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Installing a cluster on OpenStack with customizations

Resource guidelines for installing OpenShift Container Platform on RHOSP

Your quota must meet the following requirements to run the OpenShift Container Platform installation program in Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP).

Table 1. Recommended resources for a default OpenShift Container Platform cluster on RHOSP
Resource Value

Floating IP addresses

2

Ports

15

Routers

1

Subnets

1

RAM

112 GB

vCPUs

28

Volume storage

175 GB

Instances

7

Security groups

3

Security group rules

60

Swift containers

2

Swift objects

1

Swift available space

10 MB or more
Swift space requirements vary depending on the size of the bootstrap Ignition file and image registry.

A cluster might function with fewer than recommended resources, but its performance is not guaranteed.

By default, your security group and security group rule quotas might be low. If you encounter problems, run openstack quota set --secgroups 3 --secgroup-rules 60 <project> as an administrator to increase them.

An OpenShift Container Platform deployment comprises control plane machines, compute machines, and a bootstrap machine.

Control plane and compute machines

By default, the OpenShift Container Platform installation program stands up three control plane and compute machines.

Each machine requires:

  • An instance from the RHOSP quota

  • A port from the RHOSP quota

  • A flavor with at least 16 GB memory, 4 vCPUs, and 25 GB storage space

Compute machines host the applications that you run on OpenShift Container Platform; aim to run as many as you can.

Bootstrap machine

During installation, a bootstrap machine is temporarily provisioned to stand up the control plane. After the production control plane is ready, the bootstrap machine is deprovisioned.

The bootstrap machine requires:

  • An instance from the RHOSP quota

  • A port from the RHOSP quota

  • A flavor with at least 16 GB memory, 4 vCPUs, and 25 GB storage space

The installation program cannot pass certificate authority bundles to Ignition on control plane machines. Therefore, the bootstrap machine cannot retrieve Ignition configurations from Swift if your endpoint uses self-signed certificates.

Internet and Telemetry access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.2, you require access to the internet to install your cluster. The Telemetry service, which runs by default to provide metrics about cluster health and the success of updates, also requires internet access. If your cluster is connected to the internet, Telemetry runs automatically, and your cluster is registered to the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager (OCM).

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

You must have internet access to:

  • Access the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager page 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 content that is required and use it to populate a mirror registry with the packages that you need to install a cluster and generate the installation program. 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.

Enabling Swift on RHOSP

OpenShift Container Platform on Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) uses RHOSP Object Storage (Swift) to store and serve user configuration files.

Swift is operated by a user account with the swiftoperator role and temp-url support.

Prerequisites
Procedure

To enable Swift on RHOSP:

  1. As an administrator in the RHOSP CLI, add the swiftoperator role to the account that will access Swift:

    $ openstack role add --user <user> --project <project> swiftoperator

  2. As the account with the swiftoperator role, set a temporary URL property for the account:

    $ openstack object store account set --property Temp-URL-Key=superkey

Your RHOSP deployment can now use Swift to store and serve files.

Creating the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) image

The OpenShift Container Platform installation program requires that a Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) image be present in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) cluster. Retrieve the latest RHCOS image, then upload it using the RHOSP CLI.

Prerequisites

  • The RHOSP CLI is installed.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the Red Hat customer portal’s Product Downloads page.

  2. Under Version, select version 4.2.0 for RHEL 8.

  3. Download the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS - OpenStack Image (QCOW).

    The RHCOS images might not change with every release of OpenShift Container Platform. You must download images with the highest version that is less than or equal to the OpenShift Container Platform version that you install. Use the image versions that match your OpenShift Container Platform version if they are available.

  4. Decompress the image.

    You must decompress the RHOSP image before the cluster can use it.

  5. From the image that you downloaded, create an image that is named rhcos in your cluster by using the RHOSP CLI:

    $ openstack image create --container-format=bare --disk-format=qcow2 --file rhcos-${RHCOS_VERSION}-openstack.qcow2 rhcos
    If the installation program finds multiple images with the same name, it chooses one of them at random. To avoid this behavior, create unique names for resources in RHOSP.

After you upload the image to RHOSP, it is available to the installation program.

Verifying external network access

The OpenShift Container Platform installer requires external network access. You must provide an external network value to it, or deployment fails. Before you run the installer, verify that a network with the External router type exists in Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP).

Prerequisites

  • On RHOSP, the NeutronDhcpAgentDnsmasqDnsServers parameter must be configured to allow DHCP agents to forward instances' DNS queries. One way to set this parameter is to:

    1. Create a new environment file in the template directory.

    2. Provide parameter values in the file. For example:

      Sample neutron-dhcp-agent-dnsmasq-dns-servers.yaml file
      parameter_defaults:
  NeutronDhcpAgentDnsmasqDnsServers: ['<DNS_server_address_1>','<DNS_server_address_2']

    3. Include the environment file in your Overcloud deploy command. For example:

      $ openstack overcloud deploy --templates -e neutron-dhcp-agent-dnsmasq-dns-servers.yaml ...
Procedure

  1. Using the RHOSP CLI, verify the name and ID of the 'External' network:

    $ openstack network list --long -c ID -c Name -c "Router Type"

+--------------------------------------+----------------+-------------+
| ID                                   | Name           | Router Type |
+--------------------------------------+----------------+-------------+
| 148a8023-62a7-4672-b018-003462f8d7dc | public_network | External    |
+--------------------------------------+----------------+-------------+

A network with an External router type appears in the network list. If at least one does not, see Create an external network.

If the external network’s CIDR range overlaps one of the default network ranges, you must change the matching network ranges in the install-config.yaml file before you run the installation program.

The default network ranges are:

Network Range

machineCIDR

10.0.0.0/16

serviceNetwork

172.30.0.0/16

clusterNetwork

10.128.0.0/14
If the installation program finds multiple networks with the same name, it sets one of them at random. To avoid this behavior, create unique names for resources in RHOSP.

If the Neutron trunk service plug-in is enabled, a trunk port is created by default. For more information, see Neutron trunk port.

Defining parameters for the installation program

The OpenShift Container Platform installation program relies on a file called clouds.yaml. The file describes Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) configuration parameters, including the project name, log in information, and authorization service URLs.

Procedure

  1. Create the clouds.yaml file:

    • If your RHOSP distribution includes the Horizon web UI, generate a clouds.yaml file in it.

      Remember to add a password to the auth field. You can also keep secrets in a separate file from clouds.yaml.

    • If your RHOSP distribution does not include the Horizon web UI, or you do not want to use Horizon, create the file yourself. For detailed information about clouds.yaml, see Config files in the RHOSP documentation.

      clouds:
  shiftstack:
    auth:
      auth_url: http://10.10.14.42:5000/v3
      project_name: shiftstack
      username: shiftstack_user
      password: XXX
      user_domain_name: Default
      project_domain_name: Default
  dev-env:
    region_name: RegionOne
    auth:
      username: 'devuser'
      password: XXX
      project_name: 'devonly'
      auth_url: 'https://10.10.14.22:5001/v2.0'

  2. Place the file that you generate in one of the following locations:

    1. The value of the OS_CLIENT_CONFIG_FILE environment variable

    2. The current directory

    3. A Unix-specific user configuration directory, for example ~/.config/openstack/clouds.yaml

    4. A Unix-specific site configuration directory, for example /etc/openstack/clouds.yaml

      The installation program searches for clouds.yaml in that order.

Obtaining the installation program

Before you install OpenShift Container Platform, download the installation file on a local computer.

Prerequisites

  • You must install the cluster from a computer that uses Linux or macOS.

  • You need 500 MB of local disk space to download the installation program.

Procedure

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

  2. Navigate to the page for your installation type, download the installation program for your operating system, 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 both the installation program and the files that the installation program creates after you finish installing the cluster.

    Deleting the files created by the installation program does not remove your cluster, even if the cluster failed during installation. You must complete the OpenShift Container Platform uninstallation procedures outlined for your specific cloud provider to remove your cluster entirely.

  3. Extract the installation program. For example, on a computer that uses a Linux operating system, run the following command:

    $ tar xvf <installation_program>.tar.gz

  4. From the Pull Secret page on the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager site, download your installation pull secret as a .txt file. 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.

Creating the installation configuration file

You can customize your installation of OpenShift Container Platform on Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP).

Prerequisites

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

Procedure

  1. Create the install-config.yaml file.

    1. 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.

      Specify an empty directory. Some installation assets, like bootstrap X.509 certificates have short expiration intervals, so 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.

    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 on, specify an SSH key that your ssh-agent process uses.

      2. Select openstack as the platform to target.

      3. Specify the Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) external network name to use for installing the cluster.

      4. Specify the Floating IP address to use for external access to the OpenShift API.

      5. Specify a RHOSP flavor with at least 16 GB RAM to use for control plane and compute nodes.

      6. Select the base domain to deploy the cluster to. All DNS records will be sub-domains of this base and will also include the cluster name.

      7. Enter a name for your cluster. The name must be 14 or fewer characters long.

      8. Paste the pull secret that you obtained from the Pull Secret page on the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager site.

  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.

You cannot modify these parameters in the install-config.yaml file after installation.
Table 2. Required parameters
Parameter Description Values

baseDomain

The base domain of your cloud provider. This value 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.

controlPlane.platform

The cloud provider to host the control plane machines. This parameter value must match the compute.platform parameter value.

aws, azure, gcp, openstack, or {}

compute.platform

The cloud provider to host the worker machines. This parameter value must match the controlPlane.platform parameter value.

aws, azure, gcp, openstack, or {}

metadata.name

The name of your cluster.

A string that contains uppercase or lowercase letters, such as dev. The string must be 14 characters or fewer long.

platform.<platform>.region

The region to deploy your cluster in.

A valid region for your cloud, such as us-east-1 for AWS, centralus for Azure, or region1 for Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP).

pullSecret

The pull secret that you obtained from the Pull Secret page on the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager site. You use this pull secret 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.

 
{
   "auths":{
      "cloud.openshift.com":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      },
      "quay.io":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      }
   }
}
Table 3. Optional parameters
Parameter Description Values

sshKey

The 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 on, specify an SSH key that your ssh-agent process uses.

A valid, local public SSH key that you added to the ssh-agent process.

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.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.

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.replicas

The number of control plane machines to provision.

A positive integer greater than or equal to 3. The default value is 3.
Table 4. Additional Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) parameters
Parameter Description Values

compute.platform.openstack.rootVolume.size

For compute machines, the size in gigabytes of the root volume. If you do not set this value, machines use ephemeral storage.

Integer, for example 30.

compute.platform.openstack.rootVolume.type

For compute machines, the root volume’s type.

String, for example performance.

controlPlane.platform.openstack.rootVolume.size

For control plane machines, the size in gigabytes of the root volume. If you do not set this value, machines use ephemeral storage.

Integer, for example 30.

controlPlane.platform.openstack.rootVolume.type

For control plane machines, the root volume’s type.

String, for example performance.

platform.openstack.region

The region where the RHOSP cluster is created.

String, for example region1.

platform.openstack.cloud

The name of the RHOSP cloud to use from the list of clouds in the clouds.yaml file.

String, for example MyCloud.

platform.openstack.externalDNS

Optional. IP addresses for external DNS servers that cluster instances use for DNS resolution.

A list of IP addresses as strings, for example ["8.8.8.8", "192.168.1.12"].

platform.openstack.externalNetwork

The RHOSP external network name to be used for installation.

String, for example external.

platform.openstack.computeFlavor

The RHOSP flavor to use for control plane and compute machines.

String, for example m1.xlarge.

platform.openstack.lbFloatingIP

An existing floating IP address to associate with the load balancer API.

An IP address, for example 128.0.0.1.

platform.openstack.defaultMachinePlatform

Optional. The default machine pool platform configuration.

 
{
   "type": "ml.large",
   "rootVolume": {
      "size": 30,
      "type": "performance"
   }
}

Sample customized install-config.yaml file for RHOSP

This sample install-config.yaml demonstrates all of the possible Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) customization options.

This sample file is provided for reference only. You must obtain your install-config.yaml file by using the installation program. 
apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: example.com
clusterID: os-test
controlPlane:
  name: master
  platform: {}
  replicas: 3
compute:
- name: worker
  platform:
    openstack:
      type: ml.large
  replicas: 3
metadata:
  name: example
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineCIDR: 10.0.0.0/16
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
  networkType: OpenShiftSDN
platform:
  openstack:
    region: region1
    cloud: mycloud
    externalNetwork: external
    computeFlavor: m1.xlarge
    lbFloatingIP: 128.0.0.1
pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}'
sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA...

Generating an SSH private key and adding it to the agent

If you want to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery on your cluster, you must provide an SSH key to both your ssh-agent and to the installation program.

In a production environment, you require disaster recovery and debugging.

You can use this key to SSH into the master nodes as the user core. When you deploy the cluster, the key is added to the core user’s ~/.ssh/authorized_keys list.

Procedure

  1. If you do not have an SSH key that is configured for password-less authentication on your computer, create one. For example, on a computer that uses a Linux operating system, run the following command:

    $ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -N '' \
    -f <path>/<file_name> (1)
    1 Specify the path and file name, such as ~/.ssh/id_rsa, of the SSH key.

    Running this command generates an SSH key that does not require a password in the location that you specified.

  2. Start the ssh-agent process as a background task:

    $ eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

Agent pid 31874

  3. Add your SSH private key to the ssh-agent:

    $ ssh-add <path>/<file_name> (1)

Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)
    1 Specify the path and file name for your SSH private key, such as ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Next steps

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

Enabling access to the environment

At deployment, all OpenShift Container Platform machines are created in a Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP)-tenant network. Therefore, they are not accessible directly in most RHOSP deployments.

You can configure the OpenShift Container Platform API to be accessible either with or without floating IP addresses.

Enabling access with floating IP addresses

Make OpenShift Container Platform API endpoints accessible by attaching two floating IP (FIP) addresses to them: one for the API load balancer (lb FIP), and one for OpenShift Container Platform applications (apps FIP).

The load balancer FIP is also used in the install-config.yaml file.
Procedure

  1. Using the Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) CLI, create a new external network:

    $ openstack floating ip create <external network>

  2. Add a record that follows this pattern to your DNS server:

    api.<cluster name>.<base domain>  IN  A  <lb FIP>

    If you do not control the DNS server you can add the record to your /etc/hosts file instead. This action makes the API accessible to you only, which is not suitable for production deployment but does allow installation for development and testing.

You can make OpenShift Container Platform resources available outside of the cluster by assigning a floating IP address and updating your firewall configuration.

Enabling access without floating IP addresses

If you cannot use floating IP addresses, the OpenShift Container Platform installation might still finish. However, the installation program fails after it times out waiting for API access.

After the installation program times out, the cluster might still initialize. After the bootstrapping processing begins, it must complete. You must edit the cluster’s networking configuration after it is deployed, however.

Deploy 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

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

Procedure

  1. Run the installation program:

    $ ./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.

    If the cloud provider account that you configured on your host does not have sufficient permissions to deploy the cluster, the installation process stops, and the missing permissions are displayed.

    When the cluster deployment completes, directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to its web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user, display in your terminal.

    The Ignition config files that the installation program generates contain certificates that expire after 24 hours. You must keep the cluster running for 24 hours in a non-degraded state to ensure that the first certificate rotation has finished.

    You must not delete the installation program or the files that the installation program creates. Both are required to delete the cluster.

Verifying cluster status

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

    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

Logging in to the cluster

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

  • Deploy an OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

  • Install 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
system:admin

Configuring application access with floating IP addresses

After you install OpenShift Container Platform, configure Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) to allow application network traffic.

Prerequisites

  • OpenShift Container Platform cluster must be installed

  • Floating IP addresses are enabled as described in Enabling access to the environment.

Procedure

After you install the OpenShift Container Platform cluster, attach a floating IP address to the ingress port:

  1. Show the port:

    $ openstack port show <cluster name>-<clusterID>-ingress-port

  2. Attach the port to the IP address:

    $ openstack floating ip set --port <ingress port ID> <apps FIP>

  3. Add a wildcard A record for *apps. to your DNS file:

    *.apps.<cluster name>.<base domain>  IN  A  <apps FIP>

If you do not control the DNS server but want to enable application access for non-production purposes, you can add these hostnames to /etc/hosts:

<apps FIP> console-openshift-console.apps.<cluster name>.<base domain>
<apps FIP> integrated-oauth-server-openshift-authentication.apps.<cluster name>.<base domain>
<apps FIP> oauth-openshift.apps.<cluster name>.<base domain>
<apps FIP> prometheus-k8s-openshift-monitoring.apps.<cluster name>.<base domain>
<apps FIP> grafana-openshift-monitoring.apps.<cluster name>.<base domain>
<apps FIP> <app name>.apps.<cluster name>.<base domain>
Next steps