Using the Cluster Samples Operator with an alternate registry

You can use the Cluster Samples Operator with an alternate registry by first creating a mirror registry.

About the mirror registry

You can mirror the images that are required for OKD installation and subsequent product updates to a mirror registry. These actions use the same process. The release image, which contains the description of the content, and the images it references are all mirrored. In addition, the Operator catalog source image and the images that it references must be mirrored for each Operator that you use. After you mirror the content, you configure each cluster to retrieve this content from your mirror registry.

The mirror registry can be any container registry that supports Docker v2-2. All major cloud provider registries, as well as Red Hat Quay, Artifactory, and others, have the necessary support. Using one of these registries ensures that OKD can verify the integrity of each image in disconnected environments.

The mirror registry 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 OKD clusters.

When you populate a mirror registry with OKD 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.

Additional information

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

Preparing the mirror host

Before you create the mirror registry, you must prepare the mirror host.

Installing the OpenShift CLI by downloading the binary

You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) in order 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 xvzf <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>

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.

Prerequisites

• You configured a mirror registry to use in your restricted network.

Procedure

Complete the following steps on the installation host:

1. 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.

2. Create a .json 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:5000
   2	For <credentials>, specify the base64-encoded user name and password for the mirror registry.

Mirroring the OKD image repository

Mirror the OKD 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 have created a pull secret for 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 OKD downloads page to determine the version of OKD 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 OKD 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 internal container 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.

1. 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}"

Using Cluster Samples Operator image streams with alternate or mirrored registries

Most image streams in the openshift namespace managed by the Cluster Samples Operator point to images located in the Red Hat registry at registry.redhat.io.

Prerequisites

• Access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role.

• Create a pull secret for your mirror registry.

Procedure

1. Access the images of a specific image stream to mirror, for example:

   $ oc get is <imagestream> -n openshift -o json | jq .spec.tags[].from.name | grep registry.redhat.io

2. Mirror images from registry.redhat.io associated with any image streams you need

   $ oc image mirror registry.redhat.io/rhscl/ruby-25-rhel7:latest ${MIRROR_ADDR}/rhscl/ruby-25-rhel7:latest

3. Create the cluster’s image configuration object:

   $ oc create configmap registry-config --from-file=${MIRROR_ADDR_HOSTNAME}..5000=$path/ca.crt -n openshift-config

4. Add the required trusted CAs for the mirror in the cluster’s image configuration object:

   $ oc patch image.config.openshift.io/cluster --patch '{"spec":{"additionalTrustedCA":{"name":"registry-config"}}}' --type=merge

5. Update the samplesRegistry field in the Cluster Samples Operator configuration object to contain the hostname portion of the mirror location defined in the mirror configuration:

   $ oc edit configs.samples.operator.openshift.io -n openshift-cluster-samples-operator

   This is required because the image stream import process does not use the mirror or search mechanism at this time.

6. Add any image streams that are not mirrored into the skippedImagestreams field of the Cluster Samples Operator configuration object. Or if you do not want to support any of the sample image streams, set the Cluster Samples Operator to Removed in the Cluster Samples Operator configuration object.

   The Cluster Samples Operator issues alerts if image stream imports are failing but the Cluster Samples Operator is either periodically retrying or does not appear to be retrying them.

   Many of the templates in the openshift namespace reference the image streams. So using Removed to purge both the image streams and templates will eliminate the possibility of attempts to use them if they are not functional because of any missing image streams.