vSphere installation requirements

vSphere installation requirements

Before you begin an installation using installer-provisioned infrastructure, be sure that your vSphere environment meets the following installation requirements.

VMware vSphere infrastructure requirements

You must install the OKD cluster on a VMware vSphere version 7.0 Update 2 or later instance that meets the requirements for the components that you use.

OKD version 4 supports VMware vSphere version 8.0.

You can host the VMware vSphere infrastructure on-premise or on a VMware Cloud Verified provider that meets the requirements outlined in the following tables:

Table 1. Version requirements for vSphere virtual environments
Virtual environment product	Required version
VMware virtual hardware	15 or later
vSphere ESXi hosts	7.0 Update 2 or later
vCenter host	7.0 Update 2 or later

You must ensure that the time on your ESXi hosts is synchronized before you install OKD. See Edit Time Configuration for a Host in the VMware documentation.

Table 2. Minimum supported vSphere version for VMware components
Component	Minimum supported versions	Description
Hypervisor	vSphere 7.0 Update 2 and later with virtual hardware version 15	This version is the minimum version that Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) supports. For more information about supported hardware on the latest version of Fedora that is compatible with FCOS, see Hardware on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
Storage with in-tree drivers	vSphere 7.0 Update 2 and later	This plugin creates vSphere storage by using the in-tree storage drivers for vSphere included in OKD.
Optional: Networking (NSX-T)	vSphere 7.0 Update 2 and later	vSphere 7.0 Update 2 is required for OKD. For more information about the compatibility of NSX and OKD, see the Release Notes section of VMware’s NSX container plugin documentation.

To ensure the best performance conditions for your cluster workloads that operate on Oracle® Cloud Infrastructure and on the Oracle® Cloud VMware Solution (OCVS) service, ensure volume performance units (VPUs) for your block volume are sized for your workloads.

The following list provides some guidance in selecting the VPUs needed for specific performance needs:

Test or proof of concept environment: 100 GB, and 20 to 30 VPUs.
Base-production environment: 500 GB, and 60 VPUs.
Heavy-use production environment: More than 500 GB, and 100 or more VPUs.

Consider allocating additional VPUs to give enough capacity for updates and scaling activities. See Block Volume Performance Levels in the Oracle documentation.

Network connectivity requirements

You must configure the network connectivity between machines to allow OKD cluster components to communicate.

Review the following details about the required network ports.

Table 3. Ports used for all-machine to all-machine communications
Protocol	Port	Description
ICMP	N/A	Network reachability tests
TCP	`1936`	Metrics
	`9000`-`9999`	Host level services, including the node exporter on ports `9100`-`9101` and the Cluster Version Operator on port `9099`.
	`10250`-`10259`	The default ports that Kubernetes reserves
	`10256`	openshift-sdn
UDP	`4789`	virtual extensible LAN (VXLAN)
	`6081`	Geneve
	`9000`-`9999`	Host level services, including the node exporter on ports `9100`-`9101`.
	`500`	IPsec IKE packets
	`4500`	IPsec NAT-T packets
TCP/UDP	`30000`-`32767`	Kubernetes node port
ESP	N/A	IPsec Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)

Table 4. Ports used for all-machine to control plane communications
Protocol	Port	Description
TCP	`6443`	Kubernetes API

Table 5. Ports used for control plane machine to control plane machine communications
Protocol	Port	Description
TCP	`2379`-`2380`	etcd server and peer ports

VMware vSphere CSI Driver Operator requirements

To install the vSphere CSI Driver Operator, the following requirements must be met:

VMware vSphere version 7.0 Update 2 or later
vCenter 7.0 Update 2 or later
Virtual machines of hardware version 15 or later
No third-party vSphere CSI driver already installed in the cluster

If a third-party vSphere CSI driver is present in the cluster, OKD does not overwrite it. The presence of a third-party vSphere CSI driver prevents OKD from updating to OKD 4.13 or later.

The VMware vSphere CSI Driver Operator is supported only on clusters deployed with platform: vsphere in the installation manifest.

Additional resources

To remove a third-party vSphere CSI driver, see Removing a third-party vSphere CSI Driver.
To update the hardware version for your vSphere nodes, see Updating hardware on nodes running in vSphere.

vCenter requirements

Before you install an OKD cluster on your vCenter that uses infrastructure that the installer provisions, you must prepare your environment.

Required vCenter account privileges

To install an OKD cluster in a vCenter, the installation program requires access to an account with privileges to read and create the required resources. Using an account that has global administrative privileges is the simplest way to access all of the necessary permissions.

If you cannot use an account with global administrative privileges, you must create roles to grant the privileges necessary for OKD cluster installation. While most of the privileges are always required, some are required only if you plan for the installation program to provision a folder to contain the OKD cluster on your vCenter instance, which is the default behavior. You must create or amend vSphere roles for the specified objects to grant the required privileges.

An additional role is required if the installation program is to create a vSphere virtual machine folder.

Roles and privileges required for installation in vSphere API

vSphere object for role	When required	Required privileges in vSphere API
vSphere vCenter	Always	`Cns.Searchable` `InventoryService.Tagging.AttachTag` `InventoryService.Tagging.CreateCategory` `InventoryService.Tagging.CreateTag` `InventoryService.Tagging.DeleteCategory` `InventoryService.Tagging.DeleteTag` `InventoryService.Tagging.EditCategory` `InventoryService.Tagging.EditTag` `Sessions.ValidateSession` `StorageProfile.Update` `StorageProfile.View`
vSphere vCenter Cluster	If VMs will be created in the cluster root	`Host.Config.Storage` `Resource.AssignVMToPool` `VApp.AssignResourcePool` `VApp.Import` `VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk`
vSphere vCenter Resource Pool	If an existing resource pool is provided	`Host.Config.Storage` `Resource.AssignVMToPool` `VApp.AssignResourcePool` `VApp.Import` `VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk`
vSphere Datastore	Always	`Datastore.AllocateSpace` `Datastore.Browse` `Datastore.FileManagement` `InventoryService.Tagging.ObjectAttachable`
vSphere Port Group	Always	`Network.Assign`
Virtual Machine Folder	Always	`InventoryService.Tagging.ObjectAttachable` `Resource.AssignVMToPool` `VApp.Import` `VirtualMachine.Config.AddExistingDisk` `VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk` `VirtualMachine.Config.AddRemoveDevice` `VirtualMachine.Config.AdvancedConfig` `VirtualMachine.Config.Annotation` `VirtualMachine.Config.CPUCount` `VirtualMachine.Config.DiskExtend` `VirtualMachine.Config.DiskLease` `VirtualMachine.Config.EditDevice` `VirtualMachine.Config.Memory` `VirtualMachine.Config.RemoveDisk` `VirtualMachine.Config.Rename` `VirtualMachine.Config.ResetGuestInfo` `VirtualMachine.Config.Resource` `VirtualMachine.Config.Settings` `VirtualMachine.Config.UpgradeVirtualHardware` `VirtualMachine.Interact.GuestControl` `VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOff` `VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOn` `VirtualMachine.Interact.Reset` `VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create` `VirtualMachine.Inventory.CreateFromExisting` `VirtualMachine.Inventory.Delete` `VirtualMachine.Provisioning.Clone` `VirtualMachine.Provisioning.MarkAsTemplate` `VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DeployTemplate`
vSphere vCenter Datacenter	If the installation program creates the virtual machine folder. For UPI, `VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create` and `VirtualMachine.Inventory.Delete` privileges are optional if your cluster does not use the Machine API.	`InventoryService.Tagging.ObjectAttachable` `Resource.AssignVMToPool` `VApp.Import` `VirtualMachine.Config.AddExistingDisk` `VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk` `VirtualMachine.Config.AddRemoveDevice` `VirtualMachine.Config.AdvancedConfig` `VirtualMachine.Config.Annotation` `VirtualMachine.Config.CPUCount` `VirtualMachine.Config.DiskExtend` `VirtualMachine.Config.DiskLease` `VirtualMachine.Config.EditDevice` `VirtualMachine.Config.Memory` `VirtualMachine.Config.RemoveDisk` `VirtualMachine.Config.Rename` `VirtualMachine.Config.ResetGuestInfo` `VirtualMachine.Config.Resource` `VirtualMachine.Config.Settings` `VirtualMachine.Config.UpgradeVirtualHardware` `VirtualMachine.Interact.GuestControl` `VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOff` `VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOn` `VirtualMachine.Interact.Reset` `VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create` `VirtualMachine.Inventory.CreateFromExisting` `VirtualMachine.Inventory.Delete` `VirtualMachine.Provisioning.Clone` `VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DeployTemplate` `VirtualMachine.Provisioning.MarkAsTemplate` `Folder.Create` `Folder.Delete`

Roles and privileges required for installation in vCenter graphical user interface (GUI)

vSphere object for role	When required	Required privileges in vCenter GUI
vSphere vCenter	Always	`Cns.Searchable` `“vSphere Tagging”.”Assign or Unassign vSphere Tag”` `“vSphere Tagging”.”Create vSphere Tag Category”` `“vSphere Tagging”.”Create vSphere Tag”` `vSphere Tagging”.”Delete vSphere Tag Category”` `“vSphere Tagging”.”Delete vSphere Tag”` `“vSphere Tagging”.”Edit vSphere Tag Category”` `“vSphere Tagging”.”Edit vSphere Tag”` `Sessions.”Validate session”` `“Profile-driven storage”.”Profile-driven storage update”` `“Profile-driven storage”.”Profile-driven storage view”`
vSphere vCenter Cluster	If VMs will be created in the cluster root	`Host.Configuration.”Storage partition configuration”` `Resource.”Assign virtual machine to resource pool”` `VApp.”Assign resource pool”` `VApp.Import` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add new disk”`
vSphere vCenter Resource Pool	If an existing resource pool is provided	`Host.Configuration.”Storage partition configuration”` `Resource.”Assign virtual machine to resource pool”` `VApp.”Assign resource pool”` `VApp.Import` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add new disk”`
vSphere Datastore	Always	`Datastore.”Allocate space”` `Datastore.”Browse datastore”` `Datastore.”Low level file operations”` `“vSphere Tagging”.”Assign or Unassign vSphere Tag on Object”`
vSphere Port Group	Always	`Network.”Assign network”`
Virtual Machine Folder	Always	`“vSphere Tagging”.”Assign or Unassign vSphere Tag on Object”` `Resource.”Assign virtual machine to resource pool”` `VApp.Import` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add existing disk”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add new disk”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add or remove device”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Advanced configuration”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Set annotation”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change CPU count”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Extend virtual disk”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Acquire disk lease”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Modify device settings”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change Memory”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Remove disk”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.Rename` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Reset guest information”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change resource”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change Settings”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Upgrade virtual machine compatibility”` `“Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Guest operating system management by VIX API”` `“Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Power off”` `“Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Power on”` `“Virtual machine”.Interaction.Reset` `“Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Create new”` `“Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Create from existing”` `“Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Remove”` `“Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Clone virtual machine”` `“Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Mark as template”` `“Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Deploy template”`
vSphere vCenter Datacenter	If the installation program creates the virtual machine folder. For UPI, `VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create` and `VirtualMachine.Inventory.Delete` privileges are optional if your cluster does not use the Machine API.	`“vSphere Tagging”.”Assign or Unassign vSphere Tag on Object”` `Resource.”Assign virtual machine to resource pool”` `VApp.Import` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add existing disk”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add new disk”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add or remove device”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Advanced configuration”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Set annotation”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change CPU count”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Extend virtual disk”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Acquire disk lease”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Modify device settings”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change Memory”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Remove disk”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.Rename` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Reset guest information”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change resource”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change Settings”` `“Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Upgrade virtual machine compatibility”` `“Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Guest operating system management by VIX API”` `“Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Power off”` `“Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Power on”` `“Virtual machine”.Interaction.Reset` `“Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Create new”` `“Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Create from existing”` `“Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Remove”` `“Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Clone virtual machine”` `“Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Deploy template”` `“Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Mark as template”` `Folder.”Create folder”` `Folder.”Delete folder”`

Additionally, the user requires some ReadOnly permissions, and some of the roles require permission to propogate the permissions to child objects. These settings vary depending on whether or not you install the cluster into an existing folder.

Required permissions and propagation settings

vSphere object	When required	Propagate to children	Permissions required
vSphere vCenter	Always	False	Listed required privileges
vSphere vCenter Datacenter	Existing folder	False	`ReadOnly` permission
vSphere vCenter Datacenter	Installation program creates the folder	True	Listed required privileges
vSphere vCenter Cluster	Existing resource pool	False	`ReadOnly` permission
vSphere vCenter Cluster	VMs in cluster root	True	Listed required privileges
vSphere vCenter Datastore	Always	False	Listed required privileges
vSphere Switch	Always	False	`ReadOnly` permission
vSphere Port Group	Always	False	Listed required privileges
vSphere vCenter Virtual Machine Folder	Existing folder	True	Listed required privileges
vSphere vCenter Resource Pool	Existing resource pool	True	Listed required privileges

For more information about creating an account with only the required privileges, see vSphere Permissions and User Management Tasks in the vSphere documentation.

Using OKD with vMotion

If you intend on using vMotion in your vSphere environment, consider the following before installing an OKD cluster.

OKD generally supports compute-only vMotion, where generally implies that you meet all VMware best practices for vMotion.

To help ensure the uptime of your compute and control plane nodes, ensure that you follow the VMware best practices for vMotion, and use VMware anti-affinity rules to improve the availability of OKD during maintenance or hardware issues.

For more information about vMotion and anti-affinity rules, see the VMware vSphere documentation for vMotion networking requirements and VM anti-affinity rules.
Using Storage vMotion can cause issues and is not supported. If you are using vSphere volumes in your pods, migrating a VM across datastores, either manually or through Storage vMotion, causes invalid references within OKD persistent volume (PV) objects that can result in data loss.

OKD does not support selective migration of VMDKs across datastores, using datastore clusters for VM provisioning or for dynamic or static provisioning of PVs, or using a datastore that is part of a datastore cluster for dynamic or static provisioning of PVs.

You can specify the path of any datastore that exists in a datastore cluster. By default, Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (SDRS), which uses Storage vMotion, is automatically enabled for a datastore cluster. Red Hat does not support Storage vMotion, so you must disable Storage DRS to avoid data loss issues for your OKD cluster.

If you must specify VMs across multiple datastores, use a datastore object to specify a failure domain in your cluster’s install-config.yaml configuration file. For more information, see “VMware vSphere region and zone enablement”.

Cluster resources

When you deploy an OKD cluster that uses installer-provisioned infrastructure, the installation program must be able to create several resources in your vCenter instance.

A standard OKD installation creates the following vCenter resources:

1 Folder
1 Tag category
1 Tag
Virtual machines:
- 1 template
- 1 temporary bootstrap node
- 3 control plane nodes
- 3 compute machines

Although these resources use 856 GB of storage, the bootstrap node is destroyed during the cluster installation process. A minimum of 800 GB of storage is required to use a standard cluster.

If you deploy more compute machines, the OKD cluster will use more storage.

Cluster limits

Available resources vary between clusters. The number of possible clusters within a vCenter is limited primarily by available storage space and any limitations on the number of required resources. Be sure to consider both limitations to the vCenter resources that the cluster creates and the resources that you require to deploy a cluster, such as IP addresses and networks.

Networking requirements

Use Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) for the network and ensure that the DHCP server is configured to provide persistent IP addresses to the cluster machines.

You do not need to use the DHCP for the network if you want to provision nodes with static IP addresses.

Configure the default gateway to use the DHCP server. All nodes must be in the same VLAN. You cannot scale the cluster using a second VLAN as a Day 2 operation.

You must use the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) for the network and ensure that the DHCP server is configured to provide persistent IP addresses to the cluster machines. In the DHCP lease, you must configure the DHCP to use the default gateway. All nodes must be in the same VLAN. You cannot scale the cluster using a second VLAN as a Day 2 operation.

If you are installing to a restricted environment, the VM in your restricted network must have access to vCenter so that it can provision and manage nodes, persistent volume claims (PVCs), and other resources.

Additionally, you must create the following networking resources before you install the OKD cluster:

It is recommended that each OKD node in the cluster must have access to a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server that is discoverable via DHCP. Installation is possible without an NTP server. However, asynchronous server clocks will cause errors, which NTP server prevents.

Required IP Addresses

For a network that uses DHCP, an installer-provisioned vSphere installation requires two static IP addresses:

The API address is used to access the cluster API.
The Ingress address is used for cluster ingress traffic.

You must provide these IP addresses to the installation program when you install the OKD cluster.

DNS records

You must create DNS records for two static IP addresses in the appropriate DNS server for the vCenter instance that hosts your OKD cluster. In each record, <cluster_name> is the cluster name and <base_domain> is the cluster base domain that you specify when you install the cluster. A complete DNS record takes the form: <component>.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>..

Table 6. Required DNS records
Component	Record	Description
API VIP	`api.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>.`	This DNS A/AAAA or CNAME record must point to the load balancer for the control plane machines. This record must be resolvable by both clients external to the cluster and from all the nodes within the cluster.
Ingress VIP	`*.apps.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>.`	A wildcard DNS A/AAAA or CNAME record that points to the load balancer that targets the machines that run the Ingress router pods, which are the worker nodes by default. This record must be resolvable by both clients external to the cluster and from all the nodes within the cluster.

Static IP addresses for vSphere nodes

You can provision bootstrap, control plane, and compute nodes to be configured with static IP addresses in environments where Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) does not exist. To configure this environment, you must provide values to the platform.vsphere.hosts.role parameter in the install-config.yaml file.

Static IP addresses for vSphere nodes is a Technology Preview feature only. Technology Preview features are not supported with Red Hat production service level agreements (SLAs) and might not be functionally complete. Red Hat does not recommend using them in production. These features provide early access to upcoming product features, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process.

For more information about the support scope of Red Hat Technology Preview features, see Technology Preview Features Support Scope.

By default, the installation program is configured to use the DHCP for the network, but this network has limited configurable capabilities.

After you define one or more machine pools in your install-config.yaml file, you can define network definitions for nodes on your network. Ensure that the number of network definitions matches the number of machine pools that you configured for your cluster.

The following example shows a network configuration for a node with the role compute:

---
platform:
  vsphere:
    hosts:
    - role: compute (1)
      networkDevice:
        ipAddrs:
        - 192.168.204.10/24 (2)
        gateway: 192.168.204.1 (3)
        nameservers:
        - 192.168.204.1 (4)
---

1 Valid network definition values include bootstrap, control-plane, and compute. You must list at least one bootstrap network definition in your install-config.yaml configuration file.

2 Lists IPv4, IPv6, or both IP addresses that the installation program passes to the network interface. The machine API controller assigns all configured IP addresses to the default network interface.

3 The default gateway for the network interface.

Lists up to 3 DNS nameservers.

To enable the Technology Preview feature of static IP addresses for vSphere nodes for your cluster, you must include featureSet:TechPreviewNoUpgrade as the initial entry in the install-config.yaml file.

After you deployed your cluster to run nodes with static IP addresses, you can scale a machine to use one of these static IP addresses. Additionally, you can use a machine set to configure a machine to use one of the configured static IP addresses.

Additional resources