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You can create a different MachineSet to serve a specific purpose in your OpenShift Container Platform cluster on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). For example, you might create infrastructure MachineSets and related Machines so that you can move supporting workloads to the new Machines.

Machine API overview

The Machine API is a combination of primary resources that are based on the upstream Cluster API project and custom OpenShift Container Platform resources.

For OpenShift Container Platform 4.2 clusters, the Machine API performs all node host provisioning management actions after the cluster installation finishes. Because of this system, OpenShift Container Platform 4.2 offers an elastic, dynamic provisioning method on top of public or private cloud infrastructure.

The two primary resources are:

Machines

A fundamental unit that describes the host for a Node. A machine has a providerSpec, which describes the types of compute nodes that are offered for different cloud platforms. For example, a machine type for a worker node on Amazon Web Services (AWS) might define a specific machine type and required metadata.

MachineSets

Groups of machines. MachineSets are to machines as ReplicaSets are to Pods. If you need more machines or must scale them down, you change the replicas field on the MachineSet to meet your compute need.

The following custom resources add more capabilities to your cluster:

MachineAutoscaler

This resource automatically scales machines in a cloud. You can set the minimum and maximum scaling boundaries for nodes in a specified MachineSet, and the MachineAutoscaler maintains that range of nodes. The MachineAutoscaler object takes effect after a ClusterAutoscaler object exists. Both ClusterAutoscaler and MachineAutoscaler resources are made available by the ClusterAutoscalerOperator.

ClusterAutoscaler

This resource is based on the upstream ClusterAutoscaler project. In the OpenShift Container Platform implementation, it is integrated with the Machine API by extending the MachineSet API. You can set cluster-wide scaling limits for resources such as cores, nodes, memory, GPU, and so on. You can set the priority so that the cluster prioritizes pods so that new nodes are not brought online for less important pods. You can also set the ScalingPolicy so you can scale up nodes but not scale them down.

MachineHealthCheck

This resource detects when a machine is unhealthy, deletes it, and, on supported platforms, makes a new machine.

In version 4.2, MachineHealthChecks is a Technology Preview feature

In OpenShift Container Platform version 3.11, you could not roll out a multi-zone architecture easily because the cluster did not manage machine provisioning. Beginning with OpenShift Container Platform version 4.1, this process is easier. Each MachineSet is scoped to a single zone, so the installation program sends out MachineSets across availability zones on your behalf. And then because your compute is dynamic, and in the face of a zone failure, you always have a zone for when you must rebalance your machines. The autoscaler provides best-effort balancing over the life of a cluster.

Sample YAML for a MachineSet Custom Resource on GCP

This sample YAML defines a MachineSet that runs in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and creates nodes that are labeled with node-role.kubernetes.io/<role>: ""

In this sample, <infrastructureID> is the infrastructure ID label that is based on the cluster ID that you set when you provisioned the cluster, and <role> is the node label to add.

apiVersion: machine.openshift.io/v1beta1
kind: MachineSet
metadata:
  labels:
    machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-cluster: <infrastructureID> (1)
  name: <infrastructureID>-w-a (1)
  namespace: openshift-machine-api
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-cluster: <infrastructureID> (1)
      machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-machineset: <infrastructureID>-w-a (1)
  template:
    metadata:
      creationTimestamp: null
      labels:
        machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-cluster: <infrastructureID> (1)
        machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-machine-role: <role> (3)
        machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-machine-type: <role> (3)
        machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-machineset: <infrastructureID>-w-a (1)
    spec:
      metadata:
        labels:
          node-role.kubernetes.io/<role>: "" (3)
      providerSpec:
        value:
          apiVersion: gcpprovider.openshift.io/v1beta1
          canIPForward: false
          credentialsSecret:
            name: gcp-cloud-credentials
          deletionProtection: false
          disks:
          - autoDelete: true
            boot: true
            image: <infrastructureID>-rhcos-image (1)
            labels: null
            sizeGb: 128
            type: pd-ssd
          kind: GCPMachineProviderSpec
          machineType: n1-standard-4
          metadata:
            creationTimestamp: null
          networkInterfaces:
          - network: <infrastructureID>-network (1)
            subnetwork: <infrastructureID>-<role>-subnet (2)
          projectID: <project_name> (4)
          region: us-central1
          serviceAccounts:
          - email: <infrastructureID>-w@<project_name>.iam.gserviceaccount.com  (1) (4)
            scopes:
            - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform
          tags:
          - <infrastructureID>-<role> (2)
          userDataSecret:
            name: worker-user-data
          zone: us-central1-a
1 Specify the infrastructure ID that is based on the cluster ID that you set when you provisioned the cluster. If you have the OpenShift CLI and jq package installed, you can obtain the infrastructure ID by running the following command:
$ oc get -o jsonpath='{.status.infrastructureName}{"\n"}' infrastructure cluster
2 Specify the infrastructure ID and node label.
3 Specify the node label to add.
4 Specify the name of the GCP project that you use for your cluster.

Creating a MachineSet

In addition to the ones created by the installation program, you can create your own MachineSets to dynamically manage the machine compute resources for specific workloads of your choice.

Prerequisites
  • Deploy an OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

  • Install the OpenShift Command-line Interface (CLI), commonly known as oc

  • Log in to oc as a user with cluster-admin permission.

Procedure
  1. Create a new YAML file that contains the MachineSet Custom Resource sample, as shown, and is named <file_name>.yaml.

    Ensure that you set the <clusterID> and <role> parameter values.

    1. If you are not sure about which value to set for a specific field, you can check an existing MachineSet from your cluster.

      $ oc get machinesets -n openshift-machine-api
      
      NAME                                DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AVAILABLE   AGE
      agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1a   1         1         1       1           55m
      agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1b   1         1         1       1           55m
      agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1c   1         1         1       1           55m
      agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1d   0         0                             55m
      agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1e   0         0                             55m
      agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1f   0         0                             55m
    2. Check values of a specific MachineSet:

      $ oc get machineset <machineset_name> -n \
           openshift-machine-api -o yaml
      
      ....
      
      template:
          metadata:
            labels:
              machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-cluster: agl030519-vplxk (1)
              machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-machine-role: worker (2)
              machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-machine-type: worker
              machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-machineset: agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1a
      1 The cluster ID.
      2 A default node label.
  2. Create the new MachineSet:

    $ oc create -f <file_name>.yaml
  3. View the list of MachineSets:

    $ oc get machineset -n openshift-machine-api
    
    
    NAME                                DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AVAILABLE   AGE
    agl030519-vplxk-infra-us-east-1a    1         1         1       1           11m
    agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1a   1         1         1       1           55m
    agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1b   1         1         1       1           55m
    agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1c   1         1         1       1           55m
    agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1d   0         0                             55m
    agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1e   0         0                             55m
    agl030519-vplxk-worker-us-east-1f   0         0                             55m

    When the new MachineSet is available, the DESIRED and CURRENT values match. If the MachineSet is not available, wait a few minutes and run the command again.

  4. After the new MachineSet is available, check status of the machine and the node that it references:

    $ oc describe machine <name> -n openshift-machine-api

    For example:

    $ oc describe machine agl030519-vplxk-infra-us-east-1a -n openshift-machine-api
    
    status:
      addresses:
      - address: 10.0.133.18
        type: InternalIP
      - address: ""
        type: ExternalDNS
      - address: ip-10-0-133-18.ec2.internal
        type: InternalDNS
      lastUpdated: "2019-05-03T10:38:17Z"
      nodeRef:
        kind: Node
        name: ip-10-0-133-18.ec2.internal
        uid: 71fb8d75-6d8f-11e9-9ff3-0e3f103c7cd8
      providerStatus:
        apiVersion: awsproviderconfig.openshift.io/v1beta1
        conditions:
        - lastProbeTime: "2019-05-03T10:34:31Z"
          lastTransitionTime: "2019-05-03T10:34:31Z"
          message: machine successfully created
          reason: MachineCreationSucceeded
          status: "True"
          type: MachineCreation
        instanceId: i-09ca0701454124294
        instanceState: running
        kind: AWSMachineProviderStatus
  5. View the new node and confirm that the new node has the label that you specified:

    $ oc get node <node_name> --show-labels

    Review the command output and confirm that node-role.kubernetes.io/<your_label> is in the LABELS list.

Any change to a MachineSet is not applied to existing machines owned by the MachineSet. For example, labels edited or added to an existing MachineSet are not propagated to existing machines and Nodes associated with the MachineSet.

Next steps

If you need MachineSets in other availability zones, repeat this process to create more MachineSets.