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Prerequisites

Overview

OpenShift infrastructure components can be installed across multiple hosts. The following sections outline the system requirements and instructions for preparing your environment and hosts before installing OpenShift.

System Requirements

You must have an active OpenShift Enterprise subscription on your Red Hat account to proceed. If you do not, contact your sales representative for more information.

The system requirements vary per host type:

Masters

  • Physical or virtual system, or an instance running on a public or private IaaS.

  • Base OS: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.1 with "Minimal" installation option

  • 2 vCPU

  • Minimum 8 GB RAM

  • Minimum 30 GB hard disk space

Nodes

  • Physical or virtual system, or an instance running on a public or private IaaS.

  • Base OS: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.1 with "Minimal" installation option

  • Docker 1.6.2 or later

  • 1 vCPU

  • Minimum 8 GB RAM

  • Minimum 15 GB hard disk space

  • An additional minimum 15 GB unallocated space to be configured using docker-storage-setup; see Configuring Docker Storage below.

Persistent Storage

The Kubernetes persistent volume framework allows you to provision an OpenShift cluster with persistent storage using networked storage available in your environment. This can be done after completing the initial OpenShift installation depending on your application needs, giving users a way to request those resources without having any knowledge of the underlying infrastructure.

Currently NFS is fully supported, however other options are available as Technology Preview.

Configuring Core Usage

By default, OpenShift masters and nodes use all available cores in the system they run on. You can choose the number of cores you want OpenShift to use by setting the GOMAXPROCS environment variable.

For example, run the following before starting the server to make OpenShift only run on one core:

# export GOMAXPROCS=1

Security Warning

OpenShift runs Docker containers on your hosts, and in some cases, such as build operations and the registry service, it does so using privileged containers. Furthermore, those containers access your host’s Docker daemon and perform docker build and docker push operations. As such, you should be aware of the inherent security risks associated with performing docker run operations on arbitrary images as they effectively have root access.

For more information, see these articles:

To address these risks, OpenShift uses security context constraints that control the actions that pods can perform and what it has the ability to access.

Environment Requirements

DNS

A wildcard for a DNS zone must ultimately resolve to the IP address of the OpenShift router.

For example, create a wildcard DNS entry for cloudapps, or something similar, that has a low TTL and points to the public IP address of the host where the router will be deployed:

*.cloudapps.example.com. 300 IN  A 192.168.133.2

In almost all cases, when referencing VMs you must use host names, and the host names that you use must match the output of the hostname -f command on each node.

Networking

A shared network must exist between the master and node hosts.

If you plan to configure multiple masters for high-availability using the advanced installation method, you must also select an IP to be configured as your virtual IP (VIP) during the installation process. The IP that you select must be routable between all of your nodes, and if you configure using a FQDN it should resolve on all nodes. The VIP is then managed by Pacemaker.

Git

You must have either Internet access and a GitHub account, or read and write access to an internal, HTTP-based Git server.

Persistent Storage

The Kubernetes persistent volume framework allows you to provision an OpenShift cluster with persistent storage using networked storage available in your environment. This can be done after completing the initial OpenShift installation depending on your application needs, giving users a way to request those resources without having any knowledge of the underlying infrastructure.

SELinux

Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) must be enabled on all of the servers before installing OpenShift or the installer will fail. Also, configure SELINUXTYPE=targeted in the /etc/selinux/config file:

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#     enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#     permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#     disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=enforcing
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these three values:
#     targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
#     minimum - Modification of targeted policy. Only selected processes are protected.
#     mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

Host Preparation

Before installing OpenShift, you must first prepare each host per the following.

Software Prerequisites

Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

A base installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.1 is required for master or node hosts. See the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 Installation Guide for more information.

Registering the Hosts

Each host must be registered using Red Hat Subscription Manager (RHSM) and have an active OpenShift Enterprise subscription attached to access the required packages.

  1. On each host, register with RHSM:

    # subscription-manager register --username=<user_name> --password=<password>

  2. List the available subscriptions:

    # subscription-manager list --available

  3. In the output for the previous command, find the pool ID for an OpenShift Enterprise subscription and attach it:

    # subscription-manager attach --pool=<pool_id>

  4. Disable all repositories and enable only the required ones:

    # subscription-manager repos --disable="*"
# subscription-manager repos \
    --enable="rhel-7-server-rpms" \
    --enable="rhel-7-server-extras-rpms" \
    --enable="rhel-7-server-ose-3.0-rpms"

  5. If you plan to configure multiple masters for high-availability using the advanced installation method, you must also enable the High Availability Add-on for Red Hat Enterprise Linux repository:

    # subscription-manager repos \
    --enable="rhel-ha-for-rhel-7-server-rpms"

Managing Base Packages

  1. Install the following packages:

    # yum install wget git net-tools bind-utils iptables-services bridge-utils bash-completion

  2. If you plan to use the quick installation method, you must also install the GNU Compiler Collection (gcc) and Python Virtual Environment (python-virtualenv) packages:

    # yum install gcc python-virtualenv

  3. Update the system to the latest packages:

    # yum update

  4. Install the following package, which provides OpenShift utilities and pulls in other tools required by the quick and advanced installation methods, such as Ansible and related configuration files:

    # yum install atomic-openshift-utils

Installing Docker

Docker version 1.6.2 or later from the rhel-7-server-ose-3.0-rpms repository must be installed and running on master and node hosts before installing OpenShift.

  1. Install Docker:

    # yum install docker

  2. Edit the /etc/sysconfig/docker file and add --insecure-registry 172.30.0.0/16 to the OPTIONS parameter. For example:

    OPTIONS='--selinux-enabled --insecure-registry 172.30.0.0/16'

    The --insecure-registry option instructs the Docker daemon to trust any Docker registry on the indicated subnet, rather than requiring a certificate.

    After installing OpenShift, you can choose to secure the integrated Docker registry, which involves adjusting the --insecure-registry option accordingly.

    172.30.0.0/16 is the default value of the servicesSubnet variable in the master-config.yaml file. If this has changed, then the --insecure-registry value in the above step should be adjusted to match, as it is indicating the subnet for the registry to use. Note that the openshift_master_portal_net variable can be set in the Ansible inventory file and used during the advanced installation method to modify the servicesSubnet variable.

Configuring Docker Storage

Docker containers and the images they are created from are stored in Docker’s storage back end. This storage is ephemeral and separate from any persistent storage allocated to meet the needs of your applications.

The default storage back end is a thin pool on loopback devices which is not supported for production use and only appropriate for proof of concept environments. For production environments, you must create a thin pool logical volume and re-configure Docker to use that volume.

You can use the docker-storage-setup script included with Docker to create a thin pool device and configure Docker’s storage driver. This can be done after installing Docker and should be done before creating images or containers. The script reads configuration options from the /etc/sysconfig/docker-storage-setup file and supports three options for creating the logical volume:

  • Option A) Use an additional block device.

  • Option B) Use an existing, specified volume group.

  • Option C) Use the remaining free space from the volume group where your root file system is located.

Option A is the most robust option, however it requires adding an additional block device to your host before configuring Docker storage. Options B and C both require leaving free space available when provisioning your host.

See the Managing Storage with Docker Formatted Containers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host Knowledgebase article for more details about docker-storage-setup and basic instructions on storage management in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

  1. Create the docker-pool volume using one of the following three options:

    • Option A) Use an additional block device.

      In /etc/sysconfig/docker-storage-setup, set DEVS to the path of the block device you wish to use. Set VG to the volume group name you wish to create; docker-vg is a reasonable choice. For example:

      # cat <<EOF > /etc/sysconfig/docker-storage-setup
DEVS=/dev/vdc
VG=docker-vg
EOF

      Then run docker-storage-setup and review the output to ensure the docker-pool volume was created:

      # docker-storage-setup                                                                                                                                                                                                                                [5/1868]
0
Checking that no-one is using this disk right now ...
OK

Disk /dev/vdc: 31207 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
sfdisk:  /dev/vdc: unrecognized partition table type

Old situation:
sfdisk: No partitions found

New situation:
Units: sectors of 512 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot    Start       End   #sectors  Id  System
/dev/vdc1          2048  31457279   31455232  8e  Linux LVM
/dev/vdc2             0         -          0   0  Empty
/dev/vdc3             0         -          0   0  Empty
/dev/vdc4             0         -          0   0  Empty
Warning: partition 1 does not start at a cylinder boundary
Warning: partition 1 does not end at a cylinder boundary
Warning: no primary partition is marked bootable (active)
This does not matter for LILO, but the DOS MBR will not boot this disk.
Successfully wrote the new partition table

Re-reading the partition table ...

If you created or changed a DOS partition, /dev/foo7, say, then use dd(1)
to zero the first 512 bytes:  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/foo7 bs=512 count=1
(See fdisk(8).)
  Physical volume "/dev/vdc1" successfully created
  Volume group "docker-vg" successfully created
  Rounding up size to full physical extent 16.00 MiB
  Logical volume "docker-poolmeta" created.
  Logical volume "docker-pool" created.
  WARNING: Converting logical volume docker-vg/docker-pool and docker-vg/docker-poolmeta to pool's data and metadata volumes.
  THIS WILL DESTROY CONTENT OF LOGICAL VOLUME (filesystem etc.)
  Converted docker-vg/docker-pool to thin pool.
  Logical volume "docker-pool" changed.

    • Option B) Use an existing, specified volume group.

      In /etc/sysconfig/docker-storage-setup, set VG to the desired volume group. For example:

      # cat <<EOF > /etc/sysconfig/docker-storage-setup
VG=docker-vg
EOF

      Then run docker-storage-setup and review the output to ensure the docker-pool volume was created:

      # docker-storage-setup
  Rounding up size to full physical extent 16.00 MiB
  Logical volume "docker-poolmeta" created.
  Logical volume "docker-pool" created.
  WARNING: Converting logical volume docker-vg/docker-pool and docker-vg/docker-poolmeta to pool's data and metadata volumes.
  THIS WILL DESTROY CONTENT OF LOGICAL VOLUME (filesystem etc.)
  Converted docker-vg/docker-pool to thin pool.
  Logical volume "docker-pool" changed.

    • Option C) Use the remaining free space from the volume group where your root file system is located.

      Verify that the volume group where your root file system resides has the desired free space, then run docker-storage-setup and review the output to ensure the docker-pool volume was created:

      # docker-storage-setup
  Rounding up size to full physical extent 32.00 MiB
  Logical volume "docker-poolmeta" created.
  Logical volume "docker-pool" created.
  WARNING: Converting logical volume rhel/docker-pool and rhel/docker-poolmeta to pool's data and metadata volumes.
  THIS WILL DESTROY CONTENT OF LOGICAL VOLUME (filesystem etc.)
  Converted rhel/docker-pool to thin pool.
  Logical volume "docker-pool" changed.

  2. Verify your configuration. You should have a dm.thinpooldev value in the /etc/sysconfig/docker-storage file and a docker-pool logical volume:

    # cat /etc/sysconfig/docker-storage
DOCKER_STORAGE_OPTIONS=--storage-opt dm.fs=xfs --storage-opt
dm.thinpooldev=/dev/mapper/docker--vg-docker--pool

# lvs
  LV          VG   Attr       LSize  Pool Origin Data%  Meta%  Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert
  docker-pool rhel twi-a-t---  9.29g             0.00   0.12

    Before using Docker or OpenShift, verify that the docker-pool logical volume is large enough to meet your needs. The docker-pool volume should be 60% of the available volume group and will grow to fill the volume group via LVM monitoring.

  3. Check if Docker is running:

    # systemctl is-active docker

  4. If Docker has not yet been started on the host, enable and start the service:

    # systemctl enable docker
# systemctl start docker

    If Docker is already running, re-initialize Docker:

    This will destroy any Docker containers or images currently on the host.

    		 
    # systemctl stop docker
# rm -rf /var/lib/docker/*
# systemctl restart docker

    If there is any content in /var/lib/docker/, it must be deleted. Files will be present if Docker has been used prior to the installation of OpenShift.

Reconfiguring Docker Storage

Should you need to reconfigure Docker storage after having created the docker-pool, you should first remove the docker-pool logical volume. If you are using a dedicated volume group, you should also remove the volume group and any associated physical volumes before reconfiguring docker-storage-setup according to the instructions above.

See Logical Volume Manager Administration for more detailed information on LVM management.

Ensuring Host Access

The quick and advanced installation methods require a user that has access to all hosts. If you want to run the installer as a non-root user, passwordless sudo rights must be configured on each destination host.

For example, you can generate an SSH key on the host where you will invoke the installation process:

# ssh-keygen

Do not use a password.

An easy way to distribute your SSH keys is by using a bash loop:

# for host in master.example.com \
    node1.example.com \
    node2.example.com; \
    do ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub $host; \
    done

Modify the host names in the above command according to your configuration.

What’s Next?

Now that your environment and hosts are properly set up, you can install OpenShift Enterprise using the quick installation or advanced installation method.