Installing a cluster on VMC with customizations

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

    To customize the OKD installation, you modify parameters in the file before you install the cluster.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    • Configure the following firewall rules:

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

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

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

    • You must have the following information to deploy OKD:

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

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

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

      • The following vCenter information:

        • vCenter hostname, username, and password

        • Datacenter name, such as SDDC-Datacenter

        • Cluster name, such as Cluster-1

        • Network name

        • Datastore name, such as WorkloadDatastore

    • 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 6 or 7 instance that meets the requirements for the components that you use.

    Table 1. Minimum supported vSphere version for VMware components
    ComponentMinimum supported versionsDescription

    Hypervisor

    vSphere 6.5 and later with HW version 13

    This version is the minimum version that Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) supports. See the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 supported hypervisors list.

    Storage with in-tree drivers

    vSphere 6.5 and later

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

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

    You must ensure that the time on your ESXi hosts is synchronized before you install OKD. See in the VMware documentation.

    vCenter requirements

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

    Required vCenter account privileges

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

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

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

    Roles and privileges required for installation

    vSphere object for roleWhen requiredRequired privileges

    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.View

    vSphere vCenter Cluster

    Always

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

    vSphere Datastore

    Always

    Datastore.AllocateSpace
    Datastore.Browse
    Datastore.FileManagement

    vSphere Port Group

    Always

    Network.Assign

    Virtual Machine Folder

    Always

    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

    vSphere vCenter Datacenter

    If the installation program creates the virtual machine folder

    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

    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 objectFolder typePropagate 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

    Always

    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

    For more information about creating an account with only the required privileges, see vSphere Permissions and User Management Tasks in the vSphere documentation.

    Using OKD with vMotion

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

    If you are using vSphere volumes in your pods, migrating a VM across datastores either manually or through Storage vMotion causes invalid references within OKD persistent volume (PV) objects. These references prevent affected pods from starting up and can result in data loss.

    Similarly, OKD does not support selective migration of VMDKs across datastores, using datastore clusters for VM provisioning or for dynamic or static provisioning of PVs, or using a datastore that is part of a datastore cluster for dynamic or static provisioning of PVs.

    Cluster resources

    When you deploy an OKD cluster that uses installer-provisioned infrastructure, the installation program must be able to create several resources in your vCenter instance.

    A standard OKD installation creates the following vCenter resources:

    • 1 Folder

    • 1 Tag category

    • 1 Tag

    • Virtual machines:

      • 1 template

      • 1 temporary bootstrap node

      • 3 control plane nodes

      • 3 compute machines

    Although these resources use 856 GB of storage, the bootstrap node is destroyed during the cluster installation process. A minimum of 800 GB of storage is required to use a standard cluster.

    If you deploy more compute machines, the OKD cluster will use more storage.

    Available resources vary between clusters. The number of possible clusters within a vCenter is limited primarily by available storage space and any limitations on the number of required resources. Be sure to consider both limitations to the vCenter resources that the cluster creates and the resources that you require to deploy a cluster, such as IP addresses and networks.

    Networking requirements

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

    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 2. 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.

    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.

    Do not skip this procedure in production environments, where disaster recovery and debugging is required.

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

    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_rsa, 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_rsa.pub public key:

      1. $ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.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_rsa

      Example output

      1. Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)
    • When you install OKD, provide the SSH public key to the installation program.

    Obtaining the installation program

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

    Prerequisites

    • You have a computer that runs Linux or macOS, with 500 MB of local disk space

    Procedure

    1. Download installer from https://github.com/openshift/okd/releases

      The installation program creates several files on the computer that you use to install your cluster. You must keep the installation program and the files that the installation program creates after you finish installing the cluster. Both files are required to delete the cluster.

      Deleting the files created by the installation program does not remove your cluster, even if the cluster failed during installation. To remove your cluster, complete the OKD uninstallation procedures for your specific cloud provider.

    2. Extract the installation program. For example, on a computer that uses a Linux operating system, run the following command:

      1. $ tar xvf openshift-install-linux.tar.gz
    3. From the page on the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager site, download your installation pull secret. This pull secret allows you to authenticate with the services that are provided by the included authorities, including Quay.io, which serves the container images for OKD components.

      Using a pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager site is not required. You can use a pull secret for another private registry. Or, if you do not need the cluster to pull images from a private registry, you can use {"auths":{"fake":{"auth":"aWQ6cGFzcwo="}}} as the pull secret when prompted during the installation.

      If you do not use the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager site:

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

      • Content from the Red Hat Container Catalog registry, such as image streams and Operators, are not available.

    Adding vCenter root CA certificates to your system trust

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

    Procedure

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

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

      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

    Creating the installation configuration file

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

    Prerequisites

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

    • Obtain service principal permissions at the subscription level.

    Procedure

    1. Create the install-config.yaml file.

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

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

        Specify an empty directory. Some installation assets, like bootstrap X.509 certificates have short expiration intervals, so you must not reuse an installation directory. If you want to reuse individual files from another cluster installation, you can copy them into your directory. However, the file names for the installation assets might change between releases. Use caution when copying installation files from an earlier OKD version.

      2. At the prompts, provide the configuration details for your cloud:

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

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

        2. Select vsphere as the platform to target.

        3. Specify the name of your vCenter instance.

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

          The installation program connects to your vCenter instance.

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

        6. Select the default vCenter datastore to use.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    2. Back up the install-config.yaml file so that you can use it to install multiple clusters.

      The install-config.yaml file is consumed during the installation process. If you want to reuse the file, you must back it up now.

    Installation configuration parameters

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

    After installation, you cannot modify these parameters in the install-config.yaml file.

    The openshift-install command does not validate field names for parameters. If an incorrect name is specified, the related file or object is not created, and no error is reported. Ensure that the field names for any parameters that are specified are correct.

    Required configuration parameters

    Required installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

    Table 3. Required parameters
    ParameterDescriptionValues

    apiVersion

    The API version for the install-config.yaml content. The current version is v1. The installer may also support older API versions.

    String

    baseDomain

    The base domain of your cloud provider. The base domain is used to create routes to your OKD cluster components. The full DNS name for your cluster is a combination of the baseDomain and metadata.name parameter values that uses the <metadata.name>.<baseDomain> format.

    A fully-qualified domain or subdomain name, such as example.com.

    metadata

    Kubernetes resource ObjectMeta, from which only the name parameter is consumed.

    Object

    metadata.name

    The name of the cluster. DNS records for the cluster are all subdomains of {{.metadata.name}}.{{.baseDomain}}.

    String of lowercase letters, hyphens (), and periods (.), such as dev.

    platform

    The configuration for the specific platform upon which to perform the installation: aws, baremetal, azure, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}. For additional information about platform.<platform> parameters, consult the table for your specific platform that follows.

    Object

    Network configuration parameters

    You can customize your installation configuration based on the requirements of your existing network infrastructure. For example, you can expand the IP address block for the cluster network or provide different IP address blocks than the defaults.

    Only IPv4 addresses are supported.

    Table 4. Network parameters
    ParameterDescriptionValues

    networking

    The configuration for the cluster network.

    Object

    You cannot modify parameters specified by the networking object after installation.

    networking.networkType

    The cluster network provider Container Network Interface (CNI) plug-in to install.

    Either OpenShiftSDN or OVNKubernetes. The default value is OVNKubernetes.

    networking.clusterNetwork

    The IP address blocks for pods.

    The default value is 10.128.0.0/14 with a host prefix of /23.

    If you specify multiple IP address blocks, the blocks must not overlap.

    An array of objects. For example:

    1. networking:
    2. clusterNetwork:
    3. - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    4. hostPrefix: 23

    networking.clusterNetwork.cidr

    Required if you use networking.clusterNetwork. An IP address block.

    An IPv4 network.

    An IP address block in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation. The prefix length for an IPv4 block is between 0 and 32.

    networking.clusterNetwork.hostPrefix

    The subnet prefix length to assign to each individual node. For example, if hostPrefix is set to 23 then each node is assigned a /23 subnet out of the given cidr. A hostPrefix value of 23 provides 510 (2^(32 - 23) - 2) pod IP addresses.

    A subnet prefix.

    The default value is 23.

    networking.serviceNetwork

    The IP address block for services. The default value is 172.30.0.0/16.

    The OpenShift SDN and OVN-Kubernetes network providers support only a single IP address block for the service network.

    An array with an IP address block in CIDR format. For example:

    networking.machineNetwork

    The IP address blocks for machines.

    If you specify multiple IP address blocks, the blocks must not overlap.

    An array of objects. For example:

    1. networking:
    2. machineNetwork:
    3. - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16

    networking.machineNetwork.cidr

    Required if you use networking.machineNetwork. An IP address block. The default value is 10.0.0.0/16 for all platforms other than libvirt. For libvirt, the default value is 192.168.126.0/24.

    An IP network block in CIDR notation.

    For example, 10.0.0.0/16.

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

    Optional configuration parameters

    Optional installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

    Table 5. Optional parameters
    ParameterDescriptionValues

    additionalTrustBundle

    A PEM-encoded X.509 certificate bundle that is added to the nodes’ trusted certificate store. This trust bundle may also be used when a proxy has been configured.

    String

    compute

    The configuration for the machines that comprise the compute nodes.

    Array of MachinePool objects. For details, see the following “Machine-pool” table.

    compute.architecture

    Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, heteregeneous clusters are not supported, so all pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

    String

    compute.hyperthreading

    Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading, on compute machines. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines’ cores.

    If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance.

    Enabled or Disabled

    compute.name

    Required if you use compute. The name of the machine pool.

    worker

    compute.platform

    Required if you use compute. Use this parameter to specify the cloud provider to host the worker machines. This parameter value must match the controlPlane.platform parameter value.

    aws, azure, gcp, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

    compute.replicas

    The number of compute machines, which are also known as worker machines, to provision.

    A positive integer greater than or equal to 2. The default value is 3.

    controlPlane

    The configuration for the machines that comprise the control plane.

    Array of MachinePool objects. For details, see the following “Machine-pool” table.

    controlPlane.architecture

    Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, heterogeneous clusters are not supported, so all pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

    String

    controlPlane.hyperthreading

    Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading, on control plane machines. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines’ cores.

    If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance.

    Enabled or Disabled

    controlPlane.name

    Required if you use controlPlane. The name of the machine pool.

    master

    controlPlane.platform

    Required if you use controlPlane. Use this parameter to specify the cloud provider that hosts the control plane machines. This parameter value must match the compute.platform parameter value.

    aws, azure, gcp, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

    controlPlane.replicas

    The number of control plane machines to provision.

    The only supported value is 3, which is the default value.

    credentialsMode

    The Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) mode. If no mode is specified, the CCO dynamically tries to determine the capabilities of the provided credentials, with a preference for mint mode on the platforms where multiple modes are supported.

    Not all CCO modes are supported for all cloud providers. For more information on CCO modes, see the Cloud Credential Operator entry in the Red Hat Operators reference content.

    Mint, Passthrough, Manual, or an empty string (“”).

    imageContentSources

    Sources and repositories for the release-image content.

    Array of objects. Includes a source and, optionally, mirrors, as described in the following rows of this table.

    imageContentSources.source

    Required if you use imageContentSources. Specify the repository that users refer to, for example, in image pull specifications.

    String

    imageContentSources.mirrors

    Specify one or more repositories that may also contain the same images.

    Array of strings

    publish

    How to publish or expose the user-facing endpoints of your cluster, such as the Kubernetes API, OpenShift routes.

    Internal or External. The default value is External.

    Setting this field to Internal is not supported on non-cloud platforms.

    The SSH key or keys to authenticate 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.

    One or more keys. For example:

    1. sshKey:
    2. <key1>
    3. <key2>
    4. <key3>

    Additional VMware vSphere configuration parameters

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

    Table 6. Additional VMware vSphere cluster parameters
    ParameterDescriptionValues

    platform.vsphere.vCenter

    The fully-qualified hostname or IP address of the vCenter server.

    String

    platform.vsphere.username

    The user name to use to connect to the vCenter instance with. This user must have at least the roles and privileges that are required for in vSphere.

    String

    platform.vsphere.password

    The password for the vCenter user name.

    String

    platform.vsphere.datacenter

    The name of the datacenter to use in the vCenter instance.

    String

    platform.vsphere.defaultDatastore

    The name of the default datastore to use for provisioning volumes.

    String

    platform.vsphere.folder

    Optional. The absolute path of an existing folder where the installation program creates the virtual machines. If you do not provide this value, the installation program creates a folder that is named with the infrastructure ID in the datacenter virtual machine folder.

    String, for example, /<datacenter_name>/vm/<folder_name>/<subfolder_name>.

    platform.vsphere.network

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

    String

    platform.vsphere.cluster

    The vCenter cluster to install the OKD cluster in.

    String

    platform.vsphere.apiVIP

    The virtual IP (VIP) address that you configured for control plane API access.

    An IP address, for example 128.0.0.1.

    platform.vsphere.ingressVIP

    The virtual IP (VIP) address that you configured for cluster ingress.

    An IP address, for example 128.0.0.1.

    Optional VMware vSphere machine pool configuration parameters

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

    Table 7. Optional VMware vSphere machine pool parameters
    ParameterDescriptionValues

    platform.vsphere.clusterOSImage

    The location from which the installer downloads the FCOS image. You must set this parameter to perform an installation in a restricted network.

    An HTTP or HTTPS URL, optionally with a SHA-256 checksum. For example, .

    platform.vsphere.osDisk.diskSizeGB

    The size of the disk in gigabytes.

    Integer

    platform.vsphere.cpus

    The total number of virtual processor cores to assign a virtual machine.

    Integer

    platform.vsphere.coresPerSocket

    The number of cores per socket in a virtual machine. The number of virtual sockets on the virtual machine is platform.vsphere.cpus/platform.vsphere.coresPerSocket. The default value is 1

    Integer

    platform.vsphere.memoryMB

    The size of a virtual machine’s memory in megabytes.

    Integer

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

    You can customize the install-config.yaml file to specify more details about your OKD cluster’s platform or modify the values of the required parameters.

    1. apiVersion: v1
    2. baseDomain: example.com (1)
    3. compute: (2)
    4. - hyperthreading: Enabled (3)
    5. name: worker
    6. replicas: 3
    7. platform:
    8. vsphere: (4)
    9. cpus: 2
    10. coresPerSocket: 2
    11. memoryMB: 8196
    12. osDisk:
    13. diskSizeGB: 120
    14. controlPlane: (2)
    15. hyperthreading: Enabled (3)
    16. name: master
    17. replicas: 3
    18. platform:
    19. vsphere: (4)
    20. cpus: 4
    21. coresPerSocket: 2
    22. memoryMB: 16384
    23. osDisk:
    24. diskSizeGB: 120
    25. metadata:
    26. name: cluster (5)
    27. platform:
    28. vsphere:
    29. vcenter: your.vcenter.server
    30. username: username
    31. password: password
    32. datacenter: datacenter
    33. folder: folder
    34. network: VM_Network
    35. cluster: vsphere_cluster_name (6)
    36. apiVIP: api_vip
    37. pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}'
    38. sshKey: 'ssh-ed25519 AAAA...'
    1The base domain of the cluster. All DNS records must be sub-domains of this base and include the cluster name.
    2The controlPlane section is a single mapping, but the compute section is a sequence of mappings. To meet the requirements of the different data structures, the first line of the compute section must begin with a hyphen, -, and the first line of the controlPlane section must not. Although both sections currently define a single machine pool, it is possible that future versions of OKD will support defining multiple compute pools during installation. Only one control plane pool is used.
    3Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines’ cores. You can disable it by setting the parameter value to Disabled. If you disable simultaneous multithreading in some cluster machines, you must disable it in all cluster machines.

    If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance. Your machines must use at least 8 CPUs and 32 GB of RAM if you disable simultaneous multithreading.

    4Optional: Provide additional configuration for the machine pool parameters for the compute and control plane machines.
    5The cluster name that you specified in your DNS records.
    6The vSphere cluster to install the OKD cluster in. The installation program uses the root resource pool of the vSphere cluster as the default resource pool.

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

    Prerequisites

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

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

      The Proxy object status.noProxy field is populated with the values of the networking.machineNetwork[].cidr, networking.clusterNetwork[].cidr, and networking.serviceNetwork[] fields from your installation configuration.

      For installations on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, and Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP), the Proxy object status.noProxy field is also populated with the instance metadata endpoint (169.254.169.254).

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

    Procedure

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

      1. apiVersion: v1
      2. baseDomain: my.domain.com
      3. proxy:
      4. httpProxy: http://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> (1)
      5. httpsProxy: https://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> (2)
      6. noProxy: example.com (3)
      7. additionalTrustBundle: | (4)
      8. -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
      9. <MY_TRUSTED_CA_CERT>
      10. -----END CERTIFICATE-----
      11. ...

      The installation program does not support the proxy readinessEndpoints field.

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

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

    Only the Proxy object named cluster is supported, and no additional proxies can be created.

    You can install OKD on a compatible cloud platform.

    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.

    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 location of your customized ./install-config.yaml file.
      2To view different installation details, specify warn, debug, or error instead of info.

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

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

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

      Example output

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

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

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

    Installing the OpenShift CLI by downloading the binary

    You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) to interact with OKD from a command-line interface. You can install oc on Linux, Windows, or macOS.

    If you installed an earlier version of oc, you cannot use it to complete all of the commands in OKD 4.8. Download and install the new version of oc.

    Installing the OpenShift CLI on Linux

    You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) binary on Linux by using the following procedure.

    Procedure

    1. Navigate to and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.

    2. Download oc.tar.gz.

    3. Unpack the archive:

      1. $ tar xvzf <file>
    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 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 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:

    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

      1. system:admin

    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 Container Storage.

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

    • Must have “100Gi” capacity.

    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

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

    3. Check the registry configuration:

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

      Example output

      1. storage:
      2. pvc:
      3. claim: (1)
      1Leave the claim field blank to allow the automatic creation of an image-registry-storage PVC.
    4. Check the clusteroperator status:

      1. $ oc get clusteroperator image-registry

    Configuring block registry storage for VMware vSphere

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

    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)

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

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

    Procedure

    To create a backup of persistent volumes:

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

    2. Clone the persistent volume.

    3. Restart the application.

    4. Create a backup of the cloned volume.

    5. Delete the cloned volume.

    Additional resources

    • See for more information about the Telemetry service

    Next steps