Installing a cluster on VMC with network customizations

In OKD version 4.7, you can install a cluster on your VMware vSphere instance using installer-provisioned infrastructure with customized network configuration options by deploying it to VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS.

Once you configure your VMC environment for OKD deployment, you use the OKD installation program from the bastion management host, co-located in the VMC environment. The installation program and control plane automates the process of deploying and managing the resources needed for the OKD cluster.

By customizing your OKD network configuration, your cluster can coexist with existing IP address allocations in your environment and integrate with existing VXLAN configurations. To customize the installation, you modify parameters in the install-config.yaml file before you install the cluster. You must set most of the network configuration parameters during installation, and you can modify only kubeProxy configuration parameters in a running cluster.

Setting up VMC for vSphere

You can install OKD on VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS hosted vSphere clusters to enable applications to be deployed and managed both on-premise and off-premise, across the hybrid cloud.

You must configure several options in your VMC environment prior to installing OKD on VMware vSphere. Ensure your VMC environment has the following prerequisites:

• Create a non-exclusive, DHCP-enabled, NSX-T network segment and subnet. Other virtual machines (VMs) can be hosted on the subnet, but at least eight IP addresses must be available for the OKD deployment.

• Allocate two IP addresses, outside the DHCP range, and configure them with reverse DNS records.

  • A DNS record for api.<cluster_name>.<base_domain> pointing to the allocated IP address.

  • A DNS record for *.apps.<cluster_name>.<base_domain> pointing to the allocated IP address.

• Configure the following firewall rules:

  • An ANY:ANY firewall rule between the OKD compute network and the Internet. This is used by nodes and applications to download container images.

  • An ANY:ANY firewall rule between the installation host and the software-defined data center (SDDC) management network on port 443. This allows you to upload the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) OVA during deployment.

  • An HTTPS firewall rule between the OKD compute network and vCenter. This connection allows OKD to communicate with vCenter for provisioning and managing nodes, persistent volume claims (PVCs), and other resources.

• You must have the following information to deploy OKD:

  • The OKD cluster name, such as vmc-prod-1.

  • The base DNS name, such as companyname.com.

  • If not using the default, the pod network CIDR and services network CIDR must be identified, which are set by default to 10.128.0.0/14 and 172.30.0.0/16, respectively. These CIDRs are used for pod-to-pod and pod-to-service communication and are not accessible externally; however, they must not overlap with existing subnets in your organization.

  • The following vCenter information:

    • vCenter hostname, username, and password

    • Datacenter name, such as SDDC-Datacenter

    • Cluster name, such as Cluster-1

    • Network name

    • Datastore name, such as WorkloadDatastore

      It is recommended to move your vSphere cluster to the VMC Compute-ResourcePool resource pool after your cluster installation is finished.

• A Linux-based host deployed to VMC as a bastion.

  • The bastion host can be Fedora or any another Linux-based host; it must have Internet connectivity and the ability to upload an OVA to the ESXi hosts.

  • Download and install the OpenShift CLI tools to the bastion host.

    • The openshift-install installation program

    • The OpenShift CLI (oc) tool

VMC Sizer tool

VMware Cloud on AWS is built on top of AWS bare metal infrastructure; this is the same bare metal infrastructure which runs AWS native services. When a VMware cloud on AWS software-defined data center (SDDC) is deployed, you consume these physical server nodes and run the VMware ESXi hypervisor in a single tenant fashion. This means the physical infrastructure is not accessible to anyone else using VMC. It is important to consider how many physical hosts you will need to host your virtual infrastructure.

To determine this, VMware provides the VMC on AWS Sizer. With this tool, you can define the resources you intend to host on VMC:

• Types of workloads

• Total number of virtual machines

• Specification information such as:

  • Storage requirements

  • vCPUs

  • vRAM

  • Overcommit ratios

With these details, the sizer tool can generate a report, based on VMware best practices, and recommend your cluster configuration and the number of hosts you will need.

vSphere prerequisites

• Provision block registry storage. For more information on persistent storage, see Understanding persistent storage.

• Review details about the OKD installation and update processes.

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

  Be sure to also review this site list if you are configuring a proxy.

VMware vSphere infrastructure requirements

You must install the OKD cluster on a VMware vSphere version 6 or 7 instance that meets the requirements for the components that you use.

If you use a vSphere version 6.5 instance, consider upgrading to 6.7U3 or 7.0 before you install OKD.

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 adminstrative 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

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

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 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. These references prevent affected pods from starting up and can result in data loss.

Similarly, 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.

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

You must use DHCP for the network and ensure that the DHCP server is configured to provide persistent IP addresses to the cluster machines. Additionally, you must create the following networking resources before you install the OKD cluster:

Required IP Addresses

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>..

Generating an SSH private key and adding it to the agent

If you want to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery on your cluster, you must provide an SSH key to both your ssh-agent and the installation program. You can use this key to access the bootstrap machine in a public cluster to troubleshoot installation issues.

You can use this key to SSH into the master nodes as the user core. When you deploy the cluster, the key is added to the core user’s ~/.ssh/authorized_keys list.

Procedure

1. If you do not have an SSH key that is configured for password-less authentication on your computer, 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_rsa, of the new SSH key. If you have an existing key pair, ensure your public key is in the your ~/.ssh directory.

   Running this command generates an SSH key that does not require a password in the location that you specified.

   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. Start the ssh-agent process 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.

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

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

   Example output

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

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

Next steps

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

Obtaining the installation program

Before you install OKD, download the installation file on a local computer.

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. From the Pull Secret page on the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager site, download your installation pull secret as a .txt file. 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 site 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 site:

   • 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.

Adding vCenter root CA certificates to your system trust

Because the installation program requires access to your vCenter’s API, you must add your vCenter’s trusted root CA certificates to your system trust before you install an OKD cluster.

Procedure

1. From the vCenter home page, download the vCenter’s root CA certificates. Click Download trusted root CA certificates in the vSphere Web Services SDK section. The <vCenter>/certs/download.zip file downloads.

2. Extract the compressed file that contains the vCenter root CA certificates. The contents of the compressed file resemble the following file structure:

   certs
   ├── lin
   │   ├── 108f4d17.0
   │   ├── 108f4d17.r1
   │   ├── 7e757f6a.0
   │   ├── 8e4f8471.0
   │   └── 8e4f8471.r0
   ├── mac
   │   ├── 108f4d17.0
   │   ├── 108f4d17.r1
   │   ├── 7e757f6a.0
   │   ├── 8e4f8471.0
   │   └── 8e4f8471.r0
   └── win
       ├── 108f4d17.0.crt
       ├── 108f4d17.r1.crl
       ├── 7e757f6a.0.crt
       ├── 8e4f8471.0.crt
       └── 8e4f8471.r0.crl
   3 directories, 15 files

3. Add the files for your operating system to the system trust. For example, on a Fedora operating system, run the following command:

   # cp certs/lin/* /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors

4. Update your system trust. For example, on a Fedora operating system, run the following command:

   # update-ca-trust extract

Creating the installation configuration file

You can customize the OKD cluster you install on VMware vSphere.

Prerequisites

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

• Obtain service principal permissions at the subscription level.

Procedure

1. Create the install-config.yaml file.

   1. Change to the directory that contains the installation program and run the following command:

      $ ./openshift-install create install-config --dir=<installation_directory> (1)

      1	For <installation_directory>, specify the directory name to store the files that the installation program creates.

      Specify an empty 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. At the prompts, provide the configuration details for your cloud:

      1. Optional: Select an SSH key to use to access your cluster machines.

         For production OKD clusters on which you want to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, specify an SSH key that your ssh-agent process uses.

      2. Select vsphere as the platform to target.

      3. Specify the name of your vCenter instance.

      4. Specify the user name and password for the vCenter account that has the required permissions to create the cluster.

         The installation program connects to your vCenter instance.

      5. Select the datacenter in your vCenter instance to connect to.

      6. Select the default vCenter datastore to use.

      7. Select the vCenter cluster to install the OKD cluster in. The installation program uses the root resource pool of the vSphere cluster as the default resource pool.

      8. Select the network in the vCenter instance that contains the virtual IP addresses and DNS records that you configured.

      9. Enter the virtual IP address that you configured for control plane API access.

      10. Enter the virtual IP address that you configured for cluster ingress.

      11. Enter the base domain. This base domain must be the same one that you used in the DNS records that you configured.

      12. Enter a descriptive name for your cluster. The cluster name must be the same one that you used in the DNS records that you configured.

      13. Paste the pull secret that you obtained from the Pull Secret page on the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager site. This field is optional.

1. Modify the install-config.yaml file. You can find more information about the available parameters in the “Installation configuration parameters” section.

2. 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 installation process. If you want to reuse the file, you must back it up now.

Installation configuration parameters

Before you deploy an OKD cluster, you provide parameter values to describe your account on the cloud platform that hosts your cluster and optionally customize your cluster’s platform. When you create the install-config.yaml installation configuration file, you provide values for the required parameters through the command line. If you customize your cluster, you can modify the install-config.yaml file to provide more details about the platform.

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 VMware vSphere configuration parameters

Additional VMware vSphere configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Optional VMware vSphere machine pool configuration parameters

Optional VMware vSphere machine pool configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Sample install-config.yaml file for an installer-provisioned VMware vSphere cluster

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)
compute: (2)
- hyperthreading: Enabled (3)
  name: worker
  replicas: 3
  platform:
    vsphere: (4)
      cpus: 2
      coresPerSocket: 2
      memoryMB: 8196
      osDisk:
        diskSizeGB: 120
controlPlane: (2)
  hyperthreading: Enabled (3)
  name: master
  replicas: 3
  platform:
    vsphere: (4)
      cpus: 4
      coresPerSocket: 2
      memoryMB: 16384
      osDisk:
        diskSizeGB: 120
metadata:
  name: cluster (5)
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16
  networkType: OVNKubernetes
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  vsphere:
    vcenter: your.vcenter.server
    username: username
    password: password
    datacenter: datacenter
    defaultDatastore: datastore
    folder: folder
    network: VM_Network
    cluster: vsphere_cluster_name (6)
    apiVIP: api_vip
    ingressVIP: ingress_vip
pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}'
sshKey: 'ssh-ed25519 AAAA...'

Configuring the cluster-wide proxy during installation

Production environments can deny direct access to the Internet and instead have an HTTP or HTTPS proxy available. You can configure a new OKD cluster to use a proxy by configuring the proxy settings in the install-config.yaml file.

Prerequisites

• You have an existing install-config.yaml file.

• You reviewed the sites that your cluster requires access to and determined whether any of them need to bypass the proxy. By default, all cluster egress traffic is proxied, including calls to hosting cloud provider APIs. You added sites to the Proxy object’s spec.noProxy field to bypass the proxy if necessary.

  The Proxy object status.noProxy field is populated with the values of the networking.machineNetwork[].cidr, networking.clusterNetwork[].cidr, and networking.serviceNetwork[] fields from your installation configuration. For installations on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, and Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP), the Proxy object status.noProxy field is also populated with the instance metadata endpoint (169.254.169.254).

• If your cluster is on AWS, you added the ec2.<region>.amazonaws.com, elasticloadbalancing.<region>.amazonaws.com, and s3.<region>.amazonaws.com endpoints to your VPC endpoint. These endpoints are required to complete requests from the nodes to the AWS EC2 API. Because the proxy works on the container level, not the node level, you must route these requests to the AWS EC2 API through the AWS private network. Adding the public IP address of the EC2 API to your allowlist in your proxy server is not sufficient.

Procedure

1. Edit your install-config.yaml file and add the proxy settings. For example:

   apiVersion: v1
   baseDomain: my.domain.com
   proxy:
     httpProxy: http://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> (1)
     httpsProxy: https://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> (2)
     noProxy: example.com (3)
   additionalTrustBundle: | (4)
       -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
       <MY_TRUSTED_CA_CERT>
       -----END CERTIFICATE-----
   ...

   1	A proxy URL to use for creating HTTP connections outside the cluster. The URL scheme must be http. If you use an MITM transparent proxy network that does not require additional proxy configuration but requires additional CAs, you must not specify an httpProxy value.
   2	A proxy URL to use for creating HTTPS connections outside the cluster. If you use an MITM transparent proxy network that does not require additional proxy configuration but requires additional CAs, you must not specify an httpsProxy value.
   3	A comma-separated list of destination domain names, domains, IP addresses, or other network CIDRs to exclude proxying. Preface a domain with . to match subdomains only. For example, .y.com matches x.y.com, but not y.com. Use * to bypass proxy for all destinations. You must include vCenter’s IP address and the IP range that you use for its machines.
   4	If provided, the installation program generates a config map that is named user-ca-bundle in the openshift-config namespace that contains one or more additional CA certificates that are required for proxying HTTPS connections. The Cluster Network Operator then creates a trusted-ca-bundle config map that merges these contents with the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) trust bundle, and this config map is referenced in the Proxy object’s trustedCA field. The additionalTrustBundle field is required unless the proxy’s identity certificate is signed by an authority from the FCOS trust bundle. If you use an MITM transparent proxy network that does not require additional proxy configuration but requires additional CAs, you must provide the MITM CA certificate.

   The installation program does not support the proxy readinessEndpoints field.

2. Save the file and reference it when installing OKD.

The installation program creates a cluster-wide proxy that is named cluster that uses the proxy settings in the provided install-config.yaml file. If no proxy settings are provided, a cluster Proxy object is still created, but it will have a nil spec.

Network configuration phases

When specifying a cluster configuration prior to installation, there are several phases in the installation procedures when you can modify the network configuration:

Phase 1

After entering the openshift-install create install-config command. In the install-config.yaml file, you can customize the following network-related fields:

• networking.networkType

• networking.clusterNetwork

• networking.serviceNetwork

• networking.machineNetwork

  For more information on these fields, refer to “Installation configuration parameters”.

  Set the networking.machineNetwork to match the CIDR that the preferred NIC resides in.

Phase 2

After entering the openshift-install create manifests command. If you must specify advanced network configuration, during this phase you can define a customized Cluster Network Operator manifest with only the fields you want to modify.

You cannot override the values specified in phase 1 in the install-config.yaml file during phase 2. However, you can further customize the cluster network provider during phase 2.

Specifying advanced network configuration

You can use advanced configuration customization to integrate your cluster into your existing network environment by specifying additional configuration for your cluster network provider. You can specify advanced network configuration only before you install the cluster.

Prerequisites

• Create the install-config.yaml file and complete any modifications to it.

Procedure

1. Change to the directory that contains the installation program and create the manifests:

   $ ./openshift-install create manifests --dir=<installation_directory>

   where:

   <installation_directory>

   Specifies the name of the directory that contains the install-config.yaml file for your cluster.

2. Create a stub manifest file for the advanced network configuration that is named cluster-network-03-config.yml in the <installation_directory>/manifests/ directory:

   $ cat <<EOF > <installation_directory>/manifests/cluster-network-03-config.yml
   apiVersion: operator.openshift.io/v1
   kind: Network
   metadata:
     name: cluster
   spec:
   EOF

   where:

   <installation_directory>

   Specifies the directory name that contains the manifests/ directory for your cluster.

3. Open the cluster-network-03-config.yml file in an editor and specify the advanced network configuration for your cluster, such as in the following examples:

   Specify a different VXLAN port for the OpenShift SDN network provider

   apiVersion: operator.openshift.io/v1
   kind: Network
   metadata:
     name: cluster
   spec:
     defaultNetwork:
       openshiftSDNConfig:
         vxlanPort: 4800

   Enable IPsec for the OVN-Kubernetes network provider

   apiVersion: operator.openshift.io/v1
   kind: Network
   metadata:
     name: cluster
   spec:
     defaultNetwork:
       ovnKubernetesConfig:
         ipsecConfig: {}

4. Save the cluster-network-03-config.yml file and quit the text editor.

5. Optional: Back up the manifests/cluster-network-03-config.yml file. The installation program deletes the manifests/ directory when creating the cluster.

Cluster Network Operator configuration

The configuration for the cluster network is specified as part of the Cluster Network Operator (CNO) configuration and stored in a custom resource (CR) object that is named cluster. The CR specifies the fields for the Network API in the operator.openshift.io API group.

The CNO configuration inherits the following fields during cluster installation from the Network API in the Network.config.openshift.io API group and these fields cannot be changed:

clusterNetwork

IP address pools from which pod IP addresses are allocated.

serviceNetwork

IP address pool for services.

defaultNetwork.type

Cluster network provider, such as OpenShift SDN or OVN-Kubernetes.

You can specify the cluster network provider configuration for your cluster by setting the fields for the defaultNetwork object in the CNO object named cluster.

Cluster Network Operator configuration object

The fields for the Cluster Network Operator (CNO) are described in the following table:

spec:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/19
    hostPrefix: 23
  - cidr: 10.128.32.0/19
    hostPrefix: 23

spec:
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/14

defaultNetwork object configuration

The values for the defaultNetwork object are defined in the following table:

Configuration for the OpenShift SDN CNI cluster network provider

The following table describes the configuration fields for the OpenShift SDN Container Network Interface (CNI) cluster network provider.

Example OpenShift SDN configuration

defaultNetwork:
  type: OpenShiftSDN
  openshiftSDNConfig:
    mode: NetworkPolicy
    mtu: 1450
    vxlanPort: 4789

Configuration for the OVN-Kubernetes CNI cluster network provider

The following table describes the configuration fields for the OVN-Kubernetes CNI cluster network provider.

Example OVN-Kubernetes configuration

defaultNetwork:
  type: OVNKubernetes
  ovnKubernetesConfig:
    mtu: 1400
    genevePort: 6081
    ipsecConfig: {}

kubeProxyConfig object configuration

The values for the kubeProxyConfig object are defined in the following table:

kubeProxyConfig:
  proxyArguments:
    iptables-min-sync-period:
    - 0s

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.

Procedure

1. 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.

   Use the openshift-install command from the bastion hosted in the VMC environment.

   If the cloud provider account that you configured on your host does not have sufficient permissions to deploy the cluster, the installation process stops, and the missing permissions are displayed.

   When the cluster deployment completes, directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to its web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user, display in your terminal.

   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

   The cluster access and credential information also outputs to <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log when an installation succeeds.

   The Ignition config files that the installation program generates contain certificates that expire after 24 hours, which are then renewed at that time. If the cluster is shut down before renewing the certificates and the cluster is later restarted after the 24 hours have elapsed, the cluster automatically recovers the expired certificates. The exception is that you must manually approve the pending node-bootstrapper certificate signing requests (CSRs) to recover kubelet certificates. See the documentation for Recovering from expired control plane certificates for more information.

   You must not delete the installation program or the files that the installation program creates. Both are required to delete the cluster.

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 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>

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

Creating registry storage

After you install the cluster, you must create storage for the registry Operator.

Image registry removed during installation

On platforms that do not provide shareable object storage, the OpenShift Image Registry Operator bootstraps itself as Removed. This allows openshift-installer to complete installations on these platform types.

After installation, you must edit the Image Registry Operator configuration to switch the managementState from Removed to Managed.

Image registry storage configuration

The Image Registry Operator is not initially available for platforms that do not provide default storage. After installation, you must configure your registry to use storage so that the Registry Operator is made available.

Instructions are shown for configuring a persistent volume, which is required for production clusters. Where applicable, instructions are shown for configuring an empty directory as the storage location, which is available for only non-production clusters.

Additional instructions are provided for allowing the image registry to use block storage types by using the Recreate rollout strategy during upgrades.

Configuring registry storage for VMware vSphere

As a cluster administrator, following installation you must configure your registry to use storage.

Prerequisites

• Cluster administrator permissions.

• A cluster on VMware vSphere.

• Persistent storage provisioned for your cluster, such as Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage.

  OKD supports ReadWriteOnce access for image registry storage when you have only one replica. To deploy an image registry that supports high availability with two or more replicas, ReadWriteMany access is required.

• Must have “100Gi” capacity.

Procedure

1. To configure your registry to use storage, change the spec.storage.pvc in the configs.imageregistry/cluster resource.

   When using shared storage, review your security settings to prevent outside access.

2. Verify that you do not have a registry pod:

   $ oc get pod -n openshift-image-registry

   If the storage type is emptyDIR, the replica number cannot be greater than 1.

3. Check the registry configuration:

   $ oc edit configs.imageregistry.operator.openshift.io

   Example output

   storage:
     pvc:
       claim: (1)

   1	Leave the claim field blank to allow the automatic creation of an image-registry-storage PVC.

4. Check the clusteroperator status:

   $ oc get clusteroperator image-registry

Configuring block registry storage for VMware vSphere

To allow the image registry to use block storage types such as vSphere Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) during upgrades as a cluster administrator, you can use the Recreate rollout strategy.

Procedure

1. To set the image registry storage as a block storage type, patch the registry so that it uses the Recreate rollout strategy and runs with only 1 replica:

   $ oc patch config.imageregistry.operator.openshift.io/cluster --type=merge -p '{"spec":{"rolloutStrategy":"Recreate","replicas":1}}'

2. Provision the PV for the block storage device, and create a PVC for that volume. The requested block volume uses the ReadWriteOnce (RWO) access mode.

   1. Create a pvc.yaml file with the following contents to define a VMware vSphere PersistentVolumeClaim object:

      kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
      apiVersion: v1
      metadata:
        name: image-registry-storage (1)
        namespace: openshift-image-registry (2)
      spec:
        accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce (3)
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 100Gi (4)

      1	A unique name that represents the PersistentVolumeClaim object.
      2	The namespace for the PersistentVolumeClaim object, which is openshift-image-registry.
      3	The access mode of the persistent volume claim. With ReadWriteOnce, the volume can be mounted with read and write permissions by a single node.
      4	The size of the persistent volume claim.

   2. Create the PersistentVolumeClaim object from the file:

      $ oc create -f pvc.yaml -n openshift-image-registry

3. Edit the registry configuration so that it references the correct PVC:

   $ oc edit config.imageregistry.operator.openshift.io -o yaml

   Example output

   storage:
     pvc:
       claim: (1)

   1	Creating a custom PVC allows you to leave the claim field blank for the default automatic creation of an image-registry-storage PVC.

For instructions about configuring registry storage so that it references the correct PVC, see Configuring the registry for vSphere.

Backing up VMware vSphere volumes

OKD provisions new volumes as independent persistent disks to freely attach and detach the volume on any node in the cluster. As a consequence, it is not possible to back up volumes that use snapshots, or to restore volumes from snapshots. See Snapshot Limitations for more information.

Procedure

To create a backup of persistent volumes:

1. Stop the application that is using the persistent volume.

2. Clone the persistent volume.

3. Restart the application.

4. Create a backup of the cloned volume.

5. Delete the cloned volume.

Additional resources

• See About remote health monitoring for more information about the Telemetry service

Next steps

• Customize your cluster.

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

• Set up your registry and configure registry storage.

• Optional: View the events from the vSphere Problem Detector Operator to determine if the cluster has permission or storage configuration issues.