Starting on March 12, 2025, OpenShift docs will only be available at docs.redhat.com. From that time on, docs.openshift.com links will automatically redirect to their locations on docs.redhat.com.
  1. Documentation
    2. history bug_report picture_as_pdf
×

Installing a cluster

Prerequisites

Installing OpenShift Container Platform with the Agent-based Installer

The following procedures deploy a single-node OpenShift Container Platform in a disconnected environment. You can use these procedures as a basis and modify according to your requirements.

Downloading the Agent-based Installer

Use this procedure to download the Agent-based Installer and the CLI needed for your installation.

Currently, downloading the Agent-based Installer is not supported on the IBM Z® (s390x) architecture. The recommended method is by creating PXE assets.
Procedure

  1. Log in to the OpenShift Container Platform web console using your login credentials.

  2. Navigate to Datacenter.

  3. Click Run Agent-based Installer locally.

  4. Select the operating system and architecture for the OpenShift Installer and Command line interface.

  5. Click Download Installer to download and extract the install program.

  6. Download or copy the pull secret by clicking on Download pull secret or Copy pull secret.

  7. Click Download command-line tools and place the openshift-install binary in a directory that is on your PATH.

Creating the configuration inputs

You must create the configuration files that are used by the installation program to create the agent image.

Procedure

  1. Place the openshift-install binary in a directory that is on your PATH.

  2. Create a directory to store the install configuration by running the following command:

    $ mkdir ~/<directory_name>

  3. Create the install-config.yaml file by running the following command:

    $ cat << EOF > ./my-cluster/install-config.yaml
apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: test.example.com
compute:
- architecture: amd64 (1)
  hyperthreading: Enabled
  name: worker
  replicas: 0
controlPlane:
  architecture: amd64
  hyperthreading: Enabled
  name: master
  replicas: 1
metadata:
  name: sno-cluster (2)
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: fd01::/48
    hostPrefix: 64
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: fd2e:6f44:5dd8:c956::/120
  networkType: OVNKubernetes (3)
  serviceNetwork:
  - fd02::/112
platform: (4)
  none: {}
pullSecret: '<pull_secret>' (5)
sshKey: '<ssh_pub_key>' (6)
additionalTrustBundle: | (7)
  -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
  ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
  -----END CERTIFICATE-----
imageContentSources: (8)
- mirrors:
  - <local_registry>/<local_repository_name>/release
  source: quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-release
- mirrors:
  - <local_registry>/<local_repository_name>/release
  source: quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-v4.0-art-dev
EOF
    1 Specify the system architecture. Valid values are amd64, arm64, ppc64le, and s390x.

    If you are using the release image with the multi payload, you can install the cluster on different architectures such as arm64, amd64, s390x, and ppc64le. Otherwise, you can install the cluster only on the release architecture displayed in the output of the openshift-install version command. For more information, see "Verifying the supported architecture for installing an Agent-based Installer cluster".
    2 Required. Specify your cluster name.
    3 The cluster network plugin to install. The default value OVNKubernetes is the only supported value.
    4 Specify your platform.

    For bare metal platforms, host settings made in the platform section of the install-config.yaml file are used by default, unless they are overridden by configurations made in the agent-config.yaml file.
    5 Specify your pull secret.
    6 Specify your SSH public key.
    7 Provide the contents of the certificate file that you used for your mirror registry. The certificate file can be an existing, trusted certificate authority or the self-signed certificate that you generated for the mirror registry. You must specify this parameter if you are using a disconnected mirror registry.
    8 Provide the imageContentSources section according to the output of the command that you used to mirror the repository. You must specify this parameter if you are using a disconnected mirror registry.

    • When using the oc adm release mirror command, use the output from the imageContentSources section.

    • When using the oc mirror command, use the repositoryDigestMirrors section of the ImageContentSourcePolicy file that results from running the command.

    • The ImageContentSourcePolicy resource is deprecated.

  4. Create the agent-config.yaml file by running the following command:

    $ cat > agent-config.yaml << EOF
apiVersion: v1beta1
kind: AgentConfig
metadata:
  name: sno-cluster
rendezvousIP: fd2e:6f44:5dd8:c956::50 (1)
EOF
    1 This IP address is used to determine which node performs the bootstrapping process as well as running the assisted-service component. You must provide the rendezvous IP address when you do not specify at least one host IP address in the networkConfig parameter. If this address is not provided, one IP address is selected from the provided host networkConfig parameter.

Creating and booting the agent image

Use this procedure to boot the agent image on your machines.

Procedure

  1. Create the agent image by running the following command:

    $ openshift-install --dir <install_directory> agent create image
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) supports multipathing on the primary disk, allowing stronger resilience to hardware failure to achieve higher host availability. Multipathing is enabled by default in the agent ISO image, with a default /etc/multipath.conf configuration.

  2. Boot the agent.x86_64.iso or agent.aarch64.iso image on the bare metal machines.

Verifying that the current installation host can pull release images

After you boot the agent image and network services are made available to the host, the agent console application performs a pull check to verify that the current host can retrieve release images.

If the primary pull check passes, you can quit the application to continue with the installation. If the pull check fails, the application performs additional checks, as seen in the Additional checks section of the TUI, to help you troubleshoot the problem. A failure for any of the additional checks is not necessarily critical as long as the primary pull check succeeds.

If there are host network configuration issues that might cause an installation to fail, you can use the console application to make adjustments to your network configurations.

If the agent console application detects host network configuration issues, the installation workflow will be halted until the user manually stops the console application and signals the intention to proceed.
Procedure

  1. Wait for the agent console application to check whether or not the configured release image can be pulled from a registry.

  2. If the agent console application states that the installer connectivity checks have passed, wait for the prompt to time out to continue with the installation.

    You can still choose to view or change network configuration settings even if the connectivity checks have passed.

    However, if you choose to interact with the agent console application rather than letting it time out, you must manually quit the TUI to proceed with the installation.

  3. If the agent console application checks have failed, which is indicated by a red icon beside the Release image URL pull check, use the following steps to reconfigure the host’s network settings:

    1. Read the Check Errors section of the TUI. This section displays error messages specific to the failed checks.

      The home screen of the agent console application displaying check errors

    2. Select Configure network to launch the NetworkManager TUI.

    3. Select Edit a connection and select the connection you want to reconfigure.

    4. Edit the configuration and select OK to save your changes.

    5. Select Back to return to the main screen of the NetworkManager TUI.

    6. Select Activate a Connection.

    7. Select the reconfigured network to deactivate it.

    8. Select the reconfigured network again to reactivate it.

    9. Select Back and then select Quit to return to the agent console application.

    10. Wait at least five seconds for the continuous network checks to restart using the new network configuration.

    11. If the Release image URL pull check succeeds and displays a green icon beside the URL, select Quit to exit the agent console application and continue with the installation.

Tracking and verifying installation progress

Use the following procedure to track installation progress and to verify a successful installation.

Prerequisites

  • You have configured a DNS record for the Kubernetes API server.

Procedure

  1. Optional: To know when the bootstrap host (rendezvous host) reboots, run the following command:

    $ ./openshift-install --dir <install_directory> agent wait-for bootstrap-complete \(1)
    --log-level=info (2)
    1 For <install_directory>, specify the path to the directory where the agent ISO was generated.
    2 To view different installation details, specify warn, debug, or error instead of info.
    Example output
    ...................................................................
...................................................................
INFO Bootstrap configMap status is complete
INFO cluster bootstrap is complete

    The command succeeds when the Kubernetes API server signals that it has been bootstrapped on the control plane machines.

  2. To track the progress and verify successful installation, run the following command:

    $ openshift-install --dir <install_directory> agent wait-for install-complete (1)
    1 For <install_directory> directory, specify the path to the directory where the agent ISO was generated.
    Example output
    ...................................................................
...................................................................
INFO Cluster is installed
INFO Install complete!
INFO To access the cluster as the system:admin user when using 'oc', run
INFO     export KUBECONFIG=/home/core/installer/auth/kubeconfig
INFO Access the OpenShift web-console here: https://console-openshift-console.apps.sno-cluster.test.example.com

Gathering log data from a failed Agent-based installation

Use the following procedure to gather log data about a failed Agent-based installation to provide for a support case.

Prerequisites

  • You have configured a DNS record for the Kubernetes API server.

Procedure

  1. Run the following command and collect the output:

    $ ./openshift-install --dir <installation_directory> agent wait-for bootstrap-complete --log-level=debug
    Example error message
    ...
ERROR Bootstrap failed to complete: : bootstrap process timed out: context deadline exceeded

  2. If the output from the previous command indicates a failure, or if the bootstrap is not progressing, run the following command to connect to the rendezvous host and collect the output:

    $ ssh core@<node-ip> agent-gather -O >agent-gather.tar.xz

    Red Hat Support can diagnose most issues using the data gathered from the rendezvous host, but if some hosts are not able to register, gathering this data from every host might be helpful.

  3. If the bootstrap completes and the cluster nodes reboot, run the following command and collect the output:

    $ ./openshift-install --dir <install_directory> agent wait-for install-complete --log-level=debug

  4. If the output from the previous command indicates a failure, perform the following steps:

    1. Export the kubeconfig file to your environment by running the following command:

      $ export KUBECONFIG=<install_directory>/auth/kubeconfig

    2. Gather information for debugging by running the following command:

      $ oc adm must-gather

    3. Create a compressed file from the must-gather directory that was just created in your working directory by running the following command:

      $ tar cvaf must-gather.tar.gz <must_gather_directory>

  5. Excluding the /auth subdirectory, attach the installation directory used during the deployment to your support case on the Red Hat Customer Portal.

  6. Attach all other data gathered from this procedure to your support case.