Configuring for VMware vSphere

You can configure OKD to use VMware vSphere VMDKs as to back PersistentVolumes. This configuration can include using VMware vSphere VMDKs as persistent storage for application data.

The vSphere Cloud Provider allows using vSphere-managed storage in OKD and supports every storage primitive that Kubernetes uses:

• PersistentVolume (PV)

• PersistentVolumesClaim (PVC)

• StorageClass

PersistentVolumes requested by stateful containerized applications can be provisioned on VMware vSAN, VVOL, VMFS, or NFS datastores.

Kubernetes PVs are defined in Pod specifications. They can reference VMDK files directly if you use Static Provisioning or PVCs when you use Dynamic Provisioning, which is preferred.

The latest updates to the vSphere Cloud Provider are in vSphere Storage for Kubernetes.

Before you begin

Requirements

VMware vSphere

• vSphere version 6.0.x minimum recommended version 6.7 U1b is required if you intend to support a complete VMware Validate Design.

• vSAN, VMFS and NFS supported.

  • vSAN support is limited to one cluster in one vCenter.

Prerequisites

You must install the VMware Tools on each Node VM. See Installing VMware tools for more information.

You can use the open source VMware govmomi CLI tool for additional configuration and troubleshooting. For example, see the following govc CLI configuration:

    export GOVC_URL='vCenter IP OR FQDN'
    export GOVC_USERNAME='vCenter User'
    export GOVC_PASSWORD='vCenter Password'
    export GOVC_INSECURE=1

Permissions

Create and assign roles to the vSphere Cloud Provider. A vCenter user with the required set of privileges is required.

In general, the vSphere user designated to the vSphere Cloud Provider must have the following permissions:

• Read permission on the parent entities of the node VMs such as folder, host, datacenter, datastore folder, datastore cluster, and so on.

• VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create/Delete permission on the vsphere.conf defined resource pool - this is used to create and delete test VMs.

See the vSphere Documentation Center for steps to create a custom role, user, and role assignment.

vSphere Cloud Provider supports OKD clusters that span multiple vCenters. Make sure that all above privileges are correctly set for all vCenters.

Procedure

1. Create a VM folder and move OKD Node VMs to this folder.

2. Set the disk.EnableUUID parameter to true for each Node VM. This setting ensures that the VMware vSphere’s Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) always presents a consistent UUID to the VM, allowing the disk to be mounted properly.

   Every VM node that will be participating in the cluster must have the disk.EnableUUID parameter set to true. To set this value, follow the steps for either the vSphere console or govc CLI tool:

   1. From the vSphere HTML Client navigate to VM properties → VM Options → Advanced → Configuration Parameters → disk.enableUUID=TRUE

   2. Or using the govc CLI, find the Node VM paths:

      $govc ls /datacenter/vm/<vm-folder-name>

      1. Set disk.EnableUUID to true for all VMs:

         $govc vm.change -e="disk.enableUUID=1" -vm='VM Path'

Configuring OKD for vSphere

You can configure OKD for vSphere in two ways:

• Using Ansible

• Manually by modifying the master-config.yaml file

Option 1: Configuring OKD for vSphere using Ansible

You can configure OKD for VMware vSphere (VCP) by modifying the Ansible inventory file. These changes can be made before installation, or to an existing cluster.

Procedure

1. Add the following to the Ansible inventory file:

   [OSEv3:vars]
   openshift_cloudprovider_kind=vsphere
   openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_username=administrator@vsphere.local (1)
   openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_password=<password>
   openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_host=10.x.y.32 (2)
   openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_datacenter=<Datacenter> (3)
   openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_datastore=<Datastore> (4)

   1	The user name with the appropriate permissions to create and attach disks in vSphere.
   2	The vCenter server address.
   3	The vCenter Datacenter name where the OKD VMs are located.
   4	The datastore used for creating VMDKs.

2. Run the deploy_cluster.yml playbook.

   $ ansible-playbook -i <inventory_file> \
     playbooks/deploy_cluster.yml

Installing with Ansible also creates and configures the following files to fit your vSphere environment:

• /etc/origin/cloudprovider/vsphere.conf

• /etc/origin/master/master-config.yaml

• /etc/origin/node/node-config.yaml

As a reference, a full inventory is shown as follows:

The openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_ values are required for OKD to be able to create vSphere resources such as VMDKs on datastores for persistent volumes.

$ cat /etc/ansible/hosts
[OSEv3:children]
ansible
masters
infras
apps
etcd
nodes
lb
[OSEv3:vars]
become=yes
ansible_become=yes
ansible_user=root
oreg_auth_user=service_account (1)
oreg_auth_password=service_account_token (1)
openshift_deployment_type=openshift-enterprise
# Required per https://access.redhat.com/solutions/3480921
oreg_url=registry.access.redhat.com/openshift3/ose-${component}:${version}
openshift_examples_modify_imagestreams=true
# vSphere Cloud provider
openshift_cloudprovider_kind=vsphere
openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_username="administrator@vsphere.local"
openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_password="password"
openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_host="vcsa65-dc1.example.com"
openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_datacenter=Datacenter
openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_cluster=Cluster
openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_resource_pool=ResourcePool
openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_datastore="datastore"
openshift_cloudprovider_vsphere_folder="folder"
# Service catalog
openshift_hosted_etcd_storage_kind=dynamic
openshift_hosted_etcd_storage_volume_name=etcd-vol
openshift_hosted_etcd_storage_access_modes=["ReadWriteOnce"]
openshift_hosted_etcd_storage_volume_size=1G
openshift_hosted_etcd_storage_labels={'storage': 'etcd'}
openshift_master_ldap_ca_file=/home/cloud-user/mycert.crt
openshift_master_identity_providers=[{'name': 'idm', 'challenge': 'true', 'login': 'true', 'kind': 'LDAPPasswordIdentityProvider', 'attributes': {'id': ['dn'], 'email': ['mail'], 'name': ['cn'], 'preferredUsername': ['uid']}, 'bindDN': 'uid=admin,cn=users,cn=accounts,dc=example,dc=com', 'bindPassword': 'ldapadmin', 'ca': '/etc/origin/master/ca.crt', 'insecure': 'false', 'url': 'ldap://ldap.example.com/cn=users,cn=accounts,dc=example,dc=com?uid?sub?(memberOf=cn=ose-user,cn=groups,cn=accounts,dc=openshift,dc=com)'}]
# Setup vsphere registry storage
openshift_hosted_registry_storage_kind=vsphere
openshift_hosted_registry_storage_access_modes=['ReadWriteOnce']
openshift_hosted_registry_storage_annotations=['volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-provisioner: kubernetes.io/vsphere-volume']
openshift_hosted_registry_replicas=1
openshift_hosted_router_replicas=3
openshift_master_cluster_method=native
openshift_node_local_quota_per_fsgroup=512Mi
default_subdomain=example.com
openshift_master_cluster_hostname=openshift.example.com
openshift_master_cluster_public_hostname=openshift.example.com
openshift_master_default_subdomain=apps.example.com
os_sdn_network_plugin_name='redhat/openshift-ovs-networkpolicy'
osm_use_cockpit=true
# Red Hat subscription name and password
rhsub_user=username
rhsub_pass=password
rhsub_pool=8a85f9815e9b371b015e9b501d081d4b
# metrics
openshift_metrics_install_metrics=true
openshift_metrics_storage_kind=dynamic
openshift_metrics_storage_volume_size=25Gi
# logging
openshift_logging_install_logging=true
openshift_logging_es_pvc_dynamic=true
openshift_logging_es_pvc_size=30Gi
openshift_logging_elasticsearch_storage_type=pvc
openshift_logging_es_cluster_size=1
openshift_logging_es_nodeselector={"node-role.kubernetes.io/infra": "true"}
openshift_logging_kibana_nodeselector={"node-role.kubernetes.io/infra": "true"}
openshift_logging_curator_nodeselector={"node-role.kubernetes.io/infra": "true"}
openshift_logging_fluentd_nodeselector={"node-role.kubernetes.io/infra": "true"}
openshift_logging_storage_kind=dynamic
#registry
openshift_public_hostname=openshift.example.com
[ansible]
localhost
[masters]
master-0.example.com vm_name=master-0 ipv4addr=10.x.y.103
master-1.example.com vm_name=master-1 ipv4addr=10.x.y.104
master-2.example.com vm_name=master-2 ipv4addr=10.x.y.105
[infras]
infra-0.example.com vm_name=infra-0 ipv4addr=10.x.y.100
infra-1.example.com vm_name=infra-1 ipv4addr=10.x.y.101
infra-2.example.com vm_name=infra-2 ipv4addr=10.x.y.102
[apps]
app-0.example.com vm_name=app-0 ipv4addr=10.x.y.106
app-1.example.com vm_name=app-1 ipv4addr=10.x.y.107
app-2.example.com vm_name=app-2 ipv4addr=10.x.y.108
[etcd]
master-0.example.com
master-1.example.com
master-2.example.com
[lb]
haproxy-0.example.com vm_name=haproxy-0 ipv4addr=10.x.y.200
[nodes]
master-0.example.com openshift_node_group_name="node-config-master" openshift_schedulable=true
master-1.example.com openshift_node_group_name="node-config-master" openshift_schedulable=true
master-2.example.com openshift_node_group_name="node-config-master" openshift_schedulable=true
infra-0.example.com openshift_node_group_name="node-config-infra"
infra-1.example.com openshift_node_group_name="node-config-infra"
infra-2.example.com openshift_node_group_name="node-config-infra"
app-0.example.com openshift_node_group_name="node-config-compute"
app-1.example.com openshift_node_group_name="node-config-compute"
app-2.example.com openshift_node_group_name="node-config-compute"

Option 2: Manually configuring OKD for vSphere

Manually configuring master hosts for vSphere

Perform the following on all master hosts.

Procedure

1. Edit the master configuration file at /etc/origin/master/master-config.yaml by default on all masters and update the contents of the apiServerArguments and controllerArguments sections:

   kubernetesMasterConfig:
     ...
     apiServerArguments:
       cloud-provider:
         - "vsphere"
       cloud-config:
         - "/etc/origin/cloudprovider/vsphere.conf"
     controllerArguments:
       cloud-provider:
         - "vsphere"
       cloud-config:
         - "/etc/origin/cloudprovider/vsphere.conf"

   When triggering a containerized installation, only the /etc/origin and /var/lib/origin directories are mounted to the master and node container. Therefore, master-config.yaml must be in /etc/origin/master rather than /etc/.

2. When you configure OKD for vSphere using Ansible, the /etc/origin/cloudprovider/vsphere.conf file is created automatically. Because you are manually configuring OKD for vSphere, you must create the file. Before you create the file, decide if you want multiple vCenter zones or not.

   The cluster installation process configures single-zone or single vCenter by default. However, deploying OKD in vSphere on different zones can be helpful to avoid single-point-of-failures, but creates the need for shared storage across zones. If an OKD node host goes down in zone “A” and the pods should be moved to zone “B”. See Multiple zone limitations in the Kubernetes documentation for more information.

   • To configure a single vCenter server, use the following format for the /etc/origin/cloudprovider/vsphere.conf file:

     [Global] (1)
             user = "myusername" (2)
             password = "mypassword" (3)
             port = "443" (4)
             insecure-flag = "1" (5)
             datacenters = "mydatacenter" (6)
     [VirtualCenter "10.10.0.2"] (7)
             user = "myvCenterusername"
             password = "password"
     [Workspace] (8)
             server = "10.10.0.2" (9)
             datacenter = "mydatacenter"
             folder = "path/to/vms" (10)
             default-datastore = "shared-datastore" (11)
             resourcepool-path = "myresourcepoolpath" (12)
     [Disk]
             scsicontrollertype = pvscsi (13)
     [Network]
             public-network = "VM Network" (14)

     1	Any properties set in the [Global] section are used for all specified vcenters unless overriden by the settings in the individual [VirtualCenter] sections.
     2	vCenter username for the vSphere cloud provider.
     3	vCenter password for the specified user.
     4	Optional. Port number for the vCenter server. Defaults to port 443.
     5	Set to 1 if the vCenter uses a self-signed certificate.
     6	Name of the data center on which Node VMs are deployed.
     7	Override specific [Global] properties for this Virtual Center. Possible setting scan be [Port], [user], [insecure-flag], [datacenters]. Any settings not specified are pulled from the [Global] section.
     8	Set any properties used for various vSphere Cloud Provider functionality. For example, dynamic provisioning, Storage Profile Based Volume provisioning, and others.
     9	IP Address or FQDN for the vCenter server.
     10	Path to the VM directory for node VMs.
     11	Set to the name of the datastore to use for provisioning volumes using the storage classes or dynamic provisioning. Prior to OKD 3.9, if the datastore was located in a storage directory or is a member of a datastore cluster, the full path was required.
     12	Optional. Set to the path to the resource pool where dummy VMs for Storage Profile Based volume provisioning must be created.
     13	Type of SCSI controller the VMDK will be attached to the VM as.
     14	Set to the network port group for vSphere to access the node, which is called VM Network by default. This is the node host’s ExternalIP that is registered with Kubernetes.

   • To configure a multiple vCenter servers, use the following format for the /etc/origin/cloudprovider/vsphere.conf file:

     [Global] (1)
             user = "myusername" (2)
             password = "mypassword" (3)
             port = "443" (4)
             insecure-flag = "1" (5)
             datacenters = "us-east, us-west" (6)
     [VirtualCenter "10.10.0.2"] (7)
             user = "myvCenterusername"
             password = "password"
     [VirtualCenter "10.10.0.3"]
             port = "448"
             insecure-flag = "0"
     [Workspace] (8)
             server = "10.10.0.2" (9)
             datacenter = "mydatacenter"
             folder = "path/to/vms" (10)
             default-datastore = "shared-datastore" (11)
             resourcepool-path = "myresourcepoolpath" (12)
     [Disk]
             scsicontrollertype = pvscsi (13)
     [Network]
             public-network = "VM Network" (14)

     1	Any properties set in the [Global] section are used for all specified vcenters unless overriden by the settings in the individual [VirtualCenter] sections.
     2	vCenter username for the vSphere cloud provider.
     3	vCenter password for the specified user.
     4	Optional. Port number for the vCenter server. Defaults to port 443.
     5	Set to 1 if the vCenter uses a self-signed certificate.
     6	Name of the data centers on which Node VMs are deployed.
     7	Override specific [Global] properties for this Virtual Center. Possible setting scan be [Port], [user], [insecure-flag], [datacenters]. Any settings not specified are pulled from the [Global] section.
     8	Set any properties used for various vSphere Cloud Provider functionality. For example, dynamic provisioning, Storage Profile Based Volume provisioning, and others.
     9	IP Address or FQDN for the vCenter server where the Cloud Provider communicates.
     10	Path to the VM directory for node VMs.
     11	Set to the name of the datastore to use for provisioning volumes using the storage classes or dynamic provisioning. Prior to OKD 3.9, if the datastore was located in a storage directory or is a member of a datastore cluster, the full path was required.
     12	Optional. Set to the path to the resource pool where dummy VMs for Storage Profile Based volume provisioning must be created.
     13	Type of SCSI controller the VMDK will be attached to the VM as.
     14	Set to the network port group for vSphere to access the node, which is called VM Network by default. This is the node host’s ExternalIP that is registered with Kubernetes.

1. Restart the OKD host services:

   # master-restart api
   # master-restart controllers
   # systemctl restart atomic-openshift-node

Manually configuring node hosts for vSphere

Perform the following on all node hosts.

Procedure

To configure the OKD nodes for vSphere:

1. Edit the appropriate node configuration map and update the contents of the **kubeletArguments** section:

   kubeletArguments:
     cloud-provider:
       - "vsphere"
     cloud-config:
       - "/etc/origin/cloudprovider/vsphere.conf"

   The nodeName must match the VM name in vSphere in order for the cloud provider integration to work properly. The name must also be RFC1123 compliant.

2. Restart the OKD services on all nodes.

   # systemctl restart atomic-openshift-node

Applying Configuration Changes

Start or restart OKD services on all master and node hosts to apply your configuration changes, see Restarting OKD services:

# master-restart api
# master-restart controllers
# systemctl restart atomic-openshift-node

Switching from not using a cloud provider to using a cloud provider produces an error message. Adding the cloud provider tries to delete the node because the node switches from using the hostname as the **externalID** (which would have been the case when no cloud provider was being used) to using the cloud provider’s **instance-id** (which is what the cloud provider specifies). To resolve this issue:

1. Log in to the CLI as a cluster administrator.

2. Check and back up existing node labels:

   $ oc describe node <node_name> | grep -Poz '(?s)Labels.*\n.*(?=Taints)'

3. Delete the nodes:

   $ oc delete node <node_name>

4. On each node host, restart the OKD service.

   # systemctl restart origin-node

5. Add back any labels on each node that you previously had.

Configuring OKD to use vSphere storage

OKD supports VMware vSphere’s Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) volumes. You can provision your OKD cluster with persistent storage using VMware vSphere. Some familiarity with Kubernetes and VMware vSphere is assumed.

OKD creates the disk in vSphere and attaches the disk to the correct instance.

The OKD persistent volume (PV) framework allows administrators to provision a cluster with persistent storage and gives users a way to request those resources without having any knowledge of the underlying infrastructure. vSphere VMDK volumes can be provisioned dynamically.

PVs are not bound to a single project or namespace; they can be shared across the OKD cluster. PV claims, however, are specific to a project or namespace and can be requested by users.

Prerequisites

Before creating PVs using vSphere, ensure your OKD cluster meets the following requirements:

• OKD must first be configured for vSphere.

• Each node host in the infrastructure must match the vSphere VM name.

• Each node host must be in the same resource group.

Dynamically Provisioning VMware vSphere volumes

Dynamically provisioning VMware vSphere volumes is the preferred provisioning method.

1. If you did not specify the openshift_cloudprovider_kind=vsphere and openshift_vsphere_* variables in the Ansible inventory file when you provisioned the cluster, you must manually create the following StorageClass to use the vsphere-volume provisioner:

   $ oc get --export storageclass vsphere-standard -o yaml
   kind: StorageClass
   apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
   metadata:
     name: "vsphere-standard" (1)
   provisioner: kubernetes.io/vsphere-volume (2)
   parameters:
       diskformat: thin (3)
       datastore: "YourvSphereDatastoreName" (4)
   reclaimPolicy: Delete

   1	The name of the StorageClass.
   2	The type of storage provisioner. Specify vsphere-volume.
   3	The type of disk. Specify either zeroedthick or thin.
   4	The source datastore where the disks will be created.

2. After you request a PV, using the StorageClass shown in the previous step, OKD automatically creates VMDK disks in the vSphere infrastructure. To verify that the disks were created, use the Datastore browser in vSphere.

   vSphere-volume disks are ReadWriteOnce access mode, which means the volume can be mounted as read-write by a single node. See the Access modes section of the Architecture guide for more information.

Statically Provisioning VMware vSphere volumes

Storage must exist in the underlying infrastructure before it can be mounted as a volume in OKD. After ensuring OKD is configured for vSphere, all that is required for OKD and vSphere is a VM folder path, file system type, and the PersistentVolume API.

Creating PersistentVolumes

1. Define a PV object definition, for example vsphere-pv.yaml:

   apiVersion: v1
   kind: PersistentVolume
   metadata:
     name: pv0001 (1)
   spec:
     capacity:
       storage: 2Gi (2)
     accessModes:
       - ReadWriteOnce
     persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain
     vsphereVolume: (3)
       volumePath: "[datastore1] volumes/myDisk" (4)
       fsType: ext4 (5)

   1	The name of the volume. This must be how it is identified by PV claims or from pods.
   2	The amount of storage allocated to this volume.
   3	The volume type being used. This example uses vsphereVolume. The label is used to mount a vSphere VMDK volume into pods. The contents of a volume are preserved when it is unmounted. The volume type supports VMFS and VSAN datastore.
   4	The existing VMDK volume to use. You must enclose the datastore name in square brackets ([]) in the volume definition, as shown.
   5	The file system type to mount. For example, ext4, xfs, or other file-systems.

   Changing the value of the fsType parameter after the volume is formatted and provisioned can result in data loss and pod failure.

2. Create the PV:

   $ oc create -f vsphere-pv.yaml
     persistentvolume "pv0001" created

3. Verify that the PV was created:

   $ oc get pv
   NAME    LABELS  CAPACITY  ACCESSMODES   STATUS    CLAIM   REASON  AGE
   pv0001  <none>  2Gi       RWO           Available                 2s

Now you can request storage using PV claims, which can now use your PV.

Formatting VMware vSphere volumes

Before OKD mounts the volume and passes it to a container, it checks that the volume contains a file system as specified by the fsType parameter in the PV definition. If the device is not formatted with the file system, all data from the device is erased, and the device is automatically formatted with the given file system.

Because OKD formats them before the first use, you can use unformatted vSphere volumes as PVs.

Configuring the OKD registry for vSphere

Configuring the OKD registry for vSphere using Ansible

Procedure

To configure the Ansible inventory for the registry to use a vSphere volume:

[OSEv3:vars]
# vSphere Provider Configuration
openshift_hosted_registry_storage_kind=vsphere (1)
openshift_hosted_registry_storage_access_modes=['ReadWriteOnce'] (2)
openshift_hosted_registry_storage_annotations=['volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-provisioner: kubernetes.io/vsphere-volume'] (3)
openshift_hosted_registry_replicas=1 (4)

Dynamically provisioning storage for OKD registry

To use vSphere volume storage, edit the registry’s configuration file and mount to the registry pod.

Procedure

1. Create a new configuration file from the vSphere volume:

     kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
     apiVersion: v1
     metadata:
       name: vsphere-registry-storage
       annotations:
         volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-class: vsphere-standard
     spec:
       accessModes:
         - ReadWriteOnce
       resources:
         requests:
           storage: 30Gi

2. Create the file in OKD:

   $ oc create -f pvc-registry.yaml

3. Update the volume configuration to use the new PVC:

   $ oc set volume dc docker-registry --add --name=registry-storage -t \
   pvc --claim-name=vsphere-registry-storage --overwrite

4. Redeploy the registry to read the updated configuration:

   $ oc rollout latest docker-registry -n default

5. Verify the volume has been assigned:

   $ oc set volume dc docker-registry -n default

Manually provisioning storage for OKD registry

Running the following commands manually creates storage, which is used to create storage for the registry if a StorageClass is unavailable or not used.

# VMFS
cd /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/
mkdir kubevols # Not needed but good hygiene
# VSAN
cd /vmfs/volumes/vsanDatastore/
/usr/lib/vmware/osfs/bin/osfs-mkdir kubevols # Needed
cd kubevols
vmkfstools -c 25G registry.vmdk

About Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage

Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage (RHOCS) is a provider of agnostic persistent storage for OKD either in-house or in hybrid clouds. As a Red Hat storage solution, RHOCS is completely integrated with OKD for deployment, management, and monitoring regardless if it is installed on OKD (converged) or with OKD (independent). OpenShift Container Storage is not limited to a single availability zone or node, which makes it likely to survive an outage. You can find complete instructions for using RHOCS in the RHOCS3.11 Deployment Guide.

Backup of persistent 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.

To create a backup of PVs:

1. Stop the application using the PV.

2. Clone the persistent disk.

3. Restart the application.

4. Create a backup of the cloned disk.

5. Delete the cloned disk.