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Installing a cluster on IBM Power Virtual Server into an existing VPC

In OpenShift Container Platform version 4.13, you can install a cluster into an existing Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) on IBM Cloud VPC. The installation program provisions the rest of the required infrastructure, which you can then further customize. To customize the installation, you modify parameters in the install-config.yaml file before you install the cluster.

IBM Power Virtual Server using installer-provisioned infrastructure is a Technology Preview feature only. Technology Preview features are not supported with Red Hat production service level agreements (SLAs) and might not be functionally complete. Red Hat does not recommend using them in production. These features provide early access to upcoming product features, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process.

For more information about the support scope of Red Hat Technology Preview features, see Technology Preview Features Support Scope.

Prerequisites

About using a custom VPC

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.13, you can deploy a cluster using an existing IBM Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).

Because the installation program cannot know what other components are in your existing subnets, it cannot choose subnet CIDRs and so forth. You must configure networking for the subnets to which you will install the cluster.

Requirements for using your VPC

You must correctly configure the existing VPC and its subnets before you install the cluster. The installation program does not create a VPC or VPC subnet in this scenario.

The installation program cannot:

  • Subdivide network ranges for the cluster to use

  • Set route tables for the subnets

  • Set VPC options like DHCP

The installation program requires that you use the cloud-provided DNS server. Using a custom DNS server is not supported and causes the installation to fail.

VPC validation

The VPC and all of the subnets must be in an existing resource group. The cluster is deployed to this resource group.

As part of the installation, specify the following in the install-config.yaml file:

  • The name of the resource group

  • The name of VPC

  • The name of the VPC subnet

To ensure that the subnets that you provide are suitable, the installation program confirms that all of the subnets you specify exists.

Subnet IDs are not supported.

Isolation between clusters

If you deploy OpenShift Container Platform to an existing network, the isolation of cluster services is reduced in the following ways:

  • ICMP Ingress is allowed to the entire network.

  • TCP port 22 Ingress (SSH) is allowed to the entire network.

  • Control plane TCP 6443 Ingress (Kubernetes API) is allowed to the entire network.

  • Control plane TCP 22623 Ingress (MCS) is allowed to the entire network.

Internet access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.13, 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.

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.

  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

  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.

Exporting the API key

You must set the API key you created as a global variable; the installation program ingests the variable during startup to set the API key.

Prerequisites

  • You have created either a user API key or service ID API key for your IBM Cloud account.

Procedure

  • Export your API key for your account as a global variable:

    $ export IBMCLOUD_API_KEY=<api_key>

You must set the variable name exactly as specified; the installation program expects the variable name to be present during startup.

Creating the installation configuration file

You can customize the OpenShift Container Platform cluster you install on

Prerequisites

  • Obtain the OpenShift Container Platform installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.

  • Obtain service principal permissions at the subscription level.

Procedure

  1. Create the install-config.yaml file.

    1. Change to the directory that contains the installation program and run the following command:

      $ ./openshift-install create install-config --dir <installation_directory> (1)
      1 For <installation_directory>, specify the directory name to store the files that the installation program creates.

      When specifying the directory:

      • Verify that the directory has the execute permission. This permission is required to run Terraform binaries under the installation directory.

      • Use an empty directory. Some installation assets, such as bootstrap X.509 certificates, have short expiration intervals, therefore 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 OpenShift Container Platform version.

        Always delete the ~/.powervs directory to avoid reusing a stale configuration. Run the following command:

        $ rm -rf ~/.powervs

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

      1. Optional: Select an SSH key to use to access your cluster machines.

        For production OpenShift Container Platform clusters on which you want to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, specify an SSH key that your ssh-agent process uses.

      2. Enter a descriptive name for your cluster.

      3. Paste the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager.

  2. Modify the install-config.yaml file. You can find more information about the available parameters in the "Installation configuration parameters" section.

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

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

Installation configuration parameters

Before you deploy an OpenShift Container Platform cluster, you provide parameter values to describe your account on the cloud platform that hosts your cluster and optionally customize your cluster’s platform. When you create the install-config.yaml installation configuration file, you provide values for the required parameters through the command line. If you customize your cluster, you can modify the install-config.yaml file to provide more details about the platform.

Before you deploy an OpenShift Container Platform cluster, you provide a customized install-config.yaml installation configuration file that describes the details for your environment.

After installation, you cannot modify these parameters in the install-config.yaml file.

Required configuration parameters

Required installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 1. Required parameters
Parameter Description Values

apiVersion

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

String

baseDomain

The base domain of your cloud provider. The base domain is used to create routes to your OpenShift Container Platform cluster components. The full DNS name for your cluster is a combination of the baseDomain and metadata.name parameter values that uses the <metadata.name>.<baseDomain> format.

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

metadata

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

Object

metadata.name

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

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

platform

The configuration for the specific platform upon which to perform the installation: alibabacloud, aws, baremetal, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, powervs, vsphere, or {}. For additional information about platform.<platform> parameters, consult the table for your specific platform that follows.

Object

pullSecret

Get a pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager to authenticate downloading container images for OpenShift Container Platform components from services such as Quay.io.

 
{
   "auths":{
      "cloud.openshift.com":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      },
      "quay.io":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      }
   }
}

platform.powervs.userID

The UserID is the login for the user’s IBM Cloud account.

String. For example, existing_user_id.

platform.powervs.powervsResourceGroup

The PowerVSResourceGroup is the resource group in which IBM Power Virtual Server resources are created. If using an existing VPC, the existing VPC and subnets should be in this resource group.

String. For example, existing_resource_group.

platform.powervs.region

Specifies the IBM Cloud colo region where the cluster will be created.

String. For example, existing_region.

platform.powervs.zone

Specifies the IBM Cloud colo region where the cluster will be created.

String. For example, existing_zone.

platform.powervs.serviceInstanceID

The ServiceInstanceID is the ID of the Power IAAS instance created from the IBM Cloud Catalog.

String. For example, existing_service_instance_ID.

Network configuration parameters

You can customize your installation configuration based on the requirements of your existing network infrastructure. For example, you can expand the IP address block for the cluster network or provide different IP address blocks than the defaults.

Only IPv4 addresses are supported.

Globalnet is not supported with Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation disaster recovery solutions. For regional disaster recovery scenarios, ensure that you use a nonoverlapping range of private IP addresses for the cluster and service networks in each cluster.
Table 2. Network parameters
Parameter Description Values

networking

The configuration for the cluster network.

Object

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

networking.networkType

The Red Hat OpenShift Networking network plugin to install.

The default value is OVNKubernetes.

networking.clusterNetwork

The IP address blocks for pods.

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

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

An array of objects. For example:

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

networking.clusterNetwork.cidr

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

An IPv4 network.

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

networking.clusterNetwork.hostPrefix

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

A subnet prefix.

The default value is 23.

networking.serviceNetwork

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

The OpenShift SDN and OVN-Kubernetes network plugins support only a single IP address block for the service network.

An array with an IP address block in CIDR format. For example:

networking:
  serviceNetwork:
   - 172.30.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork

The IP address blocks for machines.

An array of objects. For example:

networking:
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork.cidr

Required if you use networking.machineNetwork. An IP address block. The default value is 10.0.0.0/16 for all platforms other than libvirt and IBM Power Virtual Server. For libvirt, the default value is 192.168.126.0/24. For IBM Power Virtual Server, the default value is 192.168.0.0/24.

An IP network block in CIDR notation.

For example, 192.168.0.0/24.

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

Optional configuration parameters

Optional installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 3. Optional parameters
Parameter Description Values

additionalTrustBundle

A PEM-encoded X.509 certificate bundle that is added to the nodes' trusted certificate store. This trust bundle may also be used when a proxy has been configured.

String

capabilities

Controls the installation of optional core cluster components. You can reduce the footprint of your OpenShift Container Platform cluster by disabling optional components. For more information, see the "Cluster capabilities" page in Installing.

String array

capabilities.baselineCapabilitySet

Selects an initial set of optional capabilities to enable. Valid values are None, v4.11, v4.12 and vCurrent. The default value is vCurrent.

String

capabilities.additionalEnabledCapabilities

Extends the set of optional capabilities beyond what you specify in baselineCapabilitySet. You may specify multiple capabilities in this parameter.

String array

cpuPartitioningMode

Enables workload partitioning, which isolates OpenShift Container Platform services, cluster management workloads, and infrastructure pods to run on a reserved set of CPUs. Workload partitioning can only be enabled during installation and cannot be disabled after installation. While this field enables workload partitioning, it does not configure workloads to use specific CPUs. For more information, see the Workload partitioning page in the Scalability and Performance section.

None or AllNodes. None is the default value.

compute

The configuration for the machines that comprise the compute nodes.

Array of MachinePool objects.

compute.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, heteregeneous clusters are not supported, so all pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are ppc64le (the default).

String

compute: hyperthreading:

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

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

Enabled or Disabled

compute.name

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

worker

compute.platform

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

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, powervs, vsphere, or {}

compute.replicas

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

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

featureSet

Enables the cluster for a feature set. A feature set is a collection of OpenShift Container Platform features that are not enabled by default. For more information about enabling a feature set during installation, see "Enabling features using feature gates".

String. The name of the feature set to enable, such as TechPreviewNoUpgrade.

controlPlane

The configuration for the machines that comprise the control plane.

Array of MachinePool objects.

controlPlane.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, heterogeneous clusters are not supported, so all pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are ppc64le (the default).

String

controlPlane: hyperthreading:

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

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

Enabled or Disabled

controlPlane.name

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

master

controlPlane.platform

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

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, powervs, vsphere, or {}

controlPlane.replicas

The number of control plane machines to provision.

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

credentialsMode

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

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

If your AWS account has service control policies (SCP) enabled, you must configure the credentialsMode parameter to Mint, Passthrough or Manual.

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

imageContentSources

Sources and repositories for the release-image content.

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

imageContentSources.source

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

String

imageContentSources.mirrors

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

Array of strings

publish

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

Internal or External. The default value is External.

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

sshKey

The SSH key to authenticate access to your cluster machines.

For production OpenShift Container Platform clusters on which you want to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, specify an SSH key that your ssh-agent process uses.

For example, sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA...

platform.powervs.vpcRegion

Specifies the IBM Cloud region in which to create VPC resources.

String. For example, existing_vpc_region.

platform.powervs.vpcSubnets

Specifies existing subnets (by name) where cluster resources will be created.

String. For example, powervs_region_example_subnet.

platform.powervs.vpcName

Specifies the IBM Cloud VPC name.

String. For example, existing_vpcName.

platform.powervs.cloudConnectionName

The CloudConnectionName is the name of an existing PowerVS Cloud connection.

String. For example, existing_cloudConnectionName.

platform.powervs.clusterOSImage

The ClusterOSImage is a pre-created IBM Power Virtual Server boot image that overrides the default image for cluster nodes.

String. For example, existing_cluster_os_image.

platform.powervs.defaultMachinePlatform

The DefaultMachinePlatform is the default configuration used when installing on IBM Power Virtual Server for machine pools that do not define their own platform configuration.

String. For example, existing_machine_platform.

platform.powervs.memoryGiB

The size of a virtual machine’s memory, in GB.

The valid integer must be an integer number of GB that is at least 2 and no more than 64, depending on the machine type.

platform.powervs.procType

The ProcType defines the processor sharing model for the instance.

The valid values are Capped, Dedicated, and Shared.

platform.powervs.processors

The Processors defines the processing units for the instance.

The number of processors must be from .5 to 32 cores. The processors must be in increments of .25.

platform.powervs.sysType

The SysType defines the system type for the instance.

The system type must be either e980 or s922.

  1. Not all CCO modes are supported for all cloud providers. For more information about CCO modes, see the "Managing cloud provider credentials" entry in the Authentication and authorization content.

    Cloud connections are no longer supported in the install-config.yaml while deploying in the dal10 region, as they have been replaced by the Power Edge Router (PER).

Minimum resource requirements for cluster installation

Each cluster machine must meet the following minimum requirements:

Table 4. Minimum resource requirements
Machine Operating System vCPU [1] Virtual RAM Storage Input/Output Per Second (IOPS)[2]

Bootstrap

RHCOS

4

16 GB

100 GB

300

Control plane

RHCOS

4

16 GB

100 GB

300

Compute

RHCOS, RHEL 8.6 and later [3]

2

8 GB

100 GB

300

  1. One vCPU is equivalent to one physical core when simultaneous multithreading (SMT), or Hyper-Threading, is not enabled. When enabled, use the following formula to calculate the corresponding ratio: (threads per core × cores) × sockets = vCPUs.

  2. OpenShift Container Platform and Kubernetes are sensitive to disk performance, and faster storage is recommended, particularly for etcd on the control plane nodes which require a 10 ms p99 fsync duration. Note that on many cloud platforms, storage size and IOPS scale together, so you might need to over-allocate storage volume to obtain sufficient performance.

  3. As with all user-provisioned installations, if you choose to use RHEL compute machines in your cluster, you take responsibility for all operating system life cycle management and maintenance, including performing system updates, applying patches, and completing all other required tasks. Use of RHEL 7 compute machines is deprecated and has been removed in OpenShift Container Platform 4.10 and later.

As of OpenShift Container Platform version 4.13, RHCOS is based on RHEL version 9.2, which updates the micro-architecture requirements. The following list contains the minimum instruction set architectures (ISA) that each architecture requires:

  • x86-64 architecture requires x86-64-v2 ISA

  • ARM64 architecture requires ARMv8.0-A ISA

  • IBM Power architecture requires Power 9 ISA

  • s390x architecture requires z14 ISA

For more information, see RHEL Architectures.

If an instance type for your platform meets the minimum requirements for cluster machines, it is supported to use in OpenShift Container Platform.

Additional resources

Sample customized install-config.yaml file for IBM Power Virtual Server

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

This sample YAML file is provided for reference only. You must obtain your install-config.yaml file by using the installation program and modify it.

 
apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: example.com
compute:  (1) (2)
- architecture: ppc64le
  hyperthreading: Enabled (3)
  name: worker
  platform: {}
  replicas: 3
controlPlane:  (1) (2)
  architecture: ppc64le
  hyperthreading: Enabled (3)
  name: master
  platform: {}
  replicas: 3
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: example-cluster-existing-vpc
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14 (4)
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 192.168.0.0/24
  networkType: OVNKubernetes (5)
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  powervs:
    userID: ibm-user-id
    powervsResourceGroup: "ibmcloud-resource-group"
    region: powervs-region
    vpcRegion : vpc-region
    vpcName: name-of-existing-vpc (6)
    vpcSubnets: (7)
    - powervs-region-example-subnet-1
    zone: powervs-zone
    serviceInstanceID: "powervs-region-service-instance-id"
credentialsMode: Manual
publish: External (8)
pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}' (9)
fips: false
sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA... (10)
1 If you do not provide these parameters and values, the installation program provides the default value.
2 The controlPlane section is a single mapping, but the compute section is a sequence of mappings. To meet the requirements of the different data structures, the first line of the compute section must begin with a hyphen, -, and the first line of the controlPlane section must not. Both sections currently define a single machine pool. Only one control plane pool is used.
3 Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores. You can disable it by setting the parameter value to Disabled. If you disable simultaneous multithreading in some cluster machines, you must disable it in all cluster machines.
4 The machine CIDR must contain the subnets for the compute machines and control plane machines.
5 The cluster network plugin to install. The supported values are OVNKubernetes and OpenShiftSDN. The default value is OVNKubernetes.
6 Specify the name of an existing VPC.
7 Specify the name of the existing VPC subnet. The subnets must belong to the VPC that you specified. Specify a subnet for each availability zone in the region.
8 How to publish the user-facing endpoints of your cluster.
9 Required. The installation program prompts you for this value.
10 Provide the sshKey value that you use to access the machines in your cluster.

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

For production OpenShift Container Platform clusters on which you want to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, specify an SSH key that your ssh-agent process uses.

Configuring the cluster-wide proxy during installation

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

Prerequisites

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

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

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

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

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

    apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: my.domain.com
proxy:
  httpProxy: http://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> (1)
  httpsProxy: https://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> (2)
  noProxy: example.com (3)
additionalTrustBundle: | (4)
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    <MY_TRUSTED_CA_CERT>
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
additionalTrustBundlePolicy: <policy_to_add_additionalTrustBundle> (5)
    1 A proxy URL to use for creating HTTP connections outside the cluster. The URL scheme must be http.
    2 A proxy URL to use for creating HTTPS connections outside the cluster.
    3 A comma-separated list of destination domain names, IP addresses, or other network CIDRs to exclude from proxying. Preface a domain with . to match subdomains only. For example, .y.com matches x.y.com, but not y.com. Use * to bypass the proxy for all destinations.
    4 If provided, the installation program generates a config map that is named user-ca-bundle in the openshift-config namespace that contains one or more additional CA certificates that are required for proxying HTTPS connections. The Cluster Network Operator then creates a trusted-ca-bundle config map that merges these contents with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) trust bundle, and this config map is referenced in the trustedCA field of the Proxy object. The additionalTrustBundle field is required unless the proxy’s identity certificate is signed by an authority from the RHCOS trust bundle.
    5 Optional: The policy to determine the configuration of the Proxy object to reference the user-ca-bundle config map in the trustedCA field. The allowed values are Proxyonly and Always. Use Proxyonly to reference the user-ca-bundle config map only when http/https proxy is configured. Use Always to always reference the user-ca-bundle config map. The default value is Proxyonly.

    The installation program does not support the proxy readinessEndpoints field.

    If the installer times out, restart and then complete the deployment by using the wait-for command of the installer. For example:

    $ ./openshift-install wait-for install-complete --log-level debug

  2. Save the file and reference it when installing OpenShift Container Platform.

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

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

Manually creating IAM

Installing the cluster requires that the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) operate in manual mode. While the installation program configures the CCO for manual mode, you must specify the identity and access management secrets for you cloud provider.

You can use the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) utility (ccoctl) to create the required IBM Cloud VPC resources.

Prerequisites

  • You have configured the ccoctl binary.

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

Procedure

  1. 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: ppc64le
  hyperthreading: Enabled
    1 This line is added to set the credentialsMode parameter to Manual.

  2. To generate the manifests, run the following command from the directory that contains the installation program:

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

  3. From the directory that contains the installation program, obtain the OpenShift Container Platform release image that your openshift-install binary is built to use:

    $ RELEASE_IMAGE=$(./openshift-install version | awk '/release image/ {print $3}')

  4. Extract the CredentialsRequest objects from the OpenShift Container Platform release image:

    $ oc adm release extract \
  --from=$RELEASE_IMAGE \
  --credentials-requests \
  --cloud=<provider_name> \(1)
  --to=<path_to_credential_requests_directory> (2)
    1 The name of the provider. For example: ibmcloud or powervs.
    2 The directory where the credential requests will be stored.

    This command creates a YAML file for each CredentialsRequest object.

    Sample CredentialsRequest object
      apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
  kind: CredentialsRequest
  metadata:
    labels:
      controller-tools.k8s.io: "1.0"
    name: openshift-image-registry-ibmcos
    namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator
  spec:
    secretRef:
      name: installer-cloud-credentials
      namespace: openshift-image-registry
    providerSpec:
      apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
      kind: IBMCloudProviderSpec
      policies:
      - attributes:
        - name: serviceName
          value: cloud-object-storage
        roles:
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Viewer
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Operator
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Editor
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::serviceRole:Reader
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::serviceRole:Writer
      - attributes:
        - name: resourceType
          value: resource-group
        roles:
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Viewer

  5. Create the service ID for each credential request, assign the policies defined, create an API key, and generate the secret:

    $ ccoctl ibmcloud create-service-id \
    --credentials-requests-dir <path_to_credential_requests_directory> \(1)
    --name <cluster_name> \(2)
    --output-dir <installation_directory> \
    --resource-group-name <resource_group_name> (3)
    1 The directory where the credential requests are stored.
    2 The name of the OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
    3 Optional: The name of the resource group used for scoping the access policies.

    If your cluster uses Technology Preview features that are enabled by the TechPreviewNoUpgrade feature set, you must include the --enable-tech-preview parameter.

    If an incorrect resource group name is provided, the installation fails during the bootstrap phase. To find the correct resource group name, run the following command:

    $ grep resourceGroup <installation_directory>/manifests/cluster-infrastructure-02-config.yml
Verification

  • Ensure that the appropriate secrets were generated in your cluster’s manifests directory.

Deploying the cluster

You can install OpenShift Container Platform on a compatible cloud platform.

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

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

  • Obtain the OpenShift Container Platform installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.

  • Verify the cloud provider account on your host has the correct permissions to deploy the cluster. An account with incorrect permissions causes the installation process to fail with an error message that displays the missing permissions.

Procedure

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

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

When the cluster deployment completes successfully:

  • The terminal displays directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to the web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user.

  • Credential information also outputs to <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log.

Do not delete the installation program or the files that the installation program creates. Both are required to delete the cluster.
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: "password"
INFO Time elapsed: 36m22s

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

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

Installing the OpenShift CLI by downloading the binary

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

If you installed an earlier version of oc, you cannot use it to complete all of the commands in OpenShift Container Platform 4.13. Download and install the new version of oc.

Installing the OpenShift CLI on Linux

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.

  2. Select the architecture from the Product Variant drop-down list.

  3. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.

  4. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.13 Linux Client entry and save the file.

  5. Unpack the archive:

    $ tar xvf <file>

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

    To check your PATH, execute the following command:

    $ echo $PATH
Verification

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

    $ oc <command>

Installing the OpenShift CLI on Windows

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.

  2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.

  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.13 Windows Client entry and save the file.

  4. Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.

  5. 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
Verification

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

    C:\> oc <command>

Installing the OpenShift CLI on macOS

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.

  2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.

  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.13 macOS Client entry and save the file.

    For macOS arm64, choose the OpenShift v4.13 macOS arm64 Client entry.

  4. Unpack and unzip the archive.

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

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

    $ echo $PATH
Verification

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

    $ oc <command>

Logging in to the cluster by using the CLI

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

Prerequisites

  • You deployed an OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

  • You installed the oc CLI.

Procedure

  1. Export the kubeadmin credentials:

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

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

    $ oc whoami
    Example output
    system:admin
Additional resources

Telemetry access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.13, 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

Next steps