Installing a cluster on VMC

    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 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

    You cannot use the VMware NSX Container Plugin for Kubernetes (NCP), and NSX is not used as the OpenShift SDN. The version of NSX currently available with VMC is incompatible with the version of NCP certified with OKD.

    However, the NSX DHCP service is used for virtual machine IP management with the full-stack automated OKD deployment and with nodes provisioned, either manually or automatically, by the Machine API integration with vSphere. Additionally, NSX firewall rules are created to enable access with the OKD cluster and between the bastion host and the VMC vSphere hosts.

    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

    VMware vSphere infrastructure requirements

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

    OKD version 4.13 supports VMware vSphere version 8.0.

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

    Table 1. Version requirements for vSphere virtual environments
    Virtual environment productRequired version

    VMware virtual hardware

    15 or later

    vSphere ESXi hosts

    7.0 Update 2 or later

    vCenter host

    7.0 Update 2 or later

    Table 2. Minimum supported vSphere version for VMware components
    ComponentMinimum supported versionsDescription

    Hypervisor

    vSphere 7.0 Update 2 and later with virtual hardware version 15

    This version is the minimum version that Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) supports. See the .

    Storage with in-tree drivers

    vSphere 7.0 Update 2 and later

    This plugin creates vSphere storage by using the in-tree storage drivers for vSphere included in OKD.

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

    Network connectivity requirements

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

    Review the following details about the required network ports.

    Table 3. Ports used for all-machine to all-machine communications
    ProtocolPortDescription

    ICMP

    N/A

    Network reachability tests

    TCP

    1936

    Metrics

    9000-9999

    Host level services, including the node exporter on ports 9100-9101 and the Cluster Version Operator on port 9099.

    10250-10259

    The default ports that Kubernetes reserves

    10256

    openshift-sdn

    UDP

    4789

    virtual extensible LAN (VXLAN)

    6081

    Geneve

    9000-9999

    Host level services, including the node exporter on ports 9100-9101.

    500

    IPsec IKE packets

    4500

    IPsec NAT-T packets

    TCP/UDP

    30000-32767

    Kubernetes node port

    ESP

    N/A

    IPsec Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)

    Table 4. Ports used for all-machine to control plane communications
    ProtocolPortDescription

    TCP

    6443

    Kubernetes API

    Table 5. Ports used for control plane machine to control plane machine communications
    ProtocolPortDescription

    TCP

    2379-2380

    etcd server and peer ports

    VMware vSphere CSI Driver Operator requirements

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

    • VMware vSphere version 7.0 Update 2 or later

    • vCenter 7.0 Update 2 or later

    • Virtual machines of hardware version 15 or later

    • No third-party vSphere CSI driver already installed in the cluster

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

    Additional resources

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

    Required vCenter account privileges

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

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

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

    Roles and privileges required for installation in vSphere API

    vSphere object for roleWhen requiredRequired privileges in vSphere API

    vSphere vCenter

    Always

    Cns.Searchable
    InventoryService.Tagging.AttachTag
    InventoryService.Tagging.CreateCategory
    InventoryService.Tagging.CreateTag
    InventoryService.Tagging.DeleteCategory
    InventoryService.Tagging.DeleteTag
    InventoryService.Tagging.EditCategory
    InventoryService.Tagging.EditTag
    Sessions.ValidateSession
    StorageProfile.Update
    StorageProfile.View

    vSphere vCenter Cluster

    If VMs will be created in the cluster root

    Host.Config.Storage
    Resource.AssignVMToPool
    VApp.AssignResourcePool
    VApp.Import
    VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk

    vSphere vCenter Resource Pool

    If an existing resource pool is provided

    Host.Config.Storage
    Resource.AssignVMToPool
    VApp.AssignResourcePool
    VApp.Import
    VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk

    vSphere Datastore

    Always

    Datastore.AllocateSpace
    Datastore.Browse
    Datastore.FileManagement
    InventoryService.Tagging.ObjectAttachable

    vSphere Port Group

    Always

    Network.Assign

    Virtual Machine Folder

    Always

    InventoryService.Tagging.ObjectAttachable
    Resource.AssignVMToPool
    VApp.Import
    VirtualMachine.Config.AddExistingDisk
    VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk
    VirtualMachine.Config.AddRemoveDevice
    VirtualMachine.Config.AdvancedConfig
    VirtualMachine.Config.Annotation
    VirtualMachine.Config.CPUCount
    VirtualMachine.Config.DiskExtend
    VirtualMachine.Config.DiskLease
    VirtualMachine.Config.EditDevice
    VirtualMachine.Config.Memory
    VirtualMachine.Config.RemoveDisk
    VirtualMachine.Config.Rename
    VirtualMachine.Config.ResetGuestInfo
    VirtualMachine.Config.Resource
    VirtualMachine.Config.Settings
    VirtualMachine.Config.UpgradeVirtualHardware
    VirtualMachine.Interact.GuestControl
    VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOff
    VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOn
    VirtualMachine.Interact.Reset
    VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create
    VirtualMachine.Inventory.CreateFromExisting
    VirtualMachine.Inventory.Delete
    VirtualMachine.Provisioning.Clone
    VirtualMachine.Provisioning.MarkAsTemplate
    VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DeployTemplate

    vSphere vCenter Datacenter

    If the installation program creates the virtual machine folder

    InventoryService.Tagging.ObjectAttachable
    Resource.AssignVMToPool
    VApp.Import
    VirtualMachine.Config.AddExistingDisk
    VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk
    VirtualMachine.Config.AddRemoveDevice
    VirtualMachine.Config.AdvancedConfig
    VirtualMachine.Config.Annotation
    VirtualMachine.Config.CPUCount
    VirtualMachine.Config.DiskExtend
    VirtualMachine.Config.DiskLease
    VirtualMachine.Config.EditDevice
    VirtualMachine.Config.Memory
    VirtualMachine.Config.RemoveDisk
    VirtualMachine.Config.Rename
    VirtualMachine.Config.ResetGuestInfo
    VirtualMachine.Config.Resource
    VirtualMachine.Config.Settings
    VirtualMachine.Config.UpgradeVirtualHardware
    VirtualMachine.Interact.GuestControl
    VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOff
    VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOn
    VirtualMachine.Interact.Reset
    VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create
    VirtualMachine.Inventory.CreateFromExisting
    VirtualMachine.Inventory.Delete
    VirtualMachine.Provisioning.Clone
    VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DeployTemplate
    VirtualMachine.Provisioning.MarkAsTemplate
    Folder.Create
    Folder.Delete

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

    vSphere object for roleWhen requiredRequired privileges in vCenter GUI

    vSphere vCenter

    Always

    Cns.Searchable
    “vSphere Tagging”.”Assign or Unassign vSphere Tag”
    “vSphere Tagging”.”Create vSphere Tag Category”
    “vSphere Tagging”.”Create vSphere Tag”
    vSphere Tagging”.”Delete vSphere Tag Category”
    “vSphere Tagging”.”Delete vSphere Tag”
    “vSphere Tagging”.”Edit vSphere Tag Category”
    “vSphere Tagging”.”Edit vSphere Tag”
    Sessions.”Validate session”
    “Profile-driven storage”.”Profile-driven storage update”
    “Profile-driven storage”.”Profile-driven storage view”

    vSphere vCenter Cluster

    Host.Configuration.”Storage partition configuration”
    Resource.”Assign virtual machine to resource pool”
    VApp.”Assign resource pool”
    VApp.Import
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add new disk”

    vSphere vCenter Resource Pool

    If an existing resource pool is provided

    Host.Configuration.”Storage partition configuration”
    Resource.”Assign virtual machine to resource pool”
    VApp.”Assign resource pool”
    VApp.Import

    vSphere Datastore

    Always

    Datastore.”Allocate space”
    Datastore.”Browse datastore”
    Datastore.”Low level file operations”
    “vSphere Tagging”.”Assign or Unassign vSphere Tag on Object”

    vSphere Port Group

    Always

    Network.”Assign network”

    Virtual Machine Folder

    Always

    “vSphere Tagging”.”Assign or Unassign vSphere Tag on Object”
    Resource.”Assign virtual machine to resource pool”
    VApp.Import
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add existing disk”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add new disk”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add or remove device”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Advanced configuration”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Set annotation”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change CPU count”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Extend virtual disk”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Acquire disk lease”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Modify device settings”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change Memory”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Remove disk”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.Rename
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Reset guest information”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change resource”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change Settings”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Upgrade virtual machine compatibility”
    “Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Guest operating system management by VIX API”
    “Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Power off”
    “Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Power on”
    “Virtual machine”.Interaction.Reset
    “Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Create new”
    “Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Create from existing”
    “Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Remove”
    “Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Clone virtual machine”
    “Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Mark as template”
    “Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Deploy template”

    vSphere vCenter Datacenter

    If the installation program creates the virtual machine folder

    “vSphere Tagging”.”Assign or Unassign vSphere Tag on Object”
    Resource.”Assign virtual machine to resource pool”
    VApp.Import
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add existing disk”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add new disk”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Add or remove device”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Advanced configuration”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Set annotation”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change CPU count”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Extend virtual disk”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Acquire disk lease”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Modify device settings”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change Memory”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Remove disk”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.Rename
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Reset guest information”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change resource”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Change Settings”
    “Virtual machine”.”Change Configuration”.”Upgrade virtual machine compatibility”
    “Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Guest operating system management by VIX API”
    “Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Power off”
    “Virtual machine”.Interaction.”Power on”
    “Virtual machine”.Interaction.Reset
    “Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Create new”
    “Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Create from existing”
    “Virtual machine”.”Edit Inventory”.”Remove”
    “Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Clone virtual machine”
    “Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Deploy template”
    “Virtual machine”.Provisioning.”Mark as template”
    Folder.”Create folder”
    Folder.”Delete folder”

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

    Required permissions and propagation settings

    vSphere objectWhen requiredPropagate to childrenPermissions required

    vSphere vCenter

    Always

    False

    Listed required privileges

    vSphere vCenter Datacenter

    Existing folder

    False

    ReadOnly permission

    Installation program creates the folder

    True

    Listed required privileges

    vSphere vCenter Cluster

    Existing resource pool

    True

    ReadOnly permission

    VMs in cluster root

    True

    Listed required privileges

    vSphere vCenter Datastore

    Always

    False

    Listed required privileges

    vSphere Switch

    Always

    False

    ReadOnly permission

    vSphere Port Group

    Always

    False

    Listed required privileges

    vSphere vCenter Virtual Machine Folder

    Existing folder

    True

    Listed required privileges

    vSphere vCenter Resource Pool

    Existing resource pool

    True

    Listed required privileges

    For more information about creating an account with only the required privileges, see in the vSphere documentation.

    Using OKD with vMotion

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

    • OKD generally supports compute-only vMotion. Using Storage vMotion can cause issues and is not supported.

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

      For more information about vMotion and anti-affinity rules, see the VMware vSphere documentation for and VM anti-affinity rules.

    • 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.

    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. You must configure the default gateway to use the DHCP server. All nodes must be in the same VLAN. You cannot scale the cluster using a second VLAN as a Day 2 operation. Additionally, you must create the following networking resources before you install the OKD cluster:

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

    Required IP Addresses

    An installer-provisioned vSphere installation requires two static IP addresses:

    • The API address is used to access the cluster API.

    • The Ingress address is used for cluster ingress traffic.

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

    DNS records

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

    Table 6. Required DNS records
    ComponentRecordDescription

    API VIP

    api.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>.

    This DNS A/AAAA or CNAME record must point to the load balancer for the control plane machines. This record must be resolvable by both clients external to the cluster and from all the nodes within the cluster.

    Ingress VIP

    *.apps.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>.

    A wildcard DNS A/AAAA or CNAME record that points to the load balancer that targets the machines that run the Ingress router pods, which are the worker nodes by default. This record must be resolvable by both clients external to the cluster and from all the nodes within the cluster.

    Generating a key pair for cluster node SSH access

    During an OKD installation, you can provide an SSH public key to the installation program. The key is passed to the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) nodes through their Ignition config files and is used to authenticate SSH access to the nodes. The key is added to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys list for the core user on each node, which enables password-less authentication.

    After the key is passed to the nodes, you can use the key pair to SSH in to the FCOS nodes as the user core. To access the nodes through SSH, the private key identity must be managed by SSH for your local user.

    If you want to SSH in to your cluster nodes to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, you must provide the SSH public key during the installation process. The ./openshift-install gather command also requires the SSH public key to be in place on the cluster nodes.

    You must use a local key, not one that you configured with platform-specific approaches such as .

    On clusters running Fedora CoreOS (FCOS), the SSH keys specified in the Ignition config files are written to the /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys.d/core file. However, the Machine Config Operator manages SSH keys in the /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys file and configures sshd to ignore the /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys.d/core file. As a result, newly provisioned OKD nodes are not accessible using SSH until the Machine Config Operator reconciles the machine configs with the authorized_keys file. After you can access the nodes using SSH, you can delete the /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys.d/core file.

    Procedure

    1. If you do not have an existing SSH key pair on your local machine to use for authentication onto your cluster nodes, create one. For example, on a computer that uses a Linux operating system, run the following command:

      1Specify the path and file name, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, of the new SSH key. If you have an existing key pair, ensure your public key is in the your ~/.ssh directory.

      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. View the public SSH key:

      1. $ cat <path>/<file_name>.pub

      For example, run the following to view the ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub public key:

      1. $ cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
    3. Add the SSH private key identity to the SSH agent for your local user, if it has not already been added. SSH agent management of the key is required for password-less SSH authentication onto your cluster nodes, or if you want to use the ./openshift-install gather command.

      On some distributions, default SSH private key identities such as ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_dsa are managed automatically.

      1. If the ssh-agent process is not already running for your local user, start it as a background task:

        1. $ eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

        Example output

        1. 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.

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

      1. $ ssh-add <path>/<file_name> (1)
      1Specify the path and file name for your SSH private key, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

      Example output

      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 the host you are using for installation.

      Prerequisites

      • You have a machine that runs Linux, for example Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, with 500 MB of local disk space.

        If you attempt to run the installation program on macOS, a known issue related to the golang compiler causes the installation of the OKD cluster to fail. For more information about this issue, see the section named “Known Issues” in the OKD 4.13 release notes document.

      Procedure

      1. Download installer from

        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:

        1. $ tar -xvf openshift-install-linux.tar.gz
      3. Download your installation pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager. 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 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:

        • Red Hat Operators are not available.

        • The Telemetry and Insights operators do not send data to Red Hat.

        • Content from the 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:

        1. certs
        2. ├── lin
        3. ├── 108f4d17.0
        4. ├── 108f4d17.r1
        5. ├── 7e757f6a.0
        6. ├── 8e4f8471.0
        7. └── 8e4f8471.r0
        8. ├── mac
        9. ├── 108f4d17.0
        10. ├── 108f4d17.r1
        11. ├── 7e757f6a.0
        12. ├── 8e4f8471.0
        13. └── 8e4f8471.r0
        14. └── win
        15. ├── 108f4d17.0.crt
        16. ├── 108f4d17.r1.crl
        17. ├── 7e757f6a.0.crt
        18. ├── 8e4f8471.0.crt
        19. └── 8e4f8471.r0.crl
        20. 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:

        1. # 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:

        1. # update-ca-trust extract

      Deploying the cluster

      You can install OKD on a compatible cloud platform.

      When you have configured your VMC environment for OKD deployment, you use the OKD installation program from the bastion management host that is 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.

      You can run the create cluster command of the installation program only once, during initial installation.

      Prerequisites

      • Configure an account with the cloud platform that hosts your cluster.

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

      • Verify the cloud provider account on your host has the correct permissions to deploy the cluster. An account with incorrect permissions causes the installation process to fail with an error message that displays the missing permissions.

      Procedure

      1. Change to the directory that contains the installation program and initialize the cluster deployment:

        1. $ ./openshift-install create cluster --dir <installation_directory> \ (1)
        2. --log-level=info (2)
        1For <installation_directory>, specify the directory name to store the files that the installation program creates.
        2To view different installation details, specify warn, debug, or error instead of info.
        • Verify that the directory has the execute permission. This permission is required to run Terraform binaries under the installation directory.

        • Use an empty directory. Some installation assets, such as bootstrap X.509 certificates, have short expiration intervals, therefore 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. Provide values at the prompts:

        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 data center in your vCenter instance to connect to.

        6. Select the default vCenter datastore to use.

          Datastore and cluster names cannot exceed 60 characters; therefore, ensure the combined string length does not exceed the 60 character limit.

        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.

          Datastore and cluster names cannot exceed 60 characters; therefore, ensure the combined string length does not exceed the 60 character limit.

        13. Paste the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager.

          • If you do not have a , you can paste the pull secret another private registry.

          • If you do not need the cluster to pull images from a private registry, you can paste as the pull secret.

      Verification

      When the cluster deployment completes successfully:

      • The terminal displays directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to the web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user.

      • Credential information also outputs to <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log.

      Example output

      1. ...
      2. INFO Install complete!
      3. INFO To access the cluster as the system:admin user when using 'oc', run 'export KUBECONFIG=/home/myuser/install_dir/auth/kubeconfig'
      4. INFO Access the OpenShift web-console here: https://console-openshift-console.apps.mycluster.example.com
      5. INFO Login to the console with user: "kubeadmin", and password: "4vYBz-Ee6gm-ymBZj-Wt5AL"
      6. INFO Time elapsed: 36m22s
      • 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.

      • It is recommended that you use Ignition config files within 12 hours after they are generated because the 24-hour certificate rotates from 16 to 22 hours after the cluster is installed. By using the Ignition config files within 12 hours, you can avoid installation failure if the certificate update runs during installation.

      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.

      If you installed an earlier version of oc, you cannot use it to complete all of the commands in OKD 4.13. Download and install the new version of oc.

      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:

      4. Place the oc binary in a directory that is on your PATH.

        To check your PATH, execute the following command:

        1. $ echo $PATH

      After you install the OpenShift CLI, it is available using the oc command:

      1. $ 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:

        1. C:\> path

      After you install the OpenShift CLI, it is available using the oc command:

      1. 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:

        1. $ echo $PATH

      After you install the OpenShift CLI, it is available using the oc command:

      1. $ 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:

        1. $ export KUBECONFIG=<installation_directory>/auth/kubeconfig (1)
        1For <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:

        1. $ oc whoami

        Example output

        Creating registry storage

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

        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.

        The Prometheus console provides an ImageRegistryRemoved alert, for example:

        “Image Registry has been removed. ImageStreamTags, BuildConfigs and DeploymentConfigs which reference ImageStreamTags may not work as expected. Please configure storage and update the config to Managed state by editing configs.imageregistry.operator.openshift.io.”

        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 Data Foundation.

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

        • Must have “100Gi” capacity.

        Testing shows issues with using the NFS server on RHEL as storage backend for core services. This includes the OpenShift Container Registry and Quay, Prometheus for monitoring storage, and Elasticsearch for logging storage. Therefore, using RHEL NFS to back PVs used by core services is not recommended.

        Other NFS implementations on the marketplace might not have these issues. Contact the individual NFS implementation vendor for more information on any testing that was possibly completed against these OKD core components.

        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:

          1. $ oc get pod -n openshift-image-registry -l docker-registry=default

          Example output

          1. No resourses found in openshift-image-registry namespace

          If you do have a registry pod in your output, you do not need to continue with this procedure.

        3. Check the registry configuration:

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

          Example output

          1Leave the claim field blank to allow the automatic creation of an image-registry-storage persistent volume claim (PVC). The PVC is generated based on the default storage class. However, be aware that the default storage class might provide ReadWriteOnce (RWO) volumes, such as a RADOS Block Device (RBD), which can cause issues when replicating to more than one replica.
        4. Check the clusteroperator status:

          1. $ oc get clusteroperator image-registry

          Example output

          1. NAME VERSION AVAILABLE PROGRESSING DEGRADED SINCE MESSAGE
          2. image-registry 4.7 True False False 6h50m

        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.

        Block storage volumes are supported but not recommended for use with image registry on production clusters. An installation where the registry is configured on block storage is not highly available because the registry cannot have more than one replica.

        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:

          1. $ 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:

            1. kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
            2. apiVersion: v1
            3. metadata:
            4. name: image-registry-storage (1)
            5. namespace: openshift-image-registry (2)
            6. spec:
            7. accessModes:
            8. - ReadWriteOnce (3)
            9. resources:
            10. requests:
            11. storage: 100Gi (4)
            1A unique name that represents the PersistentVolumeClaim object.
            2The namespace for the PersistentVolumeClaim object, which is openshift-image-registry.
            3The access mode of the persistent volume claim. With ReadWriteOnce, the volume can be mounted with read and write permissions by a single node.
            4The size of the persistent volume claim.
          2. Create the PersistentVolumeClaim object from the file:

            1. $ oc create -f pvc.yaml -n openshift-image-registry
        3. Edit the registry configuration so that it references the correct PVC:

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

          Example output

          1. storage:
          2. pvc:
          3. claim: (1)
          1Creating 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 .

        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 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

        Configuring an external load balancer

        You can configure an OKD cluster to use an external load balancer in place of the default load balancer.

        You can also configure an OKD cluster to use an external load balancer that supports multiple subnets. If you use multiple subnets, you can explicitly list all the IP addresses in any networks that are used by your load balancer targets. This configuration can reduce maintenance overhead because you can create and destroy nodes within those networks without reconfiguring the load balancer targets.

        If you deploy your ingress pods by using a machine set on a smaller network, such as a /27 or /28, you can simplify your load balancer targets.

        You do not need to specify API and Ingress static addresses for your installation program. If you choose this configuration, you must take additional actions to define network targets that accept an IP address from each referenced vSphere subnet.

        Prerequisites

        • On your load balancer, TCP over ports 6443, 443, and 80 must be reachable by all users of your system that are located outside the cluster.

        • Load balance the application ports, 443 and 80, between all the compute nodes.

        • Load balance the API port, 6443, between each of the control plane nodes.

        • On your load balancer, port 22623, which is used to serve ignition startup configurations to nodes, is not exposed outside of the cluster.

        • Your load balancer can access the required ports on each node in your cluster. You can ensure this level of access by completing the following actions:

          • The API load balancer can access ports 22623 and 6443 on the control plane nodes.

          • The ingress load balancer can access ports 443 and 80 on the nodes where the ingress pods are located.

        • Optional: If you are using multiple networks, you can create targets for every IP address in the network that can host nodes. This configuration can reduce the maintenance overhead of your cluster.

        External load balancing services and the control plane nodes must run on the same L2 network, and on the same VLAN when using VLANs to route traffic between the load balancing services and the control plane nodes.

        Procedure

        1. Enable access to the cluster from your load balancer on ports 6443, 443, and 80.

          As an example, note this HAProxy configuration:

          A section of a sample HAProxy configuration

          1. ...
          2. listen my-cluster-api-6443
          3. bind 0.0.0.0:6443
          4. mode tcp
          5. balance roundrobin
          6. server my-cluster-master-2 192.0.2.2:6443 check
          7. server my-cluster-master-0 192.0.2.3:6443 check
          8. server my-cluster-master-1 192.0.2.1:6443 check
          9. listen my-cluster-apps-443
          10. bind 0.0.0.0:443
          11. mode tcp
          12. balance roundrobin
          13. server my-cluster-worker-0 192.0.2.6:443 check
          14. server my-cluster-worker-1 192.0.2.5:443 check
          15. server my-cluster-worker-2 192.0.2.4:443 check
          16. listen my-cluster-apps-80
          17. bind 0.0.0.0:80
          18. mode tcp
          19. balance roundrobin
          20. server my-cluster-worker-0 192.0.2.7:80 check
          21. server my-cluster-worker-1 192.0.2.9:80 check
          22. server my-cluster-worker-2 192.0.2.8:80 check
        2. Add records to your DNS server for the cluster API and apps over the load balancer. For example:

          1. <load_balancer_ip_address> api.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>
          2. <load_balancer_ip_address> apps.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>
        3. From a command line, use curl to verify that the external load balancer and DNS configuration are operational.

          1. Verify that the cluster API is accessible:

            1. $ curl https://<loadbalancer_ip_address>:6443/version --insecure

            If the configuration is correct, you receive a JSON object in response:

            1. {
            2. "major": "1",
            3. "minor": "11+",
            4. "gitVersion": "v1.11.0+ad103ed",
            5. "gitCommit": "ad103ed",
            6. "gitTreeState": "clean",
            7. "buildDate": "2019-01-09T06:44:10Z",
            8. "goVersion": "go1.10.3",
            9. "compiler": "gc",
            10. "platform": "linux/amd64"
          2. Verify that cluster applications are accessible:

            You can also verify application accessibility by opening the OKD console in a web browser.

            1. $ curl http://console-openshift-console.apps.<cluster_name>.<base_domain> -I -L --insecure

            If the configuration is correct, you receive an HTTP response: