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Mirroring images for a disconnected installation

You can use the procedures in this section to ensure your clusters only use container images that satisfy your organizational controls on external content. Before you install a cluster on infrastructure that you provision in a restricted network, you must mirror the required container images into that environment. To mirror container images, you must have a registry for mirroring.

You must have access to the internet to obtain the necessary container images. In this procedure, you place your mirror registry on a mirror host that has access to both your network and the Internet. If you do not have access to a mirror host, use the Mirroring Operator catalogs for use with disconnected clusters procedure to copy images to a device you can move across network boundaries with.

Prerequisites

  • You must have a container image registry that supports Docker v2-2 in the location that will host the OpenShift Container Platform cluster, such as one of the following registries:

    If you have an entitlement to Red Hat Quay, see the documentation on deploying Red Hat Quay for proof-of-concept purposes or by using the Quay Operator. If you need additional assistance selecting and installing a registry, contact your sales representative or Red Hat support.

  • If you do not already have an existing solution for a container image registry, subscribers of OpenShift Container Platform are provided a mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift. The mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift is included with your subscription and is a small-scale container registry that can be used to mirror the required container images of OpenShift Container Platform in disconnected installations.

About the mirror registry

You can mirror the images that are required for OpenShift Container Platform installation and subsequent product updates to a container mirror registry such as Red Hat Quay, JFrog Artifactory, Sonatype Nexus Repository, or Harbor. If you do not have access to a large-scale container registry, you can use the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift, a small-scale container registry included with OpenShift Container Platform subscriptions.

You can use any container registry that supports Docker v2-2, such as Red Hat Quay, the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift, Artifactory, Sonatype Nexus Repository, or Harbor. Regardless of your chosen registry, the procedure to mirror content from Red Hat hosted sites on the internet to an isolated image registry is the same. After you mirror the content, you configure each cluster to retrieve this content from your mirror registry.

The internal registry of the OpenShift Container Platform cluster cannot be used as the target registry because it does not support pushing without a tag, which is required during the mirroring process.

If choosing a container registry that is not the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift, it must be reachable by every machine in the clusters that you provision. If the registry is unreachable, installation, updating, or normal operations such as workload relocation might fail. For that reason, you must run mirror registries in a highly available way, and the mirror registries must at least match the production availability of your OpenShift Container Platform clusters.

When you populate your mirror registry with OpenShift Container Platform images, you can follow two scenarios. If you have a host that can access both the internet and your mirror registry, but not your cluster nodes, you can directly mirror the content from that machine. This process is referred to as connected mirroring. If you have no such host, you must mirror the images to a file system and then bring that host or removable media into your restricted environment. This process is referred to as disconnected mirroring.

For mirrored registries, to view the source of pulled images, you must review the Trying to access log entry in the CRI-O logs. Other methods to view the image pull source, such as using the crictl images command on a node, show the non-mirrored image name, even though the image is pulled from the mirrored location.

Red Hat does not test third party registries with OpenShift Container Platform.
Additional information

For information on viewing the CRI-O logs to view the image source, see Viewing the image pull source.

Preparing your mirror host

Before you perform the mirror procedure, you must prepare the host to retrieve content and push it to the remote location.

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 4.9. 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 appropriate version in the Version drop-down menu.

  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.9 Linux Client entry and save the file.

  4. Unpack the archive:

    $ tar xvf <file>

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

    To check your PATH, execute the following command:

    $ echo $PATH

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 in the Version drop-down menu.

  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.9 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

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 in the Version drop-down menu.

  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.9 MacOSX Client entry and save the file.

  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

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

$ oc <command>

Configuring credentials that allow images to be mirrored

Create a container image registry credentials file that allows mirroring images from Red Hat to your mirror.

Do not use this image registry credentials file as the pull secret when you install a cluster. If you provide this file when you install cluster, all of the machines in the cluster will have write access to your mirror registry.

This process requires that you have write access to a container image registry on the mirror registry and adds the credentials to a registry pull secret.
Prerequisites

  • You configured a mirror registry to use in your disconnected environment.

  • You identified an image repository location on your mirror registry to mirror images into.

  • You provisioned a mirror registry account that allows images to be uploaded to that image repository.

Procedure

Complete the following steps on the installation host:

  1. Download your registry.redhat.io pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager and save it to a .json file.

  2. Generate the base64-encoded user name and password or token for your mirror registry:

    $ echo -n '<user_name>:<password>' | base64 -w0 (1)
BGVtbYk3ZHAtqXs=
    1 For <user_name> and <password>, specify the user name and password that you configured for your registry.

  3. Make a copy of your pull secret in JSON format:

    $ cat ./pull-secret.text | jq .  > <path>/<pull_secret_file_in_json>(1)
    1 Specify the path to the folder to store the pull secret in and a name for the JSON file that you create.

  4. Save the file either as ~/.docker/config.json or $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/containers/auth.json.

    The contents of the file resemble the following example:

    {
  "auths": {
    "cloud.openshift.com": {
      "auth": "b3BlbnNo...",
      "email": "you@example.com"
    },
    "quay.io": {
      "auth": "b3BlbnNo...",
      "email": "you@example.com"
    },
    "registry.connect.redhat.com": {
      "auth": "NTE3Njg5Nj...",
      "email": "you@example.com"
    },
    "registry.redhat.io": {
      "auth": "NTE3Njg5Nj...",
      "email": "you@example.com"
    }
  }
}

  5. Edit the new file and add a section that describes your registry to it:

      "auths": {
    "<mirror_registry>": { (1)
      "auth": "<credentials>", (2)
      "email": "you@example.com"
    }
  },
    1 For <mirror_registry>, specify the registry domain name, and optionally the port, that your mirror registry uses to serve content. For example, registry.example.com or registry.example.com:8443
    2 For <credentials>, specify the base64-encoded user name and password for the mirror registry.

    The file resembles the following example:

    {
  "auths": {
    "registry.example.com": {
      "auth": "BGVtbYk3ZHAtqXs=",
      "email": "you@example.com"
    },
    "cloud.openshift.com": {
      "auth": "b3BlbnNo...",
      "email": "you@example.com"
    },
    "quay.io": {
      "auth": "b3BlbnNo...",
      "email": "you@example.com"
    },
    "registry.connect.redhat.com": {
      "auth": "NTE3Njg5Nj...",
      "email": "you@example.com"
    },
    "registry.redhat.io": {
      "auth": "NTE3Njg5Nj...",
      "email": "you@example.com"
    }
  }
}

Mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift

The mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift is a small and streamlined container registry that you can use as a target for mirroring the required container images of OpenShift Container Platform for disconnected installations.

If you already have a container image registry, such as Red Hat Quay, you can skip these steps and go straight to Mirroring the OpenShift Container Platform image repository.

Prerequisites

  • An OpenShift Container Platform subscription.

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 with Podman 3.3 and OpenSSL installed.

  • Fully qualified domain name for the Red Hat Quay service, which must resolve through a DNS server.

  • Passwordless sudo access on the target host.

  • Key-based SSH connectivity on the target host. SSH keys are automatically generated for local installs. For remote hosts, you must generate your own SSH keys.

  • 2 or more vCPUs.

  • 8 GB of RAM.

  • About 9.6 GB for OpenShift Container Platform 4.9 Release images, or about 444 GB for OpenShift Container Platform 4.9 Release images and OpenShift Container Platform 4.9 Red Hat Operator images. Up to 1 TB per stream or more is suggested.

    These requirements are based on local testing results with only Release images and Operator images tested. Storage requirements can vary based on your organization’s needs. Some users might require more space, for example, when they mirror multiple z-streams. You can use standard Red Hat Quay functionality to remove unnecessary images and free up space.

Mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift introduction

For disconnected deployments of OpenShift Container Platform, a container registry is required to carry out the installation of the clusters. To run a production-grade registry service on such a cluster, you must create a separate registry deployment to install the first cluster. The mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift addresses this need and is included in every OpenShift subscription. It is available for download on the OpenShift console Downloads page.

The mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift allows users to install a small-scale version of Red Hat Quay and its required components using the mirror-registry command line interface (CLI) tool. The mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift is deployed automatically with pre-configured local storage and a local database. It also includes auto-generated user credentials and access permissions with a single set of inputs and no additional configuration choices to get started.

The mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift provides a pre-determined network configuration and reports deployed component credentials and access URLs upon success. A limited set of optional configuration inputs like fully qualified domain name (FQDN) services, superuser name and password, and custom TLS certificates are also provided. This provides users with a container registry so that they can easily create an offline mirror of all OpenShift Container Platform release content when running OpenShift Container Platform in restricted network environments.

The mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift is limited to hosting images that are required to install a disconnected OpenShift Container Platform cluster, such as Release images or Red Hat Operator images. It uses local storage on your Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) machine, and storage supported by RHEL is supported by the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift. Content built by customers should not be hosted by the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift.

Unlike Red Hat Quay, the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift is not a highly-available registry and only local file system storage is supported. Using the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift with more than one cluster is discouraged, because multiple clusters can create a single point of failure when updating your cluster fleet. It is advised to leverage the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift to install a cluster that can host a production-grade, highly-available registry such as Red Hat Quay, which can serve OpenShift Container Platform content to other clusters.

Use of the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift is optional if another container registry is already available in the install environment.

Mirroring on a local host with mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift

This procedure explains how to install the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift on a local host using the mirror-registry installer tool. By doing so, users can create a local host registry running on port 443 for the purpose of storing a mirror of OpenShift Container Platform images.

Installing the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift using the mirror-registry CLI tool makes several changes to your machine. After installation, a /etc/quay-install directory is created, which has installation files, local storage, and the configuration bundle. Trusted SSH keys are generated in case the deployment target is the local host, and systemd files on the host machine are set up to ensure that container runtimes are persistent. Additionally, an initial user named init is created with an automatically generated password. All access credentials are printed at the end of the install routine.
Procedure

  1. Download the mirror-registry.tar.gz package for the latest version of the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift found on the OpenShift console Downloads page.

  2. Install the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift on your local host with your current user account by using the mirror-registry tool. For a full list of available flags, see "mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift flags".

    $ sudo ./mirror-registry install \
  --quayHostname <host_example_com> \
  --quayRoot <example_directory_name>

  3. Use the user name and password generated during installation to log into the registry by running the following command:

    $ podman login --authfile pull-secret.txt \
  -u init \
  -p <password> \
  <host_example_com>:8443> \
  --tls-verify=false (1)
    1 You can avoid running --tls-verify=false by configuring your system to trust the generated rootCA certificates. See "Using SSL to protect connections to Red Hat Quay" and "Configuring the system to trust the certificate authority" for more information.

    You can also log in by accessing the UI at https://<host.example.com>:8443 after installation.

  4. You can mirror OpenShift Container Platform images after logging in. Depending on your needs, see either the "Mirroring the OpenShift Container Platform image repository" or the "Mirroring Operator catalogs for use with disconnected clusters" sections of this document.

    If there are issues with images stored by the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift due to storage layer problems, you can remirror the OpenShift Container Platform images, or reinstall mirror registry on more stable storage.

Mirroring on a remote host with mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift

This procedure explains how to install the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift on a remote host using the mirror-registry tool. By doing so, users can create a registry to hold a mirror of OpenShift Container Platform images.

Installing the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift using the mirror-registry CLI tool makes several changes to your machine. After installation, a /etc/quay-install directory is created, which has installation files, local storage, and the configuration bundle. Trusted SSH keys are generated in case the deployment target is the local host, and systemd files on the host machine are set up to ensure that container runtimes are persistent. Additionally, an initial user named init is created with an automatically generated password. All access credentials are printed at the end of the install routine.
Procedure

  1. Download the mirror-registry.tar.gz package for the latest version of the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift found on the OpenShift console Downloads page.

  2. Install the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift on your local host with your current user account by using the mirror-registry tool. For a full list of available flags, see "mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift flags".

    $ sudo ./mirror-registry install -v \
  --targetHostname <host_example_com> \
  --targetUsername <example_user> \
  -k ~/.ssh/my_ssh_key \
  --quayHostname <host_example_com> \
  --quayRoot <example_directory_name>

  3. Use the user name and password generated during installation to log into the mirror registry by running the following command:

    $ podman login --authfile pull-secret.txt \
  -u init \
  -p <password> \
  <host_example_com>:8443> \
  --tls-verify=false (1)
    1 You can avoid running --tls-verify=false by configuring your system to trust the generated rootCA certificates. See "Using SSL to protect connections to Red Hat Quay" and "Configuring the system to trust the certificate authority" for more information.

    You can also log in by accessing the UI at https://<host.example.com>:8443 after installation.

  4. You can mirror OpenShift Container Platform images after logging in. Depending on your needs, see either the "Mirroring the OpenShift Container Platform image repository" or the "Mirroring Operator catalogs for use with disconnected clusters" sections of this document.

    If there are issues with images stored by the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift due to storage layer problems, you can remirror the OpenShift Container Platform images, or reinstall mirror registry on more stable storage.

Upgrading the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift

  • You can upgrade the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift from your local host by running the following command:

    $ sudo ./mirror-registry upgrade

    • Users who upgrade the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift with the ./mirror-registry upgrade flag must include the same credentials used when creating their mirror registry. For example, if you installed the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift with --quayHostname <host_example_com> and --quayRoot <example_directory_name>, you must include that string to properly upgrade the mirror registry.

Uninstalling the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift

  • You can uninstall the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift from your local host by running the following command:

    $ sudo ./mirror-registry uninstall -v \
  --quayRoot <example_directory_name>

    • Deleting the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift will prompt the user before deletion. You can use --autoApprove to skip this prompt.

    • Users who install the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift with the --quayRoot flag must include the --quayRoot flag when uninstalling. For example, if you installed the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift with --quayRoot example_directory_name, you must include that string to properly uninstall the mirror registry.

Mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift flags

The following flags are available for the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift:

Flags Description

--autoApprove

A boolean value that disables interactive prompts. If set to true, the quayRoot directory is automatically deleted when uninstalling the mirror registry. Defaults to false if left unspecified.

--initPassword

The password of the init user created during Quay installation. Must be at least eight characters and contain no whitespace.

--initUser string

Shows the username of the initial user. Defaults to init if left unspecified.

--quayHostname

The fully-qualified domain name of the mirror registry that clients will use to contact the registry. Equivalent to SERVER_HOSTNAME in the Quay config.yaml. Must resolve by DNS. Defaults to <targetHostname>:8443 if left unspecified. [1]

--quayRoot, -r

The directory where container image layer and configuration data is saved, including rootCA.key, rootCA.pem, and rootCA.srl certificates. Requires about 9.6 GB for OpenShift Container Platform 4.9 Release images, or about 444 GB for OpenShift Container Platform 4.9 Release images and OpenShift Container Platform 4.9 Red Hat Operator images. Defaults to /etc/quay-install if left unspecified.

--ssh-key, -k

The path of your SSH identity key. Defaults to ~/.ssh/quay_installer if left unspecified.

--sslCert

The path to the SSL/TLS public key / certificate. Defaults to {quayRoot}/quay-config and is auto-generated if left unspecified.

--sslCheckSkip

Skips the check for the certificate hostname against the SERVER_HOSTNAME in the config.yaml file. [2]

--sslKey

The path to the SSL/TLS private key used for HTTPS communication. Defaults to {quayRoot}/quay-config and is auto-generated if left unspecified.

--targetHostname, -H

The hostname of the target you want to install Quay to. Defaults to $HOST, for example, a local host, if left unspecified.

--targetUsername, -u

The user on the target host which will be used for SSH. Defaults to $USER, for example, the current user if left unspecified.

--verbose, -v

Shows debug logs and Ansible playbook outputs.

--version

Shows the version for the mirror registry for Red Hat OpenShift.

  1. --quayHostname must be modified if the public DNS name of your system is different from the local hostname.

  2. --sslCheckSkip is used in cases when the mirror registry is set behind a proxy and the exposed hostname is different from the internal Quay hostname. It can also be used when users do not want the certificates to be validated against the provided Quay hostname during installation.

Additional resources

Mirroring the OpenShift Container Platform image repository

Mirror the OpenShift Container Platform image repository to your registry to use during cluster installation or upgrade.

Prerequisites

  • Your mirror host has access to the internet.

  • You configured a mirror registry to use in your restricted network and can access the certificate and credentials that you configured.

  • You downloaded the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager and modified it to include authentication to your mirror repository.

  • If you use self-signed certificates that do not set a Subject Alternative Name, you must precede the oc commands in this procedure with GODEBUG=x509ignoreCN=0. If you do not set this variable, the oc commands will fail with the following error:

    x509: certificate relies on legacy Common Name field, use SANs or temporarily enable Common Name matching with GODEBUG=x509ignoreCN=0
Procedure

Complete the following steps on the mirror host:

  1. Review the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page to determine the version of OpenShift Container Platform that you want to install and determine the corresponding tag on the Repository Tags page.

  2. Set the required environment variables:

    1. Export the release version:

      $ OCP_RELEASE=<release_version>

      For <release_version>, specify the tag that corresponds to the version of OpenShift Container Platform to install, such as 4.5.4.

    2. Export the local registry name and host port:

      $ LOCAL_REGISTRY='<local_registry_host_name>:<local_registry_host_port>'

      For <local_registry_host_name>, specify the registry domain name for your mirror repository, and for <local_registry_host_port>, specify the port that it serves content on.

    3. Export the local repository name:

      $ LOCAL_REPOSITORY='<local_repository_name>'

      For <local_repository_name>, specify the name of the repository to create in your registry, such as ocp4/openshift4.

    4. Export the name of the repository to mirror:

      $ PRODUCT_REPO='openshift-release-dev'

      For a production release, you must specify openshift-release-dev.

    5. Export the path to your registry pull secret:

      $ LOCAL_SECRET_JSON='<path_to_pull_secret>'

      For <path_to_pull_secret>, specify the absolute path to and file name of the pull secret for your mirror registry that you created.

    6. Export the release mirror:

      $ RELEASE_NAME="ocp-release"

      For a production release, you must specify ocp-release.

    7. Export the type of architecture for your server, such as x86_64:

      $ ARCHITECTURE=<server_architecture>

    8. Export the path to the directory to host the mirrored images:

      $ REMOVABLE_MEDIA_PATH=<path> (1)
      1 Specify the full path, including the initial forward slash (/) character.

  3. Mirror the version images to the mirror registry:

    • If your mirror host does not have internet access, take the following actions:

      1. Connect the removable media to a system that is connected to the internet.

      2. Review the images and configuration manifests to mirror:

        $ oc adm release mirror -a ${LOCAL_SECRET_JSON}  \
     --from=quay.io/${PRODUCT_REPO}/${RELEASE_NAME}:${OCP_RELEASE}-${ARCHITECTURE} \
     --to=${LOCAL_REGISTRY}/${LOCAL_REPOSITORY} \
     --to-release-image=${LOCAL_REGISTRY}/${LOCAL_REPOSITORY}:${OCP_RELEASE}-${ARCHITECTURE} --dry-run

      3. Record the entire imageContentSources section from the output of the previous command. The information about your mirrors is unique to your mirrored repository, and you must add the imageContentSources section to the install-config.yaml file during installation.

      4. Mirror the images to a directory on the removable media:

        $ oc adm release mirror -a ${LOCAL_SECRET_JSON} --to-dir=${REMOVABLE_MEDIA_PATH}/mirror quay.io/${PRODUCT_REPO}/${RELEASE_NAME}:${OCP_RELEASE}-${ARCHITECTURE}

      5. Take the media to the restricted network environment and upload the images to the local container registry.

        $ oc image mirror -a ${LOCAL_SECRET_JSON} --from-dir=${REMOVABLE_MEDIA_PATH}/mirror "file://openshift/release:${OCP_RELEASE}*" ${LOCAL_REGISTRY}/${LOCAL_REPOSITORY} (1)
        1 For REMOVABLE_MEDIA_PATH, you must use the same path that you specified when you mirrored the images.

    • If the local container registry is connected to the mirror host, take the following actions:

      1. Directly push the release images to the local registry by using following command:

        $ oc adm release mirror -a ${LOCAL_SECRET_JSON}  \
     --from=quay.io/${PRODUCT_REPO}/${RELEASE_NAME}:${OCP_RELEASE}-${ARCHITECTURE} \
     --to=${LOCAL_REGISTRY}/${LOCAL_REPOSITORY} \
     --to-release-image=${LOCAL_REGISTRY}/${LOCAL_REPOSITORY}:${OCP_RELEASE}-${ARCHITECTURE}

        This command pulls the release information as a digest, and its output includes the imageContentSources data that you require when you install your cluster.

      2. Record the entire imageContentSources section from the output of the previous command. The information about your mirrors is unique to your mirrored repository, and you must add the imageContentSources section to the install-config.yaml file during installation.

        The image name gets patched to Quay.io during the mirroring process, and the podman images will show Quay.io in the registry on the bootstrap virtual machine.

  4. To create the installation program that is based on the content that you mirrored, extract it and pin it to the release:

    • If your mirror host does not have internet access, run the following command:

      $ oc adm release extract -a ${LOCAL_SECRET_JSON} --command=openshift-install "${LOCAL_REGISTRY}/${LOCAL_REPOSITORY}:${OCP_RELEASE}"

    • If the local container registry is connected to the mirror host, run the following command:

      $ oc adm release extract -a ${LOCAL_SECRET_JSON} --command=openshift-install "${LOCAL_REGISTRY}/${LOCAL_REPOSITORY}:${OCP_RELEASE}-${ARCHITECTURE}"

      To ensure that you use the correct images for the version of OpenShift Container Platform that you selected, you must extract the installation program from the mirrored content.

      You must perform this step on a machine with an active internet connection.

      If you are in a disconnected environment, use the --image flag as part of must-gather and point to the payload image.

  5. For clusters using installer-provisioned infrastructure, run the following command:

    $ openshift-install

The Cluster Samples Operator in a disconnected environment

In a disconnected environment, you must take additional steps after you install a cluster to configure the Cluster Samples Operator. Review the following information in preparation.

Cluster Samples Operator assistance for mirroring

During installation, OpenShift Container Platform creates a config map named imagestreamtag-to-image in the openshift-cluster-samples-operator namespace. The imagestreamtag-to-image config map contains an entry, the populating image, for each image stream tag.

The format of the key for each entry in the data field in the config map is <image_stream_name>_<image_stream_tag_name>.

During a disconnected installation of OpenShift Container Platform, the status of the Cluster Samples Operator is set to Removed. If you choose to change it to Managed, it installs samples.

The use of samples in a network-restricted or discontinued environment may require access to services external to your network. Some example services include: Github, Maven Central, npm, RubyGems, PyPi and others. There might be additional steps to take that allow the cluster samples operators’s objects to reach the services they require.

You can use this config map as a reference for which images need to be mirrored for your image streams to import.

  • While the Cluster Samples Operator is set to Removed, you can create your mirrored registry, or determine which existing mirrored registry you want to use.

  • Mirror the samples you want to the mirrored registry using the new config map as your guide.

  • Add any of the image streams you did not mirror to the skippedImagestreams list of the Cluster Samples Operator configuration object.

  • Set samplesRegistry of the Cluster Samples Operator configuration object to the mirrored registry.

  • Then set the Cluster Samples Operator to Managed to install the image streams you have mirrored.

Mirroring Operator catalogs for use with disconnected clusters

You can mirror the Operator contents of a Red Hat-provided catalog, or a custom catalog, into a container image registry using the oc adm catalog mirror command. The target registry must support Docker v2-2. For a cluster on a restricted network, this registry can be one that the cluster has network access to, such as a mirror registry created during a restricted network cluster installation.

The internal registry of the OpenShift Container Platform cluster cannot be used as the target registry because it does not support pushing without a tag, which is required during the mirroring process.

The oc adm catalog mirror command also automatically mirrors the index image that is specified during the mirroring process, whether it be a Red Hat-provided index image or your own custom-built index image, to the target registry. You can then use the mirrored index image to create a catalog source that allows Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) to load the mirrored catalog onto your OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

Additional resources

Prerequisites

Mirroring Operator catalogs for use with disconnected clusters has the following prerequisites:

  • Workstation with unrestricted network access.

  • podman version 1.9.3 or later.

  • If you want to filter, or prune, the default catalog and selectively mirror only a subset of Operators, see the following sections:

  • If you want to mirror a Red Hat-provided catalog, run the following command on your workstation with unrestricted network access to authenticate with registry.redhat.io:

    $ podman login registry.redhat.io

  • Access to a mirror registry that supports Docker v2-2.

  • On your mirror registry, decide which namespace to use for storing mirrored Operator content. For example, you might create an olm-mirror namespace.

  • If your mirror registry does not have internet access, connect removable media to your workstation with unrestricted network access.

  • If you are working with private registries, including registry.redhat.io, set the REG_CREDS environment variable to the file path of your registry credentials for use in later steps. For example, for the podman CLI:

    $ REG_CREDS=${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}/containers/auth.json

Extracting and mirroring catalog contents

The oc adm catalog mirror command extracts the contents of an index image to generate the manifests required for mirroring. The default behavior of the command generates manifests, then automatically mirrors all of the image content from the index image, as well as the index image itself, to your mirror registry.

Alternatively, if your mirror registry is on a completely disconnected, or airgapped, host, you can first mirror the content to removable media, move the media to the disconnected environment, then mirror the content from the media to the registry.

Mirroring catalog contents to registries on the same network

If your mirror registry is co-located on the same network as your workstation with unrestricted network access, take the following actions on your workstation.

Procedure

  1. If your mirror registry requires authentication, run the following command to log in to the registry:

    $ podman login <mirror_registry>

  2. Run the following command to extract and mirror the content to the mirror registry:

    $ oc adm catalog mirror \
    <index_image> \ (1)
    <mirror_registry>:<port>/<namespace> \ (2)
    [-a ${REG_CREDS}] \ (3)
    [--insecure] \ (4)
    [--index-filter-by-os='<platform>/<arch>'] \ (5)
    [--manifests-only] (6)
    1 Specify the index image for the catalog that you want to mirror. For example, this might be a pruned index image that you created previously, or one of the source index images for the default catalogs, such as registry.redhat.io/redhat/redhat-operator-index:v4.9.
    2 Specify the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the target registry and namespace to mirror the Operator contents to, where <namespace> is any existing namespace on the registry. For example, you might create an olm-mirror namespace to push all mirrored content to.
    3 Optional: If required, specify the location of your registry credentials file. {REG_CREDS} is required for registry.redhat.io.
    4 Optional: If you do not want to configure trust for the target registry, add the --insecure flag.
    5 Optional: Specify which platform and architecture of the index image to select when multiple variants are available. Images are passed as '<platform>/<arch>[/<variant>]'. This does not apply to images referenced by the index. Valid values are linux/amd64, linux/ppc64le, linux/s390x, and .*
    6 Optional: Generate only the manifests required for mirroring, and do not actually mirror the image content to a registry. This option can be useful for reviewing what will be mirrored, and it allows you to make any changes to the mapping list if you require only a subset of packages. You can then use the mapping.txt file with the oc image mirror command to mirror the modified list of images in a later step. This flag is intended for only advanced selective mirroring of content from the catalog; the opm index prune command, if you used it previously to prune the index image, is suitable for most catalog management use cases.
    Example output
    src image has index label for database path: /database/index.db
using database path mapping: /database/index.db:/tmp/153048078
wrote database to /tmp/153048078 (1)
...
wrote mirroring manifests to manifests-redhat-operator-index-1614211642 (2)
    1 Directory for the temporary index.db database generated by the command.
    2 Record the manifests directory name that is generated. This directory is referenced in subsequent procedures.

    Red Hat Quay does not support nested repositories. As a result, running the oc adm catalog mirror command will fail with a 401 unauthorized error. As a workaround, you can use the --max-components=2 option when running the oc adm catalog mirror command to disable the creation of nested repositories. For more information on this workaround, see the Unauthorized error thrown while using catalog mirror command with Quay registry Knowledgebase Solution.
Additional resources

Mirroring catalog contents to airgapped registries

If your mirror registry is on a completely disconnected, or airgapped, host, take the following actions.

Procedure

  1. Run the following command on your workstation with unrestricted network access to mirror the content to local files:

    $ oc adm catalog mirror \
    <index_image> \ (1)
    file:///local/index \ (2)
    -a ${REG_CREDS} \ (3)
    --insecure \ (4)
    --index-filter-by-os='<platform>/<arch>' (5)
    1 Specify the index image for the catalog that you want to mirror. For example, this might be a pruned index image that you created previously, or one of the source index images for the default catalogs, such as registry.redhat.io/redhat/redhat-operator-index:v4.9.
    2 Specify the content to mirror to local files in your current directory.
    3 Optional: If required, specify the location of your registry credentials file.
    4 Optional: If you do not want to configure trust for the target registry, add the --insecure flag.
    5 Optional: Specify which platform and architecture of the index image to select when multiple variants are available. Images are specified as '<platform>/<arch>[/<variant>]'. This does not apply to images referenced by the index. Valid values are linux/amd64, linux/ppc64le, linux/s390x, and .*
    Example output
    ...
info: Mirroring completed in 5.93s (5.915MB/s)
wrote mirroring manifests to manifests-my-index-1614985528 (1)

To upload local images to a registry, run:

	oc adm catalog mirror file://local/index/myrepo/my-index:v1 REGISTRY/REPOSITORY (2)
    1 Record the manifests directory name that is generated. This directory is referenced in subsequent procedures.
    2 Record the expanded file:// path that is based on your provided index image. This path is referenced in a subsequent step.

    This command creates a v2/ directory in your current directory.

  2. Copy the v2/ directory to removable media.

  3. Physically remove the media and attach it to a host in the disconnected environment that has access to the mirror registry.

  4. If your mirror registry requires authentication, run the following command on your host in the disconnected environment to log in to the registry:

    $ podman login <mirror_registry>

  5. Run the following command from the parent directory containing the v2/ directory to upload the images from local files to the mirror registry:

    $ oc adm catalog mirror \
    file://local/index/<repo>/<index_image>:<tag> \ (1)
    <mirror_registry>:<port>/<namespace> \ (2)
    -a ${REG_CREDS} \ (3)
    --insecure \ (4)
    --index-filter-by-os='<platform>/<arch>' (5)
    1 Specify the file:// path from the previous command output.
    2 Specify the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the target registry and namespace to mirror the Operator contents to, where <namespace> is any existing namespace on the registry. For example, you might create an olm-mirror namespace to push all mirrored content to.
    3 Optional: If required, specify the location of your registry credentials file.
    4 Optional: If you do not want to configure trust for the target registry, add the --insecure flag.
    5 Optional: Specify which platform and architecture of the index image to select when multiple variants are available. Images are specified as '<platform>/<arch>[/<variant>]'. This does not apply to images referenced by the index. Valid values are linux/amd64, linux/ppc64le, linux/s390x, and .*

    Red Hat Quay does not support nested repositories. As a result, running the oc adm catalog mirror command will fail with a 401 unauthorized error. As a workaround, you can use the --max-components=2 option when running the oc adm catalog mirror command to disable the creation of nested repositories. For more information on this workaround, see the Unauthorized error thrown while using catalog mirror command with Quay registry Knowledgebase Solution.

  6. Run the oc adm catalog mirror command again. Use the newly mirrored index image as the source and the same mirror registry namespace used in the previous step as the target:

    $ oc adm catalog mirror \
    <mirror_registry>:<port>/<index_image> \
    <mirror_registry>:<port>/<namespace> \
    --manifests-only \(1)
    [-a ${REG_CREDS}] \
    [--insecure]
    1 The --manifests-only flag is required for this step so that the command does not copy all of the mirrored content again.

    This step is required because the image mappings in the imageContentSourcePolicy.yaml file generated during the previous step must be updated from local paths to valid mirror locations. Failure to do so will cause errors when you create the ImageContentSourcePolicy object in a later step.

After you mirror the catalog, you can continue with the remainder of your cluster installation. After your cluster installation has finished successfully, you must specify the manifests directory from this procedure to create the ImageContentSourcePolicy and CatalogSource objects. These objects are required to enable installation of Operators from OperatorHub.

Additional resources

Generated manifests

After mirroring Operator catalog content to your mirror registry, a manifests directory is generated in your current directory.

If you mirrored content to a registry on the same network, the directory name takes the following pattern:

manifests-<index_image_name>-<random_number>

If you mirrored content to a registry on a disconnected host in the previous section, the directory name takes the following pattern:

manifests-index/<namespace>/<index_image_name>-<random_number>

The manifests directory name is referenced in subsequent procedures.

The manifests directory contains the following files, some of which might require further modification:

  • The catalogSource.yaml file is a basic definition for a CatalogSource object that is pre-populated with your index image tag and other relevant metadata. This file can be used as is or modified to add the catalog source to your cluster.

    If you mirrored the content to local files, you must modify your catalogSource.yaml file to remove any backslash (/) characters from the metadata.name field. Otherwise, when you attempt to create the object, it fails with an "invalid resource name" error.

  • The imageContentSourcePolicy.yaml file defines an ImageContentSourcePolicy object that can configure nodes to translate between the image references stored in Operator manifests and the mirrored registry.

    If your cluster uses an ImageContentSourcePolicy object to configure repository mirroring, you can use only global pull secrets for mirrored registries. You cannot add a pull secret to a project.

  • The mapping.txt file contains all of the source images and where to map them in the target registry. This file is compatible with the oc image mirror command and can be used to further customize the mirroring configuration.

    If you used the --manifests-only flag during the mirroring process and want to further trim the subset of packages to mirror, see the steps in the Mirroring a package manifest format catalog image procedure of the OpenShift Container Platform 4.7 documentation about modifying your mapping.txt file and using the file with the oc image mirror command.

Post-installation requirements

After you mirror the catalog, you can continue with the remainder of your cluster installation. After your cluster installation has finished successfully, you must specify the manifests directory from this procedure to create the ImageContentSourcePolicy and CatalogSource objects. These objects are required to populate and enable installation of Operators from OperatorHub.

Additional resources

Next steps

Additional resources