrastructure

OpenShift Container Platform clusters are configured to use a public Network Time Protocol (NTP) server by default. If you want to use a local enterprise NTP server, or if your cluster is being deployed in a disconnected network, you can configure the cluster to use a specific time server. For more information, see the documentation for Configuring chrony time service.

If a DHCP server provides NTP server information, the chrony time service on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machines read the information and can sync the clock with the NTP servers.

Setting up the installation machine

To run the binary openshift-install installation program and Ansible scripts, set up the RHV Manager or an Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) computer with network access to the RHV environment and the REST API on the Manager.

Procedure

  1. Update or install Python3 and Ansible. For example:

    # dnf update python3 ansible

  2. Install the python3-ovirt-engine-sdk4 package to get the Python Software Development Kit.

  3. Install the ovirt.image-template Ansible role. On the RHV Manager and other Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) machines, this role is distributed as the ovirt-ansible-image-template package. For example, enter:

    # dnf install ovirt-ansible-image-template

  4. Install the ovirt.vm-infra Ansible role. On the RHV Manager and other RHEL machines, this role is distributed as the ovirt-ansible-vm-infra package.

    # dnf install ovirt-ansible-vm-infra

  5. Create an environment variable and assign an absolute or relative path to it. For example, enter:

    $ export ASSETS_DIR=./wrk

    The installation program uses this variable to create a directory where it saves important installation-related files. Later, the installation process reuses this variable to locate those asset files. Avoid deleting this assets directory; it is required for uninstalling the cluster.

Installing OpenShift Container Platform on RHV in insecure mode

By default, the installer creates a CA certificate, prompts you for confirmation, and stores the certificate to use during installation. You do not need to create or install one manually.

Although it is not recommended, you can override this functionality and install OpenShift Container Platform without verifying a certificate by installing OpenShift Container Platform on RHV in insecure mode.

Installing in insecure mode is not recommended, because it enables a potential attacker to perform a Man-in-the-Middle attack and capture sensitive credentials on the network.
Procedure

  1. Create a file named ~/.ovirt/ovirt-config.yaml.

  2. Add the following content to ovirt-config.yaml:

    ovirt_url: https://ovirt.example.com/ovirt-engine/api (1)
ovirt_fqdn: ovirt.example.com (2)
ovirt_pem_url: ""
ovirt_username: ocpadmin@internal
ovirt_password: super-secret-password (3)
ovirt_insecure: true
    1 Specify the hostname or address of your oVirt engine.
    2 Specify the fully qualified domain name of your oVirt engine.
    3 Specify the admin password for your oVirt engine.

  3. Run the installer.

Generating a key pair for cluster node SSH access

During an OpenShift Container Platform installation, you can provide an SSH public key to the installation program. The key is passed to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) 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 RHCOS 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.
Procedure

  1. 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 OpenShift Container Platform cluster that uses FIPS validated or Modules In Process cryptographic libraries on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures. do not create a key that uses the ed25519 algorithm. Instead, create a key that uses the rsa or ecdsa algorithm.

  2. 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

  3. 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 ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_dsa are managed automatically.

    1. If the ssh-agent process is not already running for your local user, start it 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.

  4. 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
    Example output
    Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)
Next steps

  • When you install OpenShift Container Platform, provide the SSH public key to the installation program.

Obtaining the installation program

Before you install OpenShift Container Platform, download the installation file on the host you are using for installation.

Prerequisites

  • You have a computer that runs Linux or macOS, with 500 MB of local disk space.

Procedure

  1. Access the Infrastructure Provider page on the OpenShift Cluster Manager site. If you have a Red Hat account, log in with your credentials. If you do not, create an account.

  2. Select your infrastructure provider.

  3. Navigate to the page for your installation type, download the installation program that corresponds with your host operating system and architecture, and place the file in the directory where you will store the installation configuration files.

    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 OpenShift Container Platform uninstallation procedures for your specific cloud provider.

  4. 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

  5. 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 OpenShift Container Platform components.

Downloading the Ansible playbooks

Download the Ansible playbooks for installing OpenShift Container Platform version 4.12 on RHV.

Procedure

  • On your installation machine, run the following commands:

    $ mkdir playbooks
    $ cd playbooks
    $  xargs -n 1 curl -O <<< '
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openshift/installer/release-4.12/upi/ovirt/bootstrap.yml
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openshift/installer/release-4.12/upi/ovirt/common-auth.yml
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openshift/installer/release-4.12/upi/ovirt/create-templates-and-vms.yml
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openshift/installer/release-4.12/upi/ovirt/inventory.yml
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openshift/installer/release-4.12/upi/ovirt/masters.yml
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openshift/installer/release-4.12/upi/ovirt/retire-bootstrap.yml
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openshift/installer/release-4.12/upi/ovirt/retire-masters.yml
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openshift/installer/release-4.12/upi/ovirt/retire-workers.yml
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openshift/installer/release-4.12/upi/ovirt/workers.yml'
Next steps

  • After you download these Ansible playbooks, you must also create the environment variable for the assets directory and customize the inventory.yml file before you create an installation configuration file by running the installation program.

The inventory.yml file

You use the inventory.yml file to define and create elements of the OpenShift Container Platform cluster you are installing. This includes elements such as the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) image, virtual machine templates, bootstrap machine, control plane nodes, and worker nodes. You also use inventory.yml to destroy the cluster.

The following inventory.yml example shows you the parameters and their default values. The quantities and numbers in these default values meet the requirements for running a production OpenShift Container Platform cluster in a RHV environment.

Example inventory.yml file
---
all:
  vars:

    ovirt_cluster: "Default"
    ocp:
      assets_dir: "{{ lookup('env', 'ASSETS_DIR') }}"
      ovirt_config_path: "{{ lookup('env', 'HOME') }}/.ovirt/ovirt-config.yaml"

    # ---
    # {op-system} section
    # ---
    rhcos:
      image_url: "https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/dependencies/rhcos/4.12/latest/rhcos-openstack.x86_64.qcow2.gz"
      local_cmp_image_path: "/tmp/rhcos.qcow2.gz"
      local_image_path: "/tmp/rhcos.qcow2"

    # ---
    # Profiles section
    # ---
    control_plane:
      cluster: "{{ ovirt_cluster }}"
      memory: 16GiB
      sockets: 4
      cores: 1
      template: rhcos_tpl
      operating_system: "rhcos_x64"
      type: high_performance
      graphical_console:
        headless_mode: false
        protocol:
        - spice
        - vnc
      disks:
      - size: 120GiB
        name: os
        interface: virtio_scsi
        storage_domain: depot_nvme
      nics:
      - name: nic1
        network: lab
        profile: lab

    compute:
      cluster: "{{ ovirt_cluster }}"
      memory: 16GiB
      sockets: 4
      cores: 1
      template: worker_rhcos_tpl
      operating_system: "rhcos_x64"
      type: high_performance
      graphical_console:
        headless_mode: false
        protocol:
        - spice
        - vnc
      disks:
      - size: 120GiB
        name: os
        interface: virtio_scsi
        storage_domain: depot_nvme
      nics:
      - name: nic1
        network: lab
        profile: lab

    # ---
    # Virtual machines section
    # ---
    vms:
    - name: "{{ metadata.infraID }}-bootstrap"
      ocp_type: bootstrap
      profile: "{{ control_plane }}"
      type: server
    - name: "{{ metadata.infraID }}-master0"
      ocp_type: master
      profile: "{{ control_plane }}"
    - name: "{{ metadata.infraID }}-master1"
      ocp_type: master
      profile: "{{ control_plane }}"
    - name: "{{ metadata.infraID }}-master2"
      ocp_type: master
      profile: "{{ control_plane }}"
    - name: "{{ metadata.infraID }}-worker0"
      ocp_type: worker
      profile: "{{ compute }}"
    - name: "{{ metadata.infraID }}-worker1"
      ocp_type: worker
      profile: "{{ compute }}"
    - name: "{{ metadata.infraID }}-worker2"
      ocp_type: worker
      profile: "{{ compute }}"

Enter values for parameters whose descriptions begin with "Enter." Otherwise, you can use the default value or replace it with a new value.
General section

  • ovirt_cluster: Enter the name of an existing RHV cluster in which to install the OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

  • ocp.assets_dir: The path of a directory the openshift-install installation program creates to store the files that it generates.

  • ocp.ovirt_config_path: The path of the ovirt-config.yaml file the installation program generates, for example, ./wrk/install-config.yaml. This file contains the credentials required to interact with the REST API of the Manager.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) section

  • image_url: Enter the URL of the RHCOS image you specified for download.

  • local_cmp_image_path: The path of a local download directory for the compressed RHCOS image.

  • local_image_path: The path of a local directory for the extracted RHCOS image.

Profiles section

This section consists of two profiles:

  • control_plane: The profile of the bootstrap and control plane nodes.

  • compute: The profile of workers nodes in the compute plane.

These profiles have the following parameters. The default values of the parameters meet the minimum requirements for running a production cluster. You can increase or customize these values to meet your workload requirements.

  • cluster: The value gets the cluster name from ovirt_cluster in the General Section.

  • memory: The amount of memory, in GB, for the virtual machine.

  • sockets: The number of sockets for the virtual machine.

  • cores: The number of cores for the virtual machine.

  • template: The name of the virtual machine template. If plan to install multiple clusters, and these clusters use templates that contain different specifications, prepend the template name with the ID of the cluster.

  • operating_system: The type of guest operating system in the virtual machine. With oVirt/RHV version 4.4, this value must be rhcos_x64 so the value of Ignition script can be passed to the VM.

  • type: Enter server as the type of the virtual machine.

    You must change the value of the type parameter from high_performance to server.

  • disks: The disk specifications. The control_plane and compute nodes can have different storage domains.

  • size: The minimum disk size.

  • name: Enter the name of a disk connected to the target cluster in RHV.

  • interface: Enter the interface type of the disk you specified.

  • storage_domain: Enter the storage domain of the disk you specified.

  • nics: Enter the name and network the virtual machines use. You can also specify the virtual network interface profile. By default, NICs obtain their MAC addresses from the oVirt/RHV MAC pool.

Virtual machines section

This final section, vms, defines the virtual machines you plan to create and deploy in the cluster. By default, it provides the minimum number of control plane and worker nodes for a production environment.

vms contains three required elements:

  • name: The name of the virtual machine. In this case, metadata.infraID prepends the virtual machine name with the infrastructure ID from the metadata.yml file.

  • ocp_type: The role of the virtual machine in the OpenShift Container Platform cluster. Possible values are bootstrap, master, worker.

  • profile: The name of the profile from which each virtual machine inherits specifications. Possible values in this example are control_plane or compute.

    You can override the value a virtual machine inherits from its profile. To do this, you add the name of the profile attribute to the virtual machine in inventory.yml and assign it an overriding value. To see an example of this, examine the name: "{{ metadata.infraID }}-bootstrap" virtual machine in the preceding inventory.yml example: It has a type attribute whose value, server, overrides the value of the type attribute this virtual machine would otherwise inherit from the control_plane profile.

Metadata variables

For virtual machines, metadata.infraID prepends the name of the virtual machine with the infrastructure ID from the metadata.json file you create when you build the Ignition files.

The playbooks use the following code to read infraID from the specific file located in the ocp.assets_dir.

---
- name: include metadata.json vars
  include_vars:
    file: "{{ ocp.assets_dir }}/metadata.json"
    name: metadata

  ...

Specifying the RHCOS image settings

Update the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) image settings of the inventory.yml file. Later, when you run this file one of the playbooks, it downloads a compressed Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) image from the image_url URL to the local_cmp_image_path directory. The playbook then uncompresses the image to the local_image_path directory and uses it to create oVirt/RHV templates.

Procedure

  1. Locate the RHCOS image download page for the version of OpenShift Container Platform you are installing, such as Index of /pub/openshift-v4/dependencies/rhcos/latest/latest.

  2. From that download page, copy the URL of an OpenStack qcow2 image, such as https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/dependencies/rhcos/4.12/latest/rhcos-openstack.x86_64.qcow2.gz.

  3. Edit the inventory.yml playbook you downloaded earlier. In it, paste the URL as the value for image_url. For example:

    rhcos:
  "https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/dependencies/rhcos/4.12/latest/rhcos-openstack.x86_64.qcow2.gz"

Creating the install config file

You create an installation configuration file by running the installation program, openshift-install, and responding to its prompts with information you specified or gathered earlier.

When you finish responding to the prompts, the installation program creates an initial version of the install-config.yaml file in the assets directory you specified earlier, for example, ./wrk/install-config.yaml

The installation program also creates a file, $HOME/.ovirt/ovirt-config.yaml, that contains all the connection parameters that are required to reach the Manager and use its REST API.

NOTE: The installation process does not use values you supply for some parameters, such as Internal API virtual IP and Ingress virtual IP, because you have already configured them in your infrastructure DNS.

It also uses the values you supply for parameters in inventory.yml, like the ones for oVirt cluster, oVirt storage, and oVirt network. And uses a script to remove or replace these same values from install-config.yaml with the previously mentioned virtual IPs.

Procedure

  1. Run the installation program:

    $ openshift-install create install-config --dir $ASSETS_DIR

  2. Respond to the installation program’s prompts with information about your system.

    Example output
    ? SSH Public Key /home/user/.ssh/id_dsa.pub
? Platform <ovirt>
? Engine FQDN[:PORT] [? for help] <engine.fqdn>
? Enter ovirt-engine username <ocpadmin@internal>
? Enter password <******>
? oVirt cluster <cluster>
? oVirt storage <storage>
? oVirt network <net>
? Internal API virtual IP <172.16.0.252>
? Ingress virtual IP <172.16.0.251>
? Base Domain <example.org>
? Cluster Name <ocp4>
? Pull Secret [? for help] <********>
? SSH Public Key /home/user/.ssh/id_dsa.pub
? Platform <ovirt>
? Engine FQDN[:PORT] [? for help] <engine.fqdn>
? Enter ovirt-engine username <ocpadmin@internal>
? Enter password <******>
? oVirt cluster <cluster>
? oVirt storage <storage>
? oVirt network <net>
? Internal API virtual IP <172.16.0.252>
? Ingress virtual IP <172.16.0.251>
? Base Domain <example.org>
? Cluster Name <ocp4>
? Pull Secret [? for help] <********>

For Internal API virtual IP and Ingress virtual IP, supply the IP addresses you specified when you configured the DNS service.

Together, the values you enter for the oVirt cluster and Base Domain prompts form the FQDN portion of URLs for the REST API and any applications you create, such as https://api.ocp4.example.org:6443/ and https://console-openshift-console.apps.ocp4.example.org.

You can get the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager.

Customizing install-config.yaml

Here, you use three Python scripts to override some of the installation program’s default behaviors:

  • By default, the installation program uses the machine API to create nodes. To override this default behavior, you set the number of compute nodes to zero replicas. Later, you use Ansible playbooks to create the compute nodes.

  • By default, the installation program sets the IP range of the machine network for nodes. To override this default behavior, you set the IP range to match your infrastructure.

  • By default, the installation program sets the platform to ovirt. However, installing a cluster on user-provisioned infrastructure is more similar to installing a cluster on bare metal. Therefore, you delete the ovirt platform section from install-config.yaml and change the platform to none. Instead, you use inventory.yml to specify all of the required settings.

These snippets work with Python 3 and Python 2.
Procedure

  1. Set the number of compute nodes to zero replicas:

    $ python3 -c 'import os, yaml
path = "%s/install-config.yaml" % os.environ["ASSETS_DIR"]
conf = yaml.safe_load(open(path))
conf["compute"][0]["replicas"] = 0
open(path, "w").write(yaml.dump(conf, default_flow_style=False))'

  2. Set the IP range of the machine network. For example, to set the range to 172.16.0.0/16, enter:

    $ python3 -c 'import os, yaml
path = "%s/install-config.yaml" % os.environ["ASSETS_DIR"]
conf = yaml.safe_load(open(path))
conf["networking"]["machineNetwork"][0]["cidr"] = "172.16.0.0/16"
open(path, "w").write(yaml.dump(conf, default_flow_style=False))'

  3. Remove the ovirt section and change the platform to none:

    $ python3 -c 'import os, yaml
path = "%s/install-config.yaml" % os.environ["ASSETS_DIR"]
conf = yaml.safe_load(open(path))
platform = conf["platform"]
del platform["ovirt"]
platform["none"] = {}
open(path, "w").write(yaml.dump(conf, default_flow_style=False))'

    Red Hat Virtualization does not currently support installation with user-provisioned infrastructure on the oVirt platform. Therefore, you must set the platform to none, allowing OpenShift Container Platform to identify each node as a bare-metal node and the cluster as a bare-metal cluster. This is the same as installing a cluster on any platform, and has the following limitations:

    1. There will be no cluster provider so you must manually add each machine and there will be no node scaling capabilities.

    2. The oVirt CSI driver will not be installed and there will be no CSI capabilities.

Generate manifest files

Use the installation program to generate a set of manifest files in the assets directory.

The command to generate the manifest files displays a warning message before it consumes the install-config.yaml file.

If you plan to reuse the install-config.yaml file, create a backup copy of it before you back it up before you generate the manifest files.

Procedure

  1. Optional: Create a backup copy of the install-config.yaml file:

    $ cp install-config.yaml install-config.yaml.backup

  2. Generate a set of manifests in your assets directory:

    $ openshift-install create manifests --dir $ASSETS_DIR

    This command displays the following messages.

    Example output
    INFO Consuming Install Config from target directory
WARNING Making control-plane schedulable by setting MastersSchedulable to true for Scheduler cluster settings

    The command generates the following manifest files:

    Example output
    $ tree
.
└── wrk
    ├── manifests
    │   ├── 04-openshift-machine-config-operator.yaml
    │   ├── cluster-config.yaml
    │   ├── cluster-dns-02-config.yml
    │   ├── cluster-infrastructure-02-config.yml
    │   ├── cluster-ingress-02-config.yml
    │   ├── cluster-network-01-crd.yml
    │   ├── cluster-network-02-config.yml
    │   ├── cluster-proxy-01-config.yaml
    │   ├── cluster-scheduler-02-config.yml
    │   ├── cvo-overrides.yaml
    │   ├── etcd-ca-bundle-configmap.yaml
    │   ├── etcd-client-secret.yaml
    │   ├── etcd-host-service-endpoints.yaml
    │   ├── etcd-host-service.yaml
    │   ├── etcd-metric-client-secret.yaml
    │   ├── etcd-metric-serving-ca-configmap.yaml
    │   ├── etcd-metric-signer-secret.yaml
    │   ├── etcd-namespace.yaml
    │   ├── etcd-service.yaml
    │   ├── etcd-serving-ca-configmap.yaml
    │   ├── etcd-signer-secret.yaml
    │   ├── kube-cloud-config.yaml
    │   ├── kube-system-configmap-root-ca.yaml
    │   ├── machine-config-server-tls-secret.yaml
    │   └── openshift-config-secret-pull-secret.yaml
    └── openshift
        ├── 99_kubeadmin-password-secret.yaml
        ├── 99_openshift-cluster-api_master-user-data-secret.yaml
        ├── 99_openshift-cluster-api_worker-user-data-secret.yaml
        ├── 99_openshift-machineconfig_99-master-ssh.yaml
        ├── 99_openshift-machineconfig_99-worker-ssh.yaml
        └── openshift-install-manifests.yaml
Next steps

  • Make control plane nodes non-schedulable.

Making control-plane nodes non-schedulable

Because you are manually creating and deploying the control plane machines, you must configure a manifest file to make the control plane nodes non-schedulable.

Procedure

  1. To make the control plane nodes non-schedulable, enter:

    $ python3 -c 'import os, yaml
path = "%s/manifests/cluster-scheduler-02-config.yml" % os.environ["ASSETS_DIR"]
data = yaml.safe_load(open(path))
data["spec"]["mastersSchedulable"] = False
open(path, "w").write(yaml.dump(data, default_flow_style=False))'

Building the Ignition files

To build the Ignition files from the manifest files you just generated and modified, you run the installation program. This action creates a Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machine, initramfs, which fetches the Ignition files and performs the configurations needed to create a node.

In addition to the Ignition files, the installation program generates the following:

  • An auth directory that contains the admin credentials for connecting to the cluster with the oc and kubectl utilities.

  • A metadata.json file that contains information such as the OpenShift Container Platform cluster name, cluster ID, and infrastructure ID for the current installation.

The Ansible playbooks for this installation process use the value of infraID as a prefix for the virtual machines they create. This prevents naming conflicts when there are multiple installations in the same oVirt/RHV cluster.

Certificates in Ignition configuration files expire after 24 hours. Complete the cluster installation and keep the cluster running in a non-degraded state for 24 hours so that the first certificate rotation can finish.
Procedure

  1. To build the Ignition files, enter:

    $ openshift-install create ignition-configs --dir $ASSETS_DIR
    Example output
    $ tree
.
└── wrk
    ├── auth
    │   ├── kubeadmin-password
    │   └── kubeconfig
    ├── bootstrap.ign
    ├── master.ign
    ├── metadata.json
    └── worker.ign

Creating templates and virtual machines

After confirming the variables in the inventory.yml, you run the first Ansible provisioning playbook, create-templates-and-vms.yml.

This playbook uses the connection parameters for the RHV Manager from $HOME/.ovirt/ovirt-config.yaml and reads metadata.json in the assets directory.

If a local Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) image is not already present, the playbook downloads one from the URL you specified for image_url in inventory.yml. It extracts the image and uploads it to RHV to create templates.

The playbook creates a template based on the control_plane and compute profiles in the inventory.yml file. If these profiles have different names, it creates two templates.

When the playbook finishes, the virtual machines it creates are stopped. You can get information from them to help configure other infrastructure elements. For example, you can get the virtual machines' MAC addresses to configure DHCP to assign permanent IP addresses to the virtual machines.

Procedure

  1. In inventory.yml, under the control_plane and compute variables, change both instances of type: high_performance to type: server.

  2. Optional: If you plan to perform multiple installations to the same cluster, create different templates for each OpenShift Container Platform installation. In the inventory.yml file, prepend the value of template with infraID. For example:

      control_plane:
    cluster: "{{ ovirt_cluster }}"
    memory: 16GiB
    sockets: 4
    cores: 1
    template: "{{ metadata.infraID }}-rhcos_tpl"
    operating_system: "rhcos_x64"
    ...

  3. Create the templates and virtual machines:

    $ ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml create-templates-and-vms.yml

Creating the bootstrap machine

You create a bootstrap machine by running the bootstrap.yml playbook. This playbook starts the bootstrap virtual machine, and passes it the bootstrap.ign Ignition file from the assets directory. The bootstrap node configures itself so it can serve Ignition files to the control plane nodes.

To monitor the bootstrap process, you use the console in the RHV Administration Portal or connect to the virtual machine by using SSH.

Procedure

  1. Create the bootstrap machine:

    $ ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml bootstrap.yml

  2. Connect to the bootstrap machine using a console in the Administration Portal or SSH. Replace <bootstrap_ip> with the bootstrap node IP address. To use SSH, enter:

    $ ssh core@<boostrap.ip>

  3. Collect bootkube.service journald unit logs for the release image service from the bootstrap node:

    [core@ocp4-lk6b4-bootstrap ~]$ journalctl -b -f -u release-image.service -u bootkube.service

    The bootkube.service log on the bootstrap node outputs etcd connection refused errors, indicating that the bootstrap server is unable to connect to etcd on control plane nodes. After etcd has started on each control plane node and the nodes have joined the cluster, the errors should stop.

Creating the control plane nodes

You create the control plane nodes by running the masters.yml playbook. This playbook passes the master.ign Ignition file to each of the virtual machines. The Ignition file contains a directive for the control plane node to get the Ignition from a URL such as https://api-int.ocp4.example.org:22623/config/master. The port number in this URL is managed by the load balancer, and is accessible only inside the cluster.

Procedure

  1. Create the control plane nodes:

    $ ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml masters.yml

  2. While the playbook creates your control plane, monitor the bootstrapping process:

    $ openshift-install wait-for bootstrap-complete --dir $ASSETS_DIR
    Example output
    INFO API v1.25.0 up
INFO Waiting up to 40m0s for bootstrapping to complete...

  3. When all the pods on the control plane nodes and etcd are up and running, the installation program displays the following output.

    Example output
    INFO It is now safe to remove the bootstrap resources

Verifying cluster status

You can verify your OpenShift Container Platform cluster’s status during or after installation.

Procedure

  1. In the cluster environment, export the administrator’s kubeconfig file:

    $ export KUBECONFIG=$ASSETS_DIR/auth/kubeconfig

    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.

  2. View the control plane and compute machines created after a deployment:

    $ oc get nodes

  3. View your cluster’s version:

    $ oc get clusterversion

  4. View your Operators' status:

    $ oc get clusteroperator

  5. View all running pods in the cluster:

    $ oc get pods -A

Removing the bootstrap machine

After the wait-for command shows that the bootstrap process is complete, you must remove the bootstrap virtual machine to free up compute, memory, and storage resources. Also, remove settings for the bootstrap machine from the load balancer directives.

Procedure

  1. To remove the bootstrap machine from the cluster, enter:

    $ ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml retire-bootstrap.yml

  2. Remove settings for the bootstrap machine from the load balancer directives.

Creating the worker nodes and completing the installation

Creating worker nodes is similar to creating control plane nodes. However, worker nodes workers do not automatically join the cluster. To add them to the cluster, you review and approve the workers' pending CSRs (Certificate Signing Requests).

After approving the first requests, you continue approving CSR until all of the worker nodes are approved. When you complete this process, the worker nodes become Ready and can have pods scheduled to run on them.

Finally, monitor the command line to see when the installation process completes.

Procedure

  1. Create the worker nodes:

    $ ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml workers.yml

  2. To list all of the CSRs, enter:

    $ oc get csr -A

    Eventually, this command displays one CSR per node. For example:

    Example output
    NAME        AGE    SIGNERNAME                                    REQUESTOR                                                                   CONDITION
csr-2lnxd   63m    kubernetes.io/kubelet-serving                 system:node:ocp4-lk6b4-master0.ocp4.example.org                             Approved,Issued
csr-hff4q   64m    kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet   system:serviceaccount:openshift-machine-config-operator:node-bootstrapper   Approved,Issued
csr-hsn96   60m    kubernetes.io/kubelet-serving                 system:node:ocp4-lk6b4-master2.ocp4.example.org                             Approved,Issued
csr-m724n   6m2s   kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet   system:serviceaccount:openshift-machine-config-operator:node-bootstrapper   Pending
csr-p4dz2   60m    kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet   system:serviceaccount:openshift-machine-config-operator:node-bootstrapper   Approved,Issued
csr-t9vfj   60m    kubernetes.io/kubelet-serving                 system:node:ocp4-lk6b4-master1.ocp4.example.org                             Approved,Issued
csr-tggtr   61m    kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet   system:serviceaccount:openshift-machine-config-operator:node-bootstrapper   Approved,Issued
csr-wcbrf   7m6s   kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet   system:serviceaccount:openshift-machine-config-operator:node-bootstrapper   Pending

  3. To filter the list and see only pending CSRs, enter:

    $ watch "oc get csr -A | grep pending -i"

    This command refreshes the output every two seconds and displays only pending CSRs. For example:

    Example output
    Every 2.0s: oc get csr -A | grep pending -i

csr-m724n   10m   kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet   system:serviceaccount:openshift-machine-config-operator:node-bootstrapper   Pending
csr-wcbrf   11m   kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet   system:serviceaccount:openshift-machine-config-operator:node-bootstrapper   Pending

  4. Inspect each pending request. For example:

    Example output
    $ oc describe csr csr-m724n
    Example output
    Name:               csr-m724n
Labels:             <none>
Annotations:        <none>
CreationTimestamp:  Sun, 19 Jul 2020 15:59:37 +0200
Requesting User:    system:serviceaccount:openshift-machine-config-operator:node-bootstrapper
Signer:             kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet
Status:             Pending
Subject:
         Common Name:    system:node:ocp4-lk6b4-worker1.ocp4.example.org
         Serial Number:
         Organization:   system:nodes
Events:  <none>

  5. If the CSR information is correct, approve the request:

    $ oc adm certificate approve csr-m724n

  6. Wait for the installation process to finish:

    $ openshift-install wait-for install-complete --dir $ASSETS_DIR --log-level debug

    When the installation completes, the command line displays the URL of the OpenShift Container Platform web console and the administrator user name and password.

Telemetry access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, the Telemetry service, which runs by default to provide metrics about cluster health and the success of updates, requires internet access. If your cluster is connected to the internet, Telemetry runs automatically, and your cluster is registered to OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console.

After you confirm that your OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console inventory is correct, either maintained automatically by Telemetry or manually by using OpenShift Cluster Manager, use subscription watch to track your OpenShift Container Platform subscriptions at the account or multi-cluster level.

Additional resources