Installing a cluster on Azure Stack Hub with an installer-provisioned infrastructure

In OKD version 4.13, you can install a cluster on Microsoft Azure Stack Hub with an installer-provisioned infrastructure. However, you must manually configure the install-config.yaml file to specify values that are specific to Azure Stack Hub.

Prerequisites

• You reviewed details about the OKD installation and update processes.

• You read the documentation on selecting a cluster installation method and preparing it for users.

• You configured an Azure Stack Hub account to host the cluster.

• If you use a firewall, you configured it to allow the sites that your cluster requires access to.

• You verified that you have approximately 16 GB of local disk space. Installing the cluster requires that you download the FCOS virtual hard disk (VHD) cluster image and upload it to your Azure Stack Hub environment so that it is accessible during deployment. Decompressing the VHD files requires this amount of local disk space.

Generating a key pair for cluster node SSH access

During an OKD installation, you can provide an SSH public key to the installation program. The key is passed to the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) nodes through their Ignition config files and is used to authenticate SSH access to the nodes. The key is added to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys list for the core user on each node, which enables password-less authentication.

After the key is passed to the nodes, you can use the key pair to SSH in to the FCOS nodes as the user core. To access the nodes through SSH, the private key identity must be managed by SSH for your local user.

If you want to SSH in to your cluster nodes to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, you must provide the SSH public key during the installation process. The ./openshift-install gather command also requires the SSH public key to be in place on the cluster nodes.

Procedure

1. If you do not have an existing SSH key pair on your local machine to use for authentication onto your cluster nodes, create one. For example, on a computer that uses a Linux operating system, run the following command:

   $ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N '' -f <path>/<file_name> (1)

   1	Specify the path and file name, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, of the new SSH key. If you have an existing key pair, ensure your public key is in the your ~/.ssh directory.

   If you plan to install an OKD cluster that uses FIPS Validated / Modules in Process cryptographic libraries on the x86_64 architecture, do not create a key that uses the ed25519 algorithm. Instead, create a key that uses the rsa or ecdsa algorithm.

2. View the public SSH key:

   $ cat <path>/<file_name>.pub

   For example, run the following to view the ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub public key:

   $ cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

3. Add the SSH private key identity to the SSH agent for your local user, if it has not already been added. SSH agent management of the key is required for password-less SSH authentication onto your cluster nodes, or if you want to use the ./openshift-install gather command.

   On some distributions, default SSH private key identities such as ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_dsa are managed automatically.

   1. If the ssh-agent process is not already running for your local user, start it as a background task:

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

      Example output

      Agent pid 31874

      If your cluster is in FIPS mode, only use FIPS-compliant algorithms to generate the SSH key. The key must be either RSA or ECDSA.

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

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

   1	Specify the path and file name for your SSH private key, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

   Example output

   Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)

Next steps

• When you install OKD, provide the SSH public key to the installation program.

Uploading the FCOS cluster image

You must download the FCOS virtual hard disk (VHD) cluster image and upload it to your Azure Stack Hub environment so that it is accessible during deployment.

Prerequisites

• Configure an Azure account.

Procedure

1. Obtain the FCOS VHD cluster image:

   1. Export the URL of the FCOS VHD to an environment variable.

      $ export COMPRESSED_VHD_URL=$(openshift-install coreos print-stream-json | jq -r '.architectures.x86_64.artifacts.azurestack.formats."vhd.gz".disk.location')

   2. Download the compressed FCOS VHD file locally.

      $ curl -O -L ${COMPRESSED_VHD_URL}

2. Decompress the VHD file.

   The decompressed VHD file is approximately 16 GB, so be sure that your host system has 16 GB of free space available. The VHD file can be deleted once you have uploaded it.

3. Upload the local VHD to the Azure Stack Hub environment, making sure that the blob is publicly available. For example, you can upload the VHD to a blob using the az cli or the web portal.

Obtaining the installation program

Before you install OKD, download the installation file on the host you are using for installation.

Prerequisites

• You have a computer that runs Linux or macOS, with 500 MB of local disk space.

Procedure

1. Download installer from https://github.com/openshift/okd/releases

   The installation program creates several files on the computer that you use to install your cluster. You must keep the installation program and the files that the installation program creates after you finish installing the cluster. Both files are required to delete the cluster.

   Deleting the files created by the installation program does not remove your cluster, even if the cluster failed during installation. To remove your cluster, complete the OKD uninstallation procedures for your specific cloud provider.

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

   $ tar -xvf openshift-install-linux.tar.gz

3. Download your installation pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager. 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 OKD components.

   Using a pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager is not required. You can use a pull secret for another private registry. Or, if you do not need the cluster to pull images from a private registry, you can use {"auths":{"fake":{"auth":"aWQ6cGFzcwo="}}} as the pull secret when prompted during the installation.

   If you do not use the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager:

   • Red Hat Operators are not available.

   • The Telemetry and Insights operators do not send data to Red Hat.

   • Content from the Red Hat Container Catalog registry, such as image streams and Operators, are not available.

Manually creating the installation configuration file

When installing OKD on Microsoft Azure Stack Hub, you must manually create your installation configuration file.

Prerequisites

• You have an SSH public key on your local machine to provide to the installation program. The key will be used for SSH authentication onto your cluster nodes for debugging and disaster recovery.

• You have obtained the OKD installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.

Procedure

1. Create an installation directory to store your required installation assets in:

   $ mkdir <installation_directory>

   You must create a 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 OKD version.

2. Customize the sample install-config.yaml file template that is provided and save it in the <installation_directory>.

   You must name this configuration file install-config.yaml.

   Make the following modifications:

   1. Specify the required installation parameters.

   2. Update the platform.azure section to specify the parameters that are specific to Azure Stack Hub.

   3. Optional: Update one or more of the default configuration parameters to customize the installation.

      For more information about the parameters, see “Installation configuration parameters”.

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 next step of the installation process. You must back it up now.

Installation configuration parameters

Before you deploy an OKD cluster, you provide a customized install-config.yaml installation configuration file that describes the details for your environment.

Required configuration parameters

Required installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Network configuration parameters

You can customize your installation configuration based on the requirements of your existing network infrastructure. For example, you can expand the IP address block for the cluster network or provide different IP address blocks than the defaults.

Only IPv4 addresses are supported.

networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23

networking:
  serviceNetwork:
   - 172.30.0.0/16

networking:
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16

Optional configuration parameters

Optional installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

sshKey:
  <key1>
  <key2>
  <key3>

Additional Azure Stack Hub configuration parameters

Additional Azure configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Sample customized install-config.yaml file for Azure Stack Hub

You can customize the install-config.yaml file to specify more details about your OKD cluster’s platform or modify the values of the required parameters.

apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: example.com (1)
credentialsMode: Manual
controlPlane:  (2) (3)
  name: master
  platform:
    azure:
      osDisk:
        diskSizeGB: 1024 (4)
        diskType: premium_LRS
  replicas: 3
compute: (2)
- name: worker
  platform:
    azure:
      osDisk:
        diskSizeGB: 512 (4)
        diskType: premium_LRS
  replicas: 3
metadata:
  name: test-cluster  (1) (5)
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16
  networkType: OVNKubernetes (6)
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  azure:
    armEndpoint: azurestack_arm_endpoint  (1) (7)
    baseDomainResourceGroupName: resource_group  (1) (8)
    region: azure_stack_local_region  (1) (9)
    resourceGroupName: existing_resource_group (10)
    outboundType: Loadbalancer
    cloudName: AzureStackCloud (1)
    clusterOSimage: https://vhdsa.blob.example.example.com/vhd/rhcos-410.84.202112040202-0-azurestack.x86_64.vhd  (1) (11)
pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}'  (1) (12)
sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA...(13)
additionalTrustBundle: | (14)
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    <MY_TRUSTED_CA_CERT>
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----

Manually manage cloud credentials

The Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) only supports your cloud provider in manual mode. As a result, you must specify the identity and access management (IAM) secrets for your cloud provider.

Procedure

1. Generate the manifests by running the following command from the directory that contains the installation program:

   $ openshift-install create manifests --dir <installation_directory>

   where <installation_directory> is the directory in which the installation program creates files.

2. From the directory that contains the installation program, obtain details of the OKD release image that your openshift-install binary is built to use by running the following command:

   $ openshift-install version

   Example output

   release image quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-release:4.y.z-x86_64

3. Locate all CredentialsRequest objects in this release image that target the cloud you are deploying on by running the following command:

   $ oc adm release extract quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-release:4.y.z-x86_64 \
     --credentials-requests \
     --cloud=azure

   This command creates a YAML file for each CredentialsRequest object.

   Sample CredentialsRequest object

   apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
   kind: CredentialsRequest
   metadata:
     name: <component-credentials-request>
     namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator
     ...
   spec:
     providerSpec:
       apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
       kind: AzureProviderSpec
       roleBindings:
       - role: Contributor
     ...

4. Create YAML files for secrets in the openshift-install manifests directory that you generated previously. The secrets must be stored using the namespace and secret name defined in the spec.secretRef for each CredentialsRequest object.

   Sample CredentialsRequest object with secrets

   apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
   kind: CredentialsRequest
   metadata:
     name: <component-credentials-request>
     namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator
     ...
   spec:
     providerSpec:
       apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
       kind: AzureProviderSpec
       roleBindings:
       - role: Contributor
         ...
     secretRef:
       name: <component-secret>
       namespace: <component-namespace>
     ...

   Sample Secret object

   apiVersion: v1
   kind: Secret
   metadata:
     name: <component-secret>
     namespace: <component-namespace>
   data:
     azure_subscription_id: <base64_encoded_azure_subscription_id>
     azure_client_id: <base64_encoded_azure_client_id>
     azure_client_secret: <base64_encoded_azure_client_secret>
     azure_tenant_id: <base64_encoded_azure_tenant_id>
     azure_resource_prefix: <base64_encoded_azure_resource_prefix>
     azure_resourcegroup: <base64_encoded_azure_resourcegroup>
     azure_region: <base64_encoded_azure_region>

   The release image includes CredentialsRequest objects for Technology Preview features that are enabled by the TechPreviewNoUpgrade feature set. You can identify these objects by their use of the release.openshift.io/feature-set: TechPreviewNoUpgrade annotation. If you are not using any of these features, do not create secrets for these objects. Creating secrets for Technology Preview features that you are not using can cause the installation to fail. If you are using any of these features, you must create secrets for the corresponding objects.

   • To find CredentialsRequest objects with the TechPreviewNoUpgrade annotation, run the following command:

     $ grep "release.openshift.io/feature-set" *

     Example output

     0000_30_capi-operator_00_credentials-request.yaml:  release.openshift.io/feature-set: TechPreviewNoUpgrade

   Before upgrading a cluster that uses manually maintained credentials, you must ensure that the CCO is in an upgradeable state.

Additional resources

• Updating cloud provider resources with manually maintained credentials

Configuring the cluster to use an internal CA

If the Azure Stack Hub environment is using an internal Certificate Authority (CA), update the cluster-proxy-01-config.yaml file to configure the cluster to use the internal CA.

Prerequisites

• Create the install-config.yaml file and specify the certificate trust bundle in .pem format.

• Create the cluster manifests.

Procedure

1. From the directory in which the installation program creates files, go to the manifests directory.

2. Add user-ca-bundle to the spec.trustedCA.name field.

   Example cluster-proxy-01-config.yaml file

   apiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1
   kind: Proxy
   metadata:
     creationTimestamp: null
     name: cluster
   spec:
     trustedCA:
       name: user-ca-bundle
   status: {}

3. Optional: Back up the manifests/ cluster-proxy-01-config.yaml file. The installation program consumes the manifests/ directory when you deploy the cluster.

Deploying the cluster

You can install OKD on a compatible cloud platform.

Prerequisites

• Configure an account with the cloud platform that hosts your cluster.

• Obtain the OKD installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.

• Verify the cloud provider account on your host has the correct permissions to deploy the cluster. An account with incorrect permissions causes the installation process to fail with an error message that displays the missing permissions.

Procedure

• Change to the directory that contains the installation program and initialize the cluster deployment:

  $ ./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.

Verification

When the cluster deployment completes successfully:

• The terminal displays directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to the web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user.

• Credential information also outputs to <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log.

Example output

...
INFO Install complete!
INFO To access the cluster as the system:admin user when using 'oc', run 'export KUBECONFIG=/home/myuser/install_dir/auth/kubeconfig'
INFO Access the OpenShift web-console here: https://console-openshift-console.apps.mycluster.example.com
INFO Login to the console with user: "kubeadmin", and password: "4vYBz-Ee6gm-ymBZj-Wt5AL"
INFO Time elapsed: 36m22s

Installing the OpenShift CLI by downloading the binary

You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) to interact with OKD from a command-line interface. You can install oc on Linux, Windows, or macOS.

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 https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.

2. Download oc.tar.gz.

3. Unpack the archive:

   $ tar xvf <file>

4. 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 https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.

2. Download oc.zip.

3. Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.

4. 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 https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.

2. Download oc.tar.gz.

3. Unpack and unzip the archive.

4. 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>

Logging in to the cluster by using the CLI

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 OKD installation.

Prerequisites

• You deployed an OKD cluster.

• You installed 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

   Example output

   system:admin

Logging in to the cluster by using the web console

The kubeadmin user exists by default after an OKD installation. You can log in to your cluster as the kubeadmin user by using the OKD web console.

Prerequisites

• You have access to the installation host.

• You completed a cluster installation and all cluster Operators are available.

Procedure

1. Obtain the password for the kubeadmin user from the kubeadmin-password file on the installation host:

   $ cat <installation_directory>/auth/kubeadmin-password

   Alternatively, you can obtain the kubeadmin password from the <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log log file on the installation host.

2. List the OKD web console route:

   $ oc get routes -n openshift-console | grep 'console-openshift'

   Alternatively, you can obtain the OKD route from the <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log log file on the installation host.

   Example output

   console     console-openshift-console.apps.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>            console     https   reencrypt/Redirect   None

3. Navigate to the route detailed in the output of the preceding command in a web browser and log in as the kubeadmin user.

Additional resources

• Accessing the web console

Additional resources

• About remote health monitoring

Next steps

• Validating an installation.

• Customize your cluster.

• If necessary, you can opt out of remote health reporting.

• If necessary, you can remove cloud provider credentials.