Post-installation machine configuration tasks
There are times when you need to make changes to the operating systems running on OKD nodes. This can include changing settings for network time service, adding kernel arguments, or configuring journaling in a specific way.
Aside from a few specialized features, most changes to operating systems on OKD nodes can be done by creating what are referred to as MachineConfig
objects that are managed by the Machine Config Operator.
Tasks in this section describe how to use features of the Machine Config Operator to configure operating system features on OKD nodes.
Understanding the Machine Config Operator
Machine Config Operator
Purpose
The Machine Config Operator manages and applies configuration and updates of the base operating system and container runtime, including everything between the kernel and kubelet.
There are four components:
machine-config-server
: Provides Ignition configuration to new machines joining the cluster.machine-config-controller
: Coordinates the upgrade of machines to the desired configurations defined by aMachineConfig
object. Options are provided to control the upgrade for sets of machines individually.machine-config-daemon
: Applies new machine configuration during update. Validates and verifies the state of the machine to the requested machine configuration.machine-config
: Provides a complete source of machine configuration at installation, first start up, and updates for a machine.
Project
openshift-machine-config-operator
Machine config overview
The Machine Config Operator (MCO) manages updates to systemd, CRI-O and Kubelet, the kernel, Network Manager and other system features. It also offers a MachineConfig
CRD that can write configuration files onto the host (see machine-config-operator). Understanding what MCO does and how it interacts with other components is critical to making advanced, system-level changes to an OKD cluster. Here are some things you should know about MCO, machine configs, and how they are used:
A machine config can make a specific change to a file or service on the operating system of each system representing a pool of OKD nodes.
MCO applies changes to operating systems in pools of machines. All OKD clusters start with worker and control plane node (also known as the master node) pools. By adding more role labels, you can configure custom pools of nodes. For example, you can set up a custom pool of worker nodes that includes particular hardware features needed by an application. However, examples in this section focus on changes to the default pool types.
A node can have multiple labels applied that indicate its type, such as
master
orworker
, however it can be a member of only a single machine config pool.Some machine configuration must be in place before OKD is installed to disk. In most cases, this can be accomplished by creating a machine config that is injected directly into the OKD installer process, instead of running as a post-installation machine config. In other cases, you might need to do bare metal installation where you pass kernel arguments at OKD installer start-up, to do such things as setting per-node individual IP addresses or advanced disk partitioning.
MCO manages items that are set in machine configs. Manual changes you do to your systems will not be overwritten by MCO, unless MCO is explicitly told to manage a conflicting file. In other words, MCO only makes specific updates you request, it does not claim control over the whole node.
Manual changes to nodes are strongly discouraged. If you need to decommission a node and start a new one, those direct changes would be lost.
MCO is only supported for writing to files in
/etc
and/var
directories, although there are symbolic links to some directories that can be writeable by being symbolically linked to one of those areas. The/opt
and/usr/local
directories are examples.Ignition is the configuration format used in MachineConfigs. See the Ignition Configuration Specification v3.2.0 for details.
Although Ignition config settings can be delivered directly at OKD installation time, and are formatted in the same way that MCO delivers Ignition configs, MCO has no way of seeing what those original Ignition configs are. Therefore, you should wrap Ignition config settings into a machine config before deploying them.
When a file managed by MCO changes outside of MCO, the Machine Config Daemon (MCD) sets the node as
degraded
. It will not overwrite the offending file, however, and should continue to operate in adegraded
state.A key reason for using a machine config is that it will be applied when you spin up new nodes for a pool in your OKD cluster. The
machine-api-operator
provisions a new machine and MCO configures it.
MCO uses Ignition as the configuration format. OKD 4.6 moved from Ignition config specification version 2 to version 3.
What can you change with machine configs?
The kinds of components that MCO can change include:
config: Create Ignition config objects (see the Ignition configuration specification) to do things like modify files, systemd services, and other features on OKD machines, including:
Configuration files: Create or overwrite files in the
/var
or/etc
directory.systemd units: Create and set the status of a systemd service or add to an existing systemd service by dropping in additional settings.
users and groups: Change SSH keys in the passwd section post-installation.
Changing SSH keys via machine configs is only supported for the |
kernelArguments: Add arguments to the kernel command line when OKD nodes boot.
kernelType: Optionally identify a non-standard kernel to use instead of the standard kernel. Use
realtime
to use the RT kernel (for RAN). This is only supported on select platforms.extensions: Extend FCOS features by adding selected pre-packaged software. For this feature, available extensions include usbguard and kernel modules.
Custom resources (for
ContainerRuntime
andKubelet
): Outside of machine configs, MCO manages two special custom resources for modifying CRI-O container runtime settings (ContainerRuntime
CR) and the Kubelet service (Kubelet
CR).
The MCO is not the only Operator that can change operating system components on OKD nodes. Other Operators can modify operating system-level features as well. One example is the Node Tuning Operator, which allows you to do node-level tuning through Tuned daemon profiles.
Tasks for the MCO configuration that can be done post-installation are included in the following procedures. See descriptions of FCOS bare metal installation for system configuration tasks that must be done during or before OKD installation.
Project
See the openshift-machine-config-operator GitHub site for details.
Checking machine config pool status
To see the status of the Machine Config Operator, its sub-components, and the resources it manages, use the following oc
commands:
Procedure
To see the number of MCO-managed nodes available on your cluster for each pool, type:
$ oc get machineconfigpool
NAME CONFIG UPDATED UPDATING DEGRADED MACHINECOUNT READYMACHINECOUNT UPDATEDMACHINECOUNT DEGRADEDMACHINECOUNT AGE
master rendered-master-dd… True False False 3 3 3 0 4h42m
worker rendered-worker-fde… True False False 3 3 3 0 4h42m
In the previous output, there are three master and three worker nodes. All machines are updated and none are currently updating. Because all nodes are
Updated
andReady
and none areDegraded
, you can tell that there are no issues.To see each existing
machineconfig
, type:$ oc get machineconfigs
NAME GENERATEDBYCONTROLLER IGNITIONVERSION AGE
00-master 2c9371fbb673b97a6fe8b1c52... 3.2.0 5h18m
00-worker 2c9371fbb673b97a6fe8b1c52... 3.2.0 5h18m
01-master-container-runtime 2c9371fbb673b97a6fe8b1c52... 3.2.0 5h18m
01-master-kubelet 2c9371fbb673b97a6fe8b1c52… 3.2.0 5h18m
...
rendered-master-dde... 2c9371fbb673b97a6fe8b1c52... 3.2.0 5h18m
rendered-worker-fde... 2c9371fbb673b97a6fe8b1c52... 3.2.0 5h18m
Note that the
machineconfigs
listed asrendered
are not meant to be changed or deleted. Expect them to be hidden at some point in the future.Check the status of worker (or change to master) to see the status of that pool of nodes:
$ oc describe mcp worker
...
Degraded Machine Count: 0
Machine Count: 3
Observed Generation: 2
Ready Machine Count: 3
Unavailable Machine Count: 0
Updated Machine Count: 3
Events: <none>
You can view the contents of a particular machine config (in this case,
01-master-kubelet
). The trimmed output from the followingoc describe
command shows that thismachineconfig
contains both configuration files (cloud.conf
andkubelet.conf
) and a systemd service (Kubernetes Kubelet):$ oc describe machineconfigs 01-master-kubelet
Name: 01-master-kubelet
...
Spec:
Config:
Ignition:
Version: 3.2.0
Storage:
Files:
Contents:
Source: data:,
Mode: 420
Overwrite: true
Path: /etc/kubernetes/cloud.conf
Contents:
Source: data:,kind%3A%20KubeletConfiguration%0AapiVersion%3A%20kubelet.config.k8s.io%2Fv1beta1%0Aauthentication%3A%0A%20%20x509%3A%0A%20%20%20%20clientCAFile%3A%20%2Fetc%2Fkubernetes%2Fkubelet-ca.crt%0A%20%20anonymous...
Mode: 420
Overwrite: true
Path: /etc/kubernetes/kubelet.conf
Systemd:
Units:
Contents: [Unit]
Description=Kubernetes Kubelet
Wants=rpc-statd.service network-online.target crio.service
After=network-online.target crio.service
ExecStart=/usr/bin/hyperkube \
kubelet \
--config=/etc/kubernetes/kubelet.conf \ ...
If something goes wrong with a machine config that you apply, you can always back out that change. For example, if you had run oc create -f ./myconfig.yaml
to apply a machine config, you could remove that machine config by typing:
$ oc delete -f ./myconfig.yaml
If that was the only problem, the nodes in the affected pool should return to a non-degraded state. This actually causes the rendered configuration to roll back to its previously rendered state.
If you add your own machine configs to your cluster, you can use the commands shown in the previous example to check their status and the related status of the pool to which they are applied.
Using MachineConfig objects to configure nodes
You can use the tasks in this section to create MachineConfig
objects that modify files, systemd unit files, and other operating system features running on OKD nodes. For more ideas on working with machine configs, see content related to adding or updating SSH authorized keys, verifying image signatures, enabling SCTP, and configuring iSCSI initiatornames for OKD.
OKD supports Ignition specification version 3.2. All new machine configs you create going forward should be based on Ignition specification version 3.2. If you are upgrading your OKD cluster, any existing Ignition specification version 2.x machine configs will be translated automatically to specification version 3.2.
Configuring chrony time service
You can set the time server and related settings used by the chrony time service (chronyd
) by modifying the contents of the chrony.conf
file and passing those contents to your nodes as a machine config.
Procedure
Create a Butane config including the contents of the
chrony.conf
file. For example, to configure chrony on worker nodes, create a99-worker-chrony.bu
file.See “Creating machine configs with Butane” for information about Butane.
variant: openshift
version: 4.8.0
metadata:
name: 99-worker-chrony (1)
labels:
machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: worker (1)
storage:
files:
- path: /etc/chrony.conf
mode: 0644
overwrite: true
contents:
inline: |
pool 0.rhel.pool.ntp.org iburst (2)
driftfile /var/lib/chrony/drift
makestep 1.0 3
rtcsync
logdir /var/log/chrony
1 On control plane nodes, substitute master
forworker
in both of these locations.2 Specify any valid, reachable time source, such as the one provided by your DHCP server. Alternately, you can specify any of the following NTP servers: 1.rhel.pool.ntp.org
,2.rhel.pool.ntp.org
, or3.rhel.pool.ntp.org
.Use Butane to generate a
MachineConfig
object file,99-worker-chrony.yaml
, containing the configuration to be delivered to the nodes:$ butane 99-worker-chrony.bu -o 99-worker-chrony.yaml
Apply the configurations in one of two ways:
If the cluster is not running yet, after you generate manifest files, add the
MachineConfig
object file to the<installation_directory>/openshift
directory, and then continue to create the cluster.If the cluster is already running, apply the file:
$ oc apply -f ./99-worker-chrony.yaml
Adding kernel arguments to nodes
In some special cases, you might want to add kernel arguments to a set of nodes in your cluster. This should only be done with caution and clear understanding of the implications of the arguments you set.
Improper use of kernel arguments can result in your systems becoming unbootable. |
Examples of kernel arguments you could set include:
enforcing=0: Configures Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) to run in permissive mode. In permissive mode, the system acts as if SELinux is enforcing the loaded security policy, including labeling objects and emitting access denial entries in the logs, but it does not actually deny any operations. While not recommended for production systems, permissive mode can be helpful for debugging.
nosmt: Disables symmetric multithreading (SMT) in the kernel. Multithreading allows multiple logical threads for each CPU. You could consider
nosmt
in multi-tenant environments to reduce risks from potential cross-thread attacks. By disabling SMT, you essentially choose security over performance.
See Kernel.org kernel parameters for a list and descriptions of kernel arguments.
In the following procedure, you create a MachineConfig
object that identifies:
A set of machines to which you want to add the kernel argument. In this case, machines with a worker role.
Kernel arguments that are appended to the end of the existing kernel arguments.
A label that indicates where in the list of machine configs the change is applied.
Prerequisites
- Have administrative privilege to a working OKD cluster.
Procedure
List existing
MachineConfig
objects for your OKD cluster to determine how to label your machine config:$ oc get MachineConfig
Example output
NAME GENERATEDBYCONTROLLER IGNITIONVERSION AGE
00-master 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
00-worker 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-master-container-runtime 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-master-kubelet 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-worker-container-runtime 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-worker-kubelet 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
99-master-generated-registries 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
99-master-ssh 3.2.0 40m
99-worker-generated-registries 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
99-worker-ssh 3.2.0 40m
rendered-master-23e785de7587df95a4b517e0647e5ab7 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
rendered-worker-5d596d9293ca3ea80c896a1191735bb1 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
Create a
MachineConfig
object file that identifies the kernel argument (for example,05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive.yaml
)apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: MachineConfig
metadata:
labels:
machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: worker(1)
name: 05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive(2)
spec:
config:
ignition:
version: 3.2.0
kernelArguments:
- enforcing=0(3)
1 Applies the new kernel argument only to worker nodes. 2 Named to identify where it fits among the machine configs (05) and what it does (adds a kernel argument to configure SELinux permissive mode). 3 Identifies the exact kernel argument as enforcing=0
.Create the new machine config:
$ oc create -f 05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive.yaml
Check the machine configs to see that the new one was added:
$ oc get MachineConfig
Example output
NAME GENERATEDBYCONTROLLER IGNITIONVERSION AGE
00-master 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
00-worker 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-master-container-runtime 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-master-kubelet 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-worker-container-runtime 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-worker-kubelet 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive 3.2.0 105s
99-master-generated-registries 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
99-master-ssh 3.2.0 40m
99-worker-generated-registries 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
99-worker-ssh 3.2.0 40m
rendered-master-23e785de7587df95a4b517e0647e5ab7 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
rendered-worker-5d596d9293ca3ea80c896a1191735bb1 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
Check the nodes:
$ oc get nodes
Example output
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
ip-10-0-136-161.ec2.internal Ready worker 28m v1.21.0
ip-10-0-136-243.ec2.internal Ready master 34m v1.21.0
ip-10-0-141-105.ec2.internal Ready,SchedulingDisabled worker 28m v1.21.0
ip-10-0-142-249.ec2.internal Ready master 34m v1.21.0
ip-10-0-153-11.ec2.internal Ready worker 28m v1.21.0
ip-10-0-153-150.ec2.internal Ready master 34m v1.21.0
You can see that scheduling on each worker node is disabled as the change is being applied.
Check that the kernel argument worked by going to one of the worker nodes and listing the kernel command line arguments (in
/proc/cmdline
on the host):$ oc debug node/ip-10-0-141-105.ec2.internal
Example output
Starting pod/ip-10-0-141-105ec2internal-debug ...
To use host binaries, run `chroot /host`
sh-4.2# cat /host/proc/cmdline
BOOT_IMAGE=/ostree/rhcos-... console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8
rootflags=defaults,prjquota rw root=UUID=fd0... ostree=/ostree/boot.0/rhcos/16...
coreos.oem.id=qemu coreos.oem.id=ec2 ignition.platform.id=ec2 enforcing=0
sh-4.2# exit
You should see the
enforcing=0
argument added to the other kernel arguments.
Enabling multipathing with kernel arguments on FCOS
Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) supports multipathing on the primary disk, allowing stronger resilience to hardware failure to achieve higher host availability. Post-installation support is available by activating multipathing via the machine config.
Enabling multipathing during installation is supported and recommended for nodes provisioned in OKD 4.8 or higher. In setups where any I/O to non-optimized paths results in I/O system errors, you must enable multipathing at installation time. For more information about enabling multipathing during installation time, see “Enabling multipathing with kernel arguments on RHCOS” in the Installing on bare metal documentation. |
On IBM Z and LinuxONE, you can enable multipathing only if you configured your cluster for it during installation. For more information, see “Installing FCOS and starting the OKD bootstrap process” in Installing a cluster with z/VM on IBM Z and LinuxONE. |
Prerequisites
You have a running OKD cluster that uses version 4.7 or later.
You are logged in to the cluster as a user with administrative privileges.
Procedure
To enable multipathing post-installation on control plane nodes:
Create a machine config file, such as
99-master-kargs-mpath.yaml
, that instructs the cluster to add themaster
label and that identifies the multipath kernel argument, for example:apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: MachineConfig
metadata:
labels:
machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: "master"
name: 99-master-kargs-mpath
spec:
kernelArguments:
- 'rd.multipath=default'
- 'root=/dev/disk/by-label/dm-mpath-root'
To enable multipathing post-installation on worker nodes:
Create a machine config file, such as
99-worker-kargs-mpath.yaml
, that instructs the cluster to add theworker
label and that identifies the multipath kernel argument, for example:apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: MachineConfig
metadata:
labels:
machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: "worker"
name: 99-worker-kargs-mpath
spec:
kernelArguments:
- 'rd.multipath=default'
- 'root=/dev/disk/by-label/dm-mpath-root'
Create the new machine config by using either the master or worker YAML file you previously created:
$ oc create -f ./99-master-kargs-mpath.yaml
Check the machine configs to see that the new one was added:
$ oc get MachineConfig
Example output
NAME GENERATEDBYCONTROLLER IGNITIONVERSION AGE
00-master 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
00-worker 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-master-container-runtime 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-master-kubelet 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-worker-container-runtime 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
01-worker-kubelet 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
99-master-kargs-mpath 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 105s
99-master-generated-registries 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
99-master-ssh 3.2.0 40m
99-worker-generated-registries 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
99-worker-ssh 3.2.0 40m
rendered-master-23e785de7587df95a4b517e0647e5ab7 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
rendered-worker-5d596d9293ca3ea80c896a1191735bb1 52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9 3.2.0 33m
Check the nodes:
$ oc get nodes
Example output
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
ip-10-0-136-161.ec2.internal Ready worker 28m v1.20.0
ip-10-0-136-243.ec2.internal Ready master 34m v1.20.0
ip-10-0-141-105.ec2.internal Ready,SchedulingDisabled worker 28m v1.20.0
ip-10-0-142-249.ec2.internal Ready master 34m v1.20.0
ip-10-0-153-11.ec2.internal Ready worker 28m v1.20.0
ip-10-0-153-150.ec2.internal Ready master 34m v1.20.0
You can see that scheduling on each worker node is disabled as the change is being applied.
Check that the kernel argument worked by going to one of the worker nodes and listing the kernel command line arguments (in
/proc/cmdline
on the host):$ oc debug node/ip-10-0-141-105.ec2.internal
Example output
Starting pod/ip-10-0-141-105ec2internal-debug ...
To use host binaries, run `chroot /host`
sh-4.2# cat /host/proc/cmdline
...
rd.multipath=default root=/dev/disk/by-label/dm-mpath-root
...
sh-4.2# exit
You should see the added kernel arguments.
Additional resources
- See Enabling multipathing with kernel arguments on RHCOS for more information about enabling multipathing during installation time.
Adding a real-time kernel to nodes
Some OKD workloads require a high degree of determinism.While Linux is not a real-time operating system, the Linux real-time kernel includes a preemptive scheduler that provides the operating system with real-time characteristics.
If your OKD workloads require these real-time characteristics, you can switch your machines to the Linux real-time kernel. For OKD, 4.8 you can make this switch using a MachineConfig
object. Although making the change is as simple as changing a machine config kernelType
setting to realtime
, there are a few other considerations before making the change:
Currently, real-time kernel is supported only on worker nodes, and only for radio access network (RAN) use.
The following procedure is fully supported with bare metal installations that use systems that are certified for Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Real Time 8.
Real-time support in OKD is limited to specific subscriptions.
The following procedure is also supported for use with Google Cloud Platform.
Prerequisites
Have a running OKD cluster (version 4.4 or later).
Log in to the cluster as a user with administrative privileges.
Procedure
Create a machine config for the real-time kernel: Create a YAML file (for example,
99-worker-realtime.yaml
) that contains aMachineConfig
object for therealtime
kernel type. This example tells the cluster to use a real-time kernel for all worker nodes:$ cat << EOF > 99-worker-realtime.yaml
apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: MachineConfig
metadata:
labels:
machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: "worker"
name: 99-worker-realtime
spec:
kernelType: realtime
EOF
Add the machine config to the cluster. Type the following to add the machine config to the cluster:
$ oc create -f 99-worker-realtime.yaml
Check the real-time kernel: Once each impacted node reboots, log in to the cluster and run the following commands to make sure that the real-time kernel has replaced the regular kernel for the set of nodes you configured:
$ oc get nodes
Example output
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
ip-10-0-143-147.us-east-2.compute.internal Ready worker 103m v1.21.0
ip-10-0-146-92.us-east-2.compute.internal Ready worker 101m v1.21.0
ip-10-0-169-2.us-east-2.compute.internal Ready worker 102m v1.21.0
$ oc debug node/ip-10-0-143-147.us-east-2.compute.internal
Example output
Starting pod/ip-10-0-143-147us-east-2computeinternal-debug ...
To use host binaries, run `chroot /host`
sh-4.4# uname -a
Linux <worker_node> 4.18.0-147.3.1.rt24.96.el8_1.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT RT
Wed Nov 27 18:29:55 UTC 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
The kernel name contains
rt
and text “PREEMPT RT” indicates that this is a real-time kernel.To go back to the regular kernel, delete the
MachineConfig
object:$ oc delete -f 99-worker-realtime.yaml
Configuring journald settings
If you need to configure settings for the journald
service on OKD nodes, you can do that by modifying the appropriate configuration file and passing the file to the appropriate pool of nodes as a machine config.
This procedure describes how to modify journald
rate limiting settings in the /etc/systemd/journald.conf
file and apply them to worker nodes. See the journald.conf
man page for information on how to use that file.
Prerequisites
Have a running OKD cluster.
Log in to the cluster as a user with administrative privileges.
Procedure
Create a Butane config file,
40-worker-custom-journald.bu
, that includes an/etc/systemd/journald.conf
file with the required settings.See “Creating machine configs with Butane” for information about Butane.
variant: openshift
version: 4.8.0
metadata:
name: 40-worker-custom-journald
labels:
machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: worker
storage:
files:
- path: /etc/systemd/journald.conf
mode: 0644
overwrite: true
contents:
inline: |
# Disable rate limiting
RateLimitInterval=1s
RateLimitBurst=10000
Storage=volatile
Compress=no
MaxRetentionSec=30s
Use Butane to generate a
MachineConfig
object file,40-worker-custom-journald.yaml
, containing the configuration to be delivered to the worker nodes:$ butane 40-worker-custom-journald.bu -o 40-worker-custom-journald.yaml
Apply the machine config to the pool:
$ oc apply -f 40-worker-custom-journald.yaml
Check that the new machine config is applied and that the nodes are not in a degraded state. It might take a few minutes. The worker pool will show the updates in progress, as each node successfully has the new machine config applied:
$ oc get machineconfigpool
NAME CONFIG UPDATED UPDATING DEGRADED MACHINECOUNT READYMACHINECOUNT UPDATEDMACHINECOUNT DEGRADEDMACHINECOUNT AGE
master rendered-master-35 True False False 3 3 3 0 34m
worker rendered-worker-d8 False True False 3 1 1 0 34m
To check that the change was applied, you can log in to a worker node:
$ oc get node | grep worker
ip-10-0-0-1.us-east-2.compute.internal Ready worker 39m v0.0.0-master+$Format:%h$
$ oc debug node/ip-10-0-0-1.us-east-2.compute.internal
Starting pod/ip-10-0-141-142us-east-2computeinternal-debug ...
...
sh-4.2# chroot /host
sh-4.4# cat /etc/systemd/journald.conf
# Disable rate limiting
RateLimitInterval=1s
RateLimitBurst=10000
Storage=volatile
Compress=no
MaxRetentionSec=30s
sh-4.4# exit
Adding extensions to FCOS
FCOS is a minimal container-oriented RHEL operating system, designed to provide a common set of capabilities to OKD clusters across all platforms. While adding software packages to FCOS systems is generally discouraged, the MCO provides an extensions
feature you can use to add a minimal set of features to FCOS nodes.
Currently, the following extension is available:
- usbguard: Adding the
usbguard
extension protects FCOS systems from attacks from intrusive USB devices. See USBGuard for details.
The following procedure describes how to use a machine config to add one or more extensions to your FCOS nodes.
Prerequisites
Have a running OKD cluster (version 4.6 or later).
Log in to the cluster as a user with administrative privileges.
Procedure
Create a machine config for extensions: Create a YAML file (for example,
80-extensions.yaml
) that contains aMachineConfig
extensions
object. This example tells the cluster to add theusbguard
extension.$ cat << EOF > 80-extensions.yaml
apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: MachineConfig
metadata:
labels:
machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: worker
name: 80-worker-extensions
spec:
config:
ignition:
version: 3.2.0
extensions:
- usbguard
EOF
Add the machine config to the cluster. Type the following to add the machine config to the cluster:
$ oc create -f 80-extensions.yaml
This sets all worker nodes to have rpm packages for
usbguard
installed.Check that the extensions were applied:
$ oc get machineconfig 80-worker-extensions
Example output
NAME GENERATEDBYCONTROLLER IGNITIONVERSION AGE
80-worker-extensions 3.2.0 57s
Check that the new machine config is now applied and that the nodes are not in a degraded state. It may take a few minutes. The worker pool will show the updates in progress, as each machine successfully has the new machine config applied:
$ oc get machineconfigpool
Example output
NAME CONFIG UPDATED UPDATING DEGRADED MACHINECOUNT READYMACHINECOUNT UPDATEDMACHINECOUNT DEGRADEDMACHINECOUNT AGE
master rendered-master-35 True False False 3 3 3 0 34m
worker rendered-worker-d8 False True False 3 1 1 0 34m
Check the extensions. To check that the extension was applied, run:
$ oc get node | grep worker
Example output
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
ip-10-0-169-2.us-east-2.compute.internal Ready worker 102m v1.18.3
$ oc debug node/ip-10-0-169-2.us-east-2.compute.internal
Example output
...
To use host binaries, run `chroot /host`
sh-4.4# chroot /host
sh-4.4# rpm -q usbguard
usbguard-0.7.4-4.el8.x86_64.rpm
Use the “Configuring chrony time service” section as a model for how to go about adding other configuration files to OKD nodes.
Configuring MCO-related custom resources
Besides managing MachineConfig
objects, the MCO manages two custom resources (CRs): KubeletConfig
and ContainerRuntimeConfig
. Those CRs let you change node-level settings impacting how the Kubelet and CRI-O container runtime services behave.
Creating a KubeletConfig CRD to edit kubelet parameters
The kubelet configuration is currently serialized as an Ignition configuration, so it can be directly edited. However, there is also a new kubelet-config-controller
added to the Machine Config Controller (MCC). This lets you use a KubeletConfig
custom resource (CR) to edit the kubelet parameters.
As the fields in the |
Consider the following guidance:
Create one
KubeletConfig
CR for each machine config pool with all the config changes you want for that pool. If you are applying the same content to all of the pools, you need only oneKubeletConfig
CR for all of the pools.Edit an existing
KubeletConfig
CR to modify existing settings or add new settings, instead of creating a CR for each change. It is recommended that you create a CR only to modify a different machine config pool, or for changes that are intended to be temporary, so that you can revert the changes.As needed, create multiple
KubeletConfig
CRs with a limit of 10 per cluster. For the firstKubeletConfig
CR, the Machine Config Operator (MCO) creates a machine config appended withkubelet
. With each subsequent CR, the controller creates anotherkubelet
machine config with a numeric suffix. For example, if you have akubelet
machine config with a-2
suffix, the nextkubelet
machine config is appended with-3
.
If you want to delete the machine configs, delete them in reverse order to avoid exceeding the limit. For example, you delete the kubelet-3
machine config before deleting the kubelet-2
machine config.
If you have a machine config with a |
Example KubeletConfig
CR
$ oc get kubeletconfig
NAME AGE
set-max-pods 15m
Example showing a KubeletConfig
machine config
$ oc get mc | grep kubelet
...
99-worker-generated-kubelet-1 b5c5119de007945b6fe6fb215db3b8e2ceb12511 3.2.0 26m
...
The following procedure is an example to show how to configure the maximum number of pods per node on the worker nodes.
Prerequisites
Obtain the label associated with the static
MachineConfigPool
CR for the type of node you want to configure. Perform one of the following steps:View the machine config pool:
$ oc describe machineconfigpool <name>
For example:
$ oc describe machineconfigpool worker
Example output
apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: MachineConfigPool
metadata:
creationTimestamp: 2019-02-08T14:52:39Z
generation: 1
labels:
custom-kubelet: set-max-pods (1)
1 If a label has been added it appears under labels
.If the label is not present, add a key/value pair:
$ oc label machineconfigpool worker custom-kubelet=set-max-pods
Procedure
View the available machine configuration objects that you can select:
$ oc get machineconfig
By default, the two kubelet-related configs are
01-master-kubelet
and01-worker-kubelet
.Check the current value for the maximum pods per node:
$ oc describe node <node_name>
For example:
$ oc describe node ci-ln-5grqprb-f76d1-ncnqq-worker-a-mdv94
Look for
value: pods: <value>
in theAllocatable
stanza:Example output
Allocatable:
attachable-volumes-aws-ebs: 25
cpu: 3500m
hugepages-1Gi: 0
hugepages-2Mi: 0
memory: 15341844Ki
pods: 250
Set the maximum pods per node on the worker nodes by creating a custom resource file that contains the kubelet configuration:
apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: KubeletConfig
metadata:
name: set-max-pods
spec:
machineConfigPoolSelector:
matchLabels:
custom-kubelet: set-max-pods (1)
kubeletConfig:
maxPods: 500 (2)
1 Enter the label from the machine config pool. 2 Add the kubelet configuration. In this example, use maxPods
to set the maximum pods per node.The rate at which the kubelet talks to the API server depends on queries per second (QPS) and burst values. The default values,
50
forkubeAPIQPS
and100
forkubeAPIBurst
, are sufficient if there are limited pods running on each node. It is recommended to update the kubelet QPS and burst rates if there are enough CPU and memory resources on the node.apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: KubeletConfig
metadata:
name: set-max-pods
spec:
machineConfigPoolSelector:
matchLabels:
custom-kubelet: set-max-pods
kubeletConfig:
maxPods: <pod_count>
kubeAPIBurst: <burst_rate>
kubeAPIQPS: <QPS>
Update the machine config pool for workers with the label:
$ oc label machineconfigpool worker custom-kubelet=large-pods
Create the
KubeletConfig
object:$ oc create -f change-maxPods-cr.yaml
Verify that the
KubeletConfig
object is created:$ oc get kubeletconfig
Example output
NAME AGE
set-max-pods 15m
Depending on the number of worker nodes in the cluster, wait for the worker nodes to be rebooted one by one. For a cluster with 3 worker nodes, this could take about 10 to 15 minutes.
Verify that the changes are applied to the node:
Check on a worker node that the
maxPods
value changed:$ oc describe node <node_name>
Locate the
Allocatable
stanza:...
Allocatable:
attachable-volumes-gce-pd: 127
cpu: 3500m
ephemeral-storage: 123201474766
hugepages-1Gi: 0
hugepages-2Mi: 0
memory: 14225400Ki
pods: 500 (1)
...
1 In this example, the pods
parameter should report the value you set in theKubeletConfig
object.
Verify the change in the
KubeletConfig
object:$ oc get kubeletconfigs set-max-pods -o yaml
This should show a
status: "True"
andtype:Success
:spec:
kubeletConfig:
maxPods: 500
machineConfigPoolSelector:
matchLabels:
custom-kubelet: set-max-pods
status:
conditions:
- lastTransitionTime: "2021-06-30T17:04:07Z"
message: Success
status: "True"
type: Success
Creating a ContainerRuntimeConfig CR to edit CRI-O parameters
You can change some of the settings associated with the OKD CRI-O runtime for the nodes associated with a specific machine config pool (MCP). Using a ContainerRuntimeConfig
custom resource (CR), you set the configuration values and add a label to match the MCP. The MCO then rebuilds the crio.conf
and storage.conf
configuration files on the associated nodes with the updated values.
To revert the changes implemented by using a |
You can modify the following settings by using a ContainerRuntimeConfig
CR:
PIDs limit: The
pidsLimit
parameter sets the CRI-Opids_limit
parameter, which is maximum number of processes allowed in a container. The default is 1024 (pids_limit = 1024
).Log level: The
logLevel
parameter sets the CRI-Olog_level
parameter, which is the level of verbosity for log messages. The default isinfo
(log_level = info
). Other options includefatal
,panic
,error
,warn
,debug
, andtrace
.Overlay size: The
overlaySize
parameter sets the CRI-O Overlay storage driversize
parameter, which is the maximum size of a container image. The default is 10 GB (size = “10G”).Maximum log size: The
logSizeMax
parameter sets the CRI-Olog_size_max
parameter, which is the maximum size allowed for the container log file. The default is unlimited (log_size_max = -1
). If set to a positive number, it must be at least 8192 to not be smaller than the ConMon read buffer. ConMon is a program that monitors communications between a container manager (such as Podman or CRI-O) and the OCI runtime (such as runc or crun) for a single container.
You should have one ContainerRuntimeConfig
CR for each machine config pool with all the config changes you want for that pool. If you are applying the same content to all the pools, you only need one ContainerRuntimeConfig
CR for all the pools.
You should edit an existing ContainerRuntimeConfig
CR to modify existing settings or add new settings instead of creating a new CR for each change. It is recommended to create a new ContainerRuntimeConfig
CR only to modify a different machine config pool, or for changes that are intended to be temporary so that you can revert the changes.
You can create multiple ContainerRuntimeConfig
CRs, as needed, with a limit of 10 per cluster. For the first ContainerRuntimeConfig
CR, the MCO creates a machine config appended with containerruntime
. With each subsequent CR, the controller creates a new containerruntime
machine config with a numeric suffix. For example, if you have a containerruntime
machine config with a -2
suffix, the next containerruntime
machine config is appended with -3
.
If you want to delete the machine configs, you should delete them in reverse order to avoid exceeding the limit. For example, you should delete the containerruntime-3
machine config before deleting the containerruntime-2
machine config.
If you have a machine config with a |
Example showing multiple ContainerRuntimeConfig
CRs
$ oc get ctrcfg
Example output
NAME AGE
ctr-pid 24m
ctr-overlay 15m
ctr-level 5m45s
Example showing multiple containerruntime
machine configs
$ oc get mc | grep container
Example output
...
01-master-container-runtime b5c5119de007945b6fe6fb215db3b8e2ceb12511 3.2.0 57m
...
01-worker-container-runtime b5c5119de007945b6fe6fb215db3b8e2ceb12511 3.2.0 57m
...
99-worker-generated-containerruntime b5c5119de007945b6fe6fb215db3b8e2ceb12511 3.2.0 26m
99-worker-generated-containerruntime-1 b5c5119de007945b6fe6fb215db3b8e2ceb12511 3.2.0 17m
99-worker-generated-containerruntime-2 b5c5119de007945b6fe6fb215db3b8e2ceb12511 3.2.0 7m26s
...
The following example raises the pids_limit
to 2048, sets the log_level
to debug
, sets the overlay size to 8 GB, and sets the log_size_max
to unlimited:
Example ContainerRuntimeConfig
CR
apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: ContainerRuntimeConfig
metadata:
name: overlay-size
spec:
machineConfigPoolSelector:
matchLabels:
pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: '' (1)
containerRuntimeConfig:
pidsLimit: 2048 (2)
logLevel: debug (3)
overlaySize: 8G (4)
logSizeMax: "-1" (5)
1 | Specifies the machine config pool label. |
2 | Optional: Specifies the level of verbosity for log messages. |
3 | Optional: Specifies the maximum size allowed for the container log file. If set to a positive number, it must be at least 8192 . |
4 | Optional: Specifies the maximum size of a container image. |
5 | Optional: Specifies the maximum number of processes allowed in a container. |
Procedure
To change CRI-O settings using the ContainerRuntimeConfig
CR:
Create a YAML file for the
ContainerRuntimeConfig
CR:apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: ContainerRuntimeConfig
metadata:
name: overlay-size
spec:
machineConfigPoolSelector:
matchLabels:
pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: '' (1)
containerRuntimeConfig: (2)
pidsLimit: 2048
logLevel: debug
overlaySize: 8G
logSizeMax: "-1"
1 Specify a label for the machine config pool that you want you want to modify. 2 Set the parameters as needed. Create the
ContainerRuntimeConfig
CR:$ oc create -f <file_name>.yaml
Verify that the CR is created:
$ oc get ContainerRuntimeConfig
Example output
NAME AGE
overlay-size 3m19s
Check that a new
containerruntime
machine config is created:$ oc get machineconfigs | grep containerrun
Example output
99-worker-generated-containerruntime 2c9371fbb673b97a6fe8b1c52691999ed3a1bfc2 3.2.0 31s
Monitor the machine config pool until all are shown as ready:
$ oc get mcp worker
Example output
NAME CONFIG UPDATED UPDATING DEGRADED MACHINECOUNT READYMACHINECOUNT UPDATEDMACHINECOUNT DEGRADEDMACHINECOUNT AGE
worker rendered-worker-169 False True False 3 1 1 0 9h
Verify that the settings were applied in CRI-O:
Open an
oc debug
session to a node in the machine config pool and runchroot /host
.$ oc debug node/<node_name>
sh-4.4# chroot /host
Verify the changes in the
crio.conf
file:sh-4.4# crio config | egrep 'log_level|pids_limit|log_size_max'
Example output
pids_limit = 2048
log_size_max = -1
log_level = "debug"
Verify the changes in the `storage.conf`file:
sh-4.4# head -n 7 /etc/containers/storage.conf
Example output
[storage]
driver = "overlay"
runroot = "/var/run/containers/storage"
graphroot = "/var/lib/containers/storage"
[storage.options]
additionalimagestores = []
size = "8G"
Setting the default maximum container root partition size for Overlay with CRI-O
The root partition of each container shows all of the available disk space of the underlying host. Follow this guidance to set a maximum partition size for the root disk of all containers.
To configure the maximum Overlay size, as well as other CRI-O options like the log level and PID limit, you can create the following ContainerRuntimeConfig
custom resource definition (CRD):
apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: ContainerRuntimeConfig
metadata:
name: overlay-size
spec:
machineConfigPoolSelector:
matchLabels:
custom-crio: overlay-size
containerRuntimeConfig:
pidsLimit: 2048
logLevel: debug
overlaySize: 8G
Procedure
Create the configuration object:
$ oc apply -f overlaysize.yml
To apply the new CRI-O configuration to your worker nodes, edit the worker machine config pool:
$ oc edit machineconfigpool worker
Add the
custom-crio
label based on thematchLabels
name you set in theContainerRuntimeConfig
CRD:apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: MachineConfigPool
metadata:
creationTimestamp: "2020-07-09T15:46:34Z"
generation: 3
labels:
custom-crio: overlay-size
machineconfiguration.openshift.io/mco-built-in: ""
Save the changes, then view the machine configs:
$ oc get machineconfigs
New
99-worker-generated-containerruntime
andrendered-worker-xyz
objects are created:Example output
99-worker-generated-containerruntime 4173030d89fbf4a7a0976d1665491a4d9a6e54f1 3.2.0 7m42s
rendered-worker-xyz 4173030d89fbf4a7a0976d1665491a4d9a6e54f1 3.2.0 7m36s
After those objects are created, monitor the machine config pool for the changes to be applied:
$ oc get mcp worker
The worker nodes show
UPDATING
asTrue
, as well as the number of machines, the number updated, and other details:Example output
NAME CONFIG UPDATED UPDATING DEGRADED MACHINECOUNT READYMACHINECOUNT UPDATEDMACHINECOUNT DEGRADEDMACHINECOUNT AGE
worker rendered-worker-xyz False True False 3 2 2 0 20h
When complete, the worker nodes transition back to
UPDATING
asFalse
, and theUPDATEDMACHINECOUNT
number matches theMACHINECOUNT
:Example output
NAME CONFIG UPDATED UPDATING DEGRADED MACHINECOUNT READYMACHINECOUNT UPDATEDMACHINECOUNT DEGRADEDMACHINECOUNT AGE
worker rendered-worker-xyz True False False 3 3 3 0 20h
Looking at a worker machine, you see that the new 8 GB max size configuration is applied to all of the workers:
Example output
head -n 7 /etc/containers/storage.conf
[storage]
driver = "overlay"
runroot = "/var/run/containers/storage"
graphroot = "/var/lib/containers/storage"
[storage.options]
additionalimagestores = []
size = "8G"
Looking inside a container, you see that the root partition is now 8 GB:
Example output
~ $ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
overlay 8.0G 8.0K 8.0G 0% /