Chapter 5. Working with nodes

5.1. Viewing and listing the nodes in your OpenShift Container Platform cluster

You can list all the nodes in your cluster to obtain information such as status, age, memory usage, and details about the nodes.

When you perform node management operations, the CLI interacts with node objects that are representations of actual node hosts. The master uses the information from node objects to validate nodes with health checks.

5.1.1. About listing all the nodes in a cluster

You can get detailed information on the nodes in the cluster.

  • The following command lists all nodes:

    $ oc get nodes

    The following example is a cluster with healthy nodes:

    $ oc get nodes

    Example output

    NAME                   STATUS    ROLES     AGE       VERSION
    master.example.com     Ready     master    7h        v1.21.0
    node1.example.com      Ready     worker    7h        v1.21.0
    node2.example.com      Ready     worker    7h        v1.21.0

    The following example is a cluster with one unhealthy node:

    $ oc get nodes

    Example output

    NAME                   STATUS                      ROLES     AGE       VERSION
    master.example.com     Ready                       master    7h        v1.21.0
    node1.example.com      NotReady,SchedulingDisabled worker    7h        v1.21.0
    node2.example.com      Ready                       worker    7h        v1.21.0

    The conditions that trigger a NotReady status are shown later in this section.

  • The -o wide option provides additional information on nodes.

    $ oc get nodes -o wide

    Example output

    NAME                STATUS   ROLES    AGE    VERSION           INTERNAL-IP    EXTERNAL-IP   OS-IMAGE                                                      KERNEL-VERSION                 CONTAINER-RUNTIME
    master.example.com  Ready    master   171m   v1.21.0+39c0afe   10.0.129.108   <none>        Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS 48.83.202103210901-0 (Ootpa)   4.18.0-240.15.1.el8_3.x86_64   cri-o://1.21.0-30.rhaos4.8.gitf2f339d.el8-dev
    node1.example.com   Ready    worker   72m    v1.21.0+39c0afe   10.0.129.222   <none>        Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS 48.83.202103210901-0 (Ootpa)   4.18.0-240.15.1.el8_3.x86_64   cri-o://1.21.0-30.rhaos4.8.gitf2f339d.el8-dev
    node2.example.com   Ready    worker   164m   v1.21.0+39c0afe   10.0.142.150   <none>        Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS 48.83.202103210901-0 (Ootpa)   4.18.0-240.15.1.el8_3.x86_64   cri-o://1.21.0-30.rhaos4.8.gitf2f339d.el8-dev

  • The following command lists information about a single node:

    $ oc get node <node>

    For example:

    $ oc get node node1.example.com

    Example output

    NAME                   STATUS    ROLES     AGE       VERSION
    node1.example.com      Ready     worker    7h        v1.21.0

  • The following command provides more detailed information about a specific node, including the reason for the current condition:

    $ oc describe node <node>

    For example:

    $ oc describe node node1.example.com

    Example output

    Name:               node1.example.com 1
    Roles:              worker 2
    Labels:             beta.kubernetes.io/arch=amd64   3
                        beta.kubernetes.io/instance-type=m4.large
                        beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux
                        failure-domain.beta.kubernetes.io/region=us-east-2
                        failure-domain.beta.kubernetes.io/zone=us-east-2a
                        kubernetes.io/hostname=ip-10-0-140-16
                        node-role.kubernetes.io/worker=
    Annotations:        cluster.k8s.io/machine: openshift-machine-api/ahardin-worker-us-east-2a-q5dzc  4
                        machineconfiguration.openshift.io/currentConfig: worker-309c228e8b3a92e2235edd544c62fea8
                        machineconfiguration.openshift.io/desiredConfig: worker-309c228e8b3a92e2235edd544c62fea8
                        machineconfiguration.openshift.io/state: Done
                        volumes.kubernetes.io/controller-managed-attach-detach: true
    CreationTimestamp:  Wed, 13 Feb 2019 11:05:57 -0500
    Taints:             <none>  5
    Unschedulable:      false
    Conditions:                 6
      Type             Status  LastHeartbeatTime                 LastTransitionTime                Reason                       Message
      ----             ------  -----------------                 ------------------                ------                       -------
      OutOfDisk        False   Wed, 13 Feb 2019 15:09:42 -0500   Wed, 13 Feb 2019 11:05:57 -0500   KubeletHasSufficientDisk     kubelet has sufficient disk space available
      MemoryPressure   False   Wed, 13 Feb 2019 15:09:42 -0500   Wed, 13 Feb 2019 11:05:57 -0500   KubeletHasSufficientMemory   kubelet has sufficient memory available
      DiskPressure     False   Wed, 13 Feb 2019 15:09:42 -0500   Wed, 13 Feb 2019 11:05:57 -0500   KubeletHasNoDiskPressure     kubelet has no disk pressure
      PIDPressure      False   Wed, 13 Feb 2019 15:09:42 -0500   Wed, 13 Feb 2019 11:05:57 -0500   KubeletHasSufficientPID      kubelet has sufficient PID available
      Ready            True    Wed, 13 Feb 2019 15:09:42 -0500   Wed, 13 Feb 2019 11:07:09 -0500   KubeletReady                 kubelet is posting ready status
    Addresses:   7
      InternalIP:   10.0.140.16
      InternalDNS:  ip-10-0-140-16.us-east-2.compute.internal
      Hostname:     ip-10-0-140-16.us-east-2.compute.internal
    Capacity:    8
     attachable-volumes-aws-ebs:  39
     cpu:                         2
     hugepages-1Gi:               0
     hugepages-2Mi:               0
     memory:                      8172516Ki
     pods:                        250
    Allocatable:
     attachable-volumes-aws-ebs:  39
     cpu:                         1500m
     hugepages-1Gi:               0
     hugepages-2Mi:               0
     memory:                      7558116Ki
     pods:                        250
    System Info:    9
     Machine ID:                              63787c9534c24fde9a0cde35c13f1f66
     System UUID:                             EC22BF97-A006-4A58-6AF8-0A38DEEA122A
     Boot ID:                                 f24ad37d-2594-46b4-8830-7f7555918325
     Kernel Version:                          3.10.0-957.5.1.el7.x86_64
     OS Image:                                Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS 410.8.20190520.0 (Ootpa)
     Operating System:                        linux
     Architecture:                            amd64
     Container Runtime Version:               cri-o://1.16.0-0.6.dev.rhaos4.3.git9ad059b.el8-rc2
     Kubelet Version:                         v1.21.0
     Kube-Proxy Version:                      v1.21.0
    PodCIDR:                                  10.128.4.0/24
    ProviderID:                               aws:///us-east-2a/i-04e87b31dc6b3e171
    Non-terminated Pods:                      (13 in total)  10
      Namespace                               Name                                   CPU Requests  CPU Limits  Memory Requests  Memory Limits
      ---------                               ----                                   ------------  ----------  ---------------  -------------
      openshift-cluster-node-tuning-operator  tuned-hdl5q                            0 (0%)        0 (0%)      0 (0%)           0 (0%)
      openshift-dns                           dns-default-l69zr                      0 (0%)        0 (0%)      0 (0%)           0 (0%)
      openshift-image-registry                node-ca-9hmcg                          0 (0%)        0 (0%)      0 (0%)           0 (0%)
      openshift-ingress                       router-default-76455c45c-c5ptv         0 (0%)        0 (0%)      0 (0%)           0 (0%)
      openshift-machine-config-operator       machine-config-daemon-cvqw9            20m (1%)      0 (0%)      50Mi (0%)        0 (0%)
      openshift-marketplace                   community-operators-f67fh              0 (0%)        0 (0%)      0 (0%)           0 (0%)
      openshift-monitoring                    alertmanager-main-0                    50m (3%)      50m (3%)    210Mi (2%)       10Mi (0%)
      openshift-monitoring                    grafana-78765ddcc7-hnjmm               100m (6%)     200m (13%)  100Mi (1%)       200Mi (2%)
      openshift-monitoring                    node-exporter-l7q8d                    10m (0%)      20m (1%)    20Mi (0%)        40Mi (0%)
      openshift-monitoring                    prometheus-adapter-75d769c874-hvb85    0 (0%)        0 (0%)      0 (0%)           0 (0%)
      openshift-multus                        multus-kw8w5                           0 (0%)        0 (0%)      0 (0%)           0 (0%)
      openshift-sdn                           ovs-t4dsn                              100m (6%)     0 (0%)      300Mi (4%)       0 (0%)
      openshift-sdn                           sdn-g79hg                              100m (6%)     0 (0%)      200Mi (2%)       0 (0%)
    Allocated resources:
      (Total limits may be over 100 percent, i.e., overcommitted.)
      Resource                    Requests     Limits
      --------                    --------     ------
      cpu                         380m (25%)   270m (18%)
      memory                      880Mi (11%)  250Mi (3%)
      attachable-volumes-aws-ebs  0            0
    Events:     11
      Type     Reason                   Age                From                      Message
      ----     ------                   ----               ----                      -------
      Normal   NodeHasSufficientPID     6d (x5 over 6d)    kubelet, m01.example.com  Node m01.example.com status is now: NodeHasSufficientPID
      Normal   NodeAllocatableEnforced  6d                 kubelet, m01.example.com  Updated Node Allocatable limit across pods
      Normal   NodeHasSufficientMemory  6d (x6 over 6d)    kubelet, m01.example.com  Node m01.example.com status is now: NodeHasSufficientMemory
      Normal   NodeHasNoDiskPressure    6d (x6 over 6d)    kubelet, m01.example.com  Node m01.example.com status is now: NodeHasNoDiskPressure
      Normal   NodeHasSufficientDisk    6d (x6 over 6d)    kubelet, m01.example.com  Node m01.example.com status is now: NodeHasSufficientDisk
      Normal   NodeHasSufficientPID     6d                 kubelet, m01.example.com  Node m01.example.com status is now: NodeHasSufficientPID
      Normal   Starting                 6d                 kubelet, m01.example.com  Starting kubelet.
     ...

    1
    The name of the node.
    2
    The role of the node, either master or worker.
    3
    The labels applied to the node.
    4
    The annotations applied to the node.
    5
    The taints applied to the node.
    6
    The node conditions and status. The conditions stanza lists the Ready, PIDPressure, PIDPressure, MemoryPressure, DiskPressure and OutOfDisk status. These condition are described later in this section.
    7
    The IP address and hostname of the node.
    8
    The pod resources and allocatable resources.
    9
    Information about the node host.
    10
    The pods on the node.
    11
    The events reported by the node.

Among the information shown for nodes, the following node conditions appear in the output of the commands shown in this section:

Table 5.1. Node Conditions

ConditionDescription

Ready

If true, the node is healthy and ready to accept pods. If false, the node is not healthy and is not accepting pods. If unknown, the node controller has not received a heartbeat from the node for the node-monitor-grace-period (the default is 40 seconds).

DiskPressure

If true, the disk capacity is low.

MemoryPressure

If true, the node memory is low.

PIDPressure

If true, there are too many processes on the node.

OutOfDisk

If true, the node has insufficient free space on the node for adding new pods.

NetworkUnavailable

If true, the network for the node is not correctly configured.

NotReady

If true, one of the underlying components, such as the container runtime or network, is experiencing issues or is not yet configured.

SchedulingDisabled

Pods cannot be scheduled for placement on the node.

5.1.2. Listing pods on a node in your cluster

You can list all the pods on a specific node.

Procedure

  • To list all or selected pods on one or more nodes:

    $ oc describe node <node1> <node2>

    For example:

    $ oc describe node ip-10-0-128-218.ec2.internal
  • To list all or selected pods on selected nodes:

    $ oc describe --selector=<node_selector>
    $ oc describe node  --selector=kubernetes.io/os

    Or:

    $ oc describe -l=<pod_selector>
    $ oc describe node -l node-role.kubernetes.io/worker
  • To list all pods on a specific node, including terminated pods:

    $ oc get pod --all-namespaces --field-selector=spec.nodeName=<nodename>

5.1.3. Viewing memory and CPU usage statistics on your nodes

You can display usage statistics about nodes, which provide the runtime environments for containers. These usage statistics include CPU, memory, and storage consumption.

Prerequisites

  • You must have cluster-reader permission to view the usage statistics.
  • Metrics must be installed to view the usage statistics.

Procedure

  • To view the usage statistics:

    $ oc adm top nodes

    Example output

    NAME                                   CPU(cores)   CPU%      MEMORY(bytes)   MEMORY%
    ip-10-0-12-143.ec2.compute.internal    1503m        100%      4533Mi          61%
    ip-10-0-132-16.ec2.compute.internal    76m          5%        1391Mi          18%
    ip-10-0-140-137.ec2.compute.internal   398m         26%       2473Mi          33%
    ip-10-0-142-44.ec2.compute.internal    656m         43%       6119Mi          82%
    ip-10-0-146-165.ec2.compute.internal   188m         12%       3367Mi          45%
    ip-10-0-19-62.ec2.compute.internal     896m         59%       5754Mi          77%
    ip-10-0-44-193.ec2.compute.internal    632m         42%       5349Mi          72%

  • To view the usage statistics for nodes with labels:

    $ oc adm top node --selector=''

    You must choose the selector (label query) to filter on. Supports =, ==, and !=.

5.2. Working with nodes

As an administrator, you can perform a number of tasks to make your clusters more efficient.

5.2.1. Understanding how to evacuate pods on nodes

Evacuating pods allows you to migrate all or selected pods from a given node or nodes.

You can only evacuate pods backed by a replication controller. The replication controller creates new pods on other nodes and removes the existing pods from the specified node(s).

Bare pods, meaning those not backed by a replication controller, are unaffected by default. You can evacuate a subset of pods by specifying a pod-selector. Pod selectors are based on labels, so all the pods with the specified label will be evacuated.

Procedure

  1. Mark the nodes unschedulable before performing the pod evacuation.

    1. Mark the node as unschedulable:

      $ oc adm cordon <node1>

      Example output

      node/<node1> cordoned

    2. Check that the node status is Ready,SchedulingDisabled:

      $ oc get node <node1>

      Example output

      NAME        STATUS                     ROLES     AGE       VERSION
      <node1>     Ready,SchedulingDisabled   worker    1d        v1.24.0

  2. Evacuate the pods using one of the following methods:

    • Evacuate all or selected pods on one or more nodes:

      $ oc adm drain <node1> <node2> [--pod-selector=<pod_selector>]
    • Force the deletion of bare pods using the --force option. When set to true, deletion continues even if there are pods not managed by a replication controller, replica set, job, daemon set, or stateful set:

      $ oc adm drain <node1> <node2> --force=true
    • Set a period of time in seconds for each pod to terminate gracefully, use --grace-period. If negative, the default value specified in the pod will be used:

      $ oc adm drain <node1> <node2> --grace-period=-1
    • Ignore pods managed by daemon sets using the --ignore-daemonsets flag set to true:

      $ oc adm drain <node1> <node2> --ignore-daemonsets=true
    • Set the length of time to wait before giving up using the --timeout flag. A value of 0 sets an infinite length of time:

      $ oc adm drain <node1> <node2> --timeout=5s
    • Delete pods even if there are pods using emptyDir volumes by setting the --delete-emptydir-data flag to true. Local data is deleted when the node is drained:

      $ oc adm drain <node1> <node2> --delete-emptydir-data=true
    • List objects that will be migrated without actually performing the evacuation, using the --dry-run option set to true:

      $ oc adm drain <node1> <node2>  --dry-run=true

      Instead of specifying specific node names (for example, <node1> <node2>), you can use the --selector=<node_selector> option to evacuate pods on selected nodes.

  3. Mark the node as schedulable when done.

    $ oc adm uncordon <node1>

5.2.2. Understanding how to update labels on nodes

You can update any label on a node.

Node labels are not persisted after a node is deleted even if the node is backed up by a Machine.

Note

Any change to a MachineSet object is not applied to existing machines owned by the machine set. For example, labels edited or added to an existing MachineSet object are not propagated to existing machines and nodes associated with the machine set.

  • The following command adds or updates labels on a node:

    $ oc label node <node> <key_1>=<value_1> ... <key_n>=<value_n>

    For example:

    $ oc label nodes webconsole-7f7f6 unhealthy=true
    Tip

    You can alternatively apply the following YAML to apply the label:

    kind: Node
    apiVersion: v1
    metadata:
      name: webconsole-7f7f6
      labels:
        unhealthy: 'true'
  • The following command updates all pods in the namespace:

    $ oc label pods --all <key_1>=<value_1>

    For example:

    $ oc label pods --all status=unhealthy

5.2.3. Understanding how to mark nodes as unschedulable or schedulable

By default, healthy nodes with a Ready status are marked as schedulable, which means that you can place new pods on the node. Manually marking a node as unschedulable blocks any new pods from being scheduled on the node. Existing pods on the node are not affected.

  • The following command marks a node or nodes as unschedulable:

    Example output

    $ oc adm cordon <node>

    For example:

    $ oc adm cordon node1.example.com

    Example output

    node/node1.example.com cordoned
    
    NAME                 LABELS                                        STATUS
    node1.example.com    kubernetes.io/hostname=node1.example.com      Ready,SchedulingDisabled

  • The following command marks a currently unschedulable node or nodes as schedulable:

    $ oc adm uncordon <node1>

    Alternatively, instead of specifying specific node names (for example, <node>), you can use the --selector=<node_selector> option to mark selected nodes as schedulable or unschedulable.

5.2.4. Deleting nodes

5.2.4.1. Deleting nodes from a cluster

When you delete a node using the CLI, the node object is deleted in Kubernetes, but the pods that exist on the node are not deleted. Any bare pods not backed by a replication controller become inaccessible to OpenShift Container Platform. Pods backed by replication controllers are rescheduled to other available nodes. You must delete local manifest pods.

Procedure

To delete a node from the OpenShift Container Platform cluster, edit the appropriate MachineSet object:

Note

If you are running cluster on bare metal, you cannot delete a node by editing MachineSet objects. Machine sets are only available when a cluster is integrated with a cloud provider. Instead you must unschedule and drain the node before manually deleting it.

  1. View the machine sets that are in the cluster:

    $ oc get machinesets -n openshift-machine-api

    The machine sets are listed in the form of <clusterid>-worker-<aws-region-az>.

  2. Scale the machine set:

    $ oc scale --replicas=2 machineset <machineset> -n openshift-machine-api

    Or:

    $ oc edit machineset <machineset> -n openshift-machine-api
    Tip

    You can alternatively apply the following YAML to scale the machine set:

    apiVersion: machine.openshift.io/v1beta1
    kind: MachineSet
    metadata:
      name: <machineset>
      namespace: openshift-machine-api
    spec:
      replicas: 2

    For more information on scaling your cluster using a machine set, see Manually scaling a machine set.

Additional resources

5.2.4.2. Deleting nodes from a bare metal cluster

When you delete a node using the CLI, the node object is deleted in Kubernetes, but the pods that exist on the node are not deleted. Any bare pods not backed by a replication controller become inaccessible to OpenShift Container Platform. Pods backed by replication controllers are rescheduled to other available nodes. You must delete local manifest pods.

Procedure

Delete a node from an OpenShift Container Platform cluster running on bare metal by completing the following steps:

  1. Mark the node as unschedulable:

    $ oc adm cordon <node_name>
  2. Drain all pods on the node:

    $ oc adm drain <node_name> --force=true

    This step might fail if the node is offline or unresponsive. Even if the node does not respond, it might still be running a workload that writes to shared storage. To avoid data corruption, power down the physical hardware before you proceed.

  3. Delete the node from the cluster:

    $ oc delete node <node_name>

    Although the node object is now deleted from the cluster, it can still rejoin the cluster after reboot or if the kubelet service is restarted. To permanently delete the node and all its data, you must decommission the node.

  4. If you powered down the physical hardware, turn it back on so that the node can rejoin the cluster.

5.3. Managing nodes

OpenShift Container Platform uses a KubeletConfig custom resource (CR) to manage the configuration of nodes. By creating an instance of a KubeletConfig object, a managed machine config is created to override setting on the node.

Note

Logging in to remote machines for the purpose of changing their configuration is not supported.

5.3.1. Modifying nodes

To make configuration changes to a cluster, or machine pool, you must create a custom resource definition (CRD), or kubeletConfig object. OpenShift Container Platform uses the Machine Config Controller to watch for changes introduced through the CRD to apply the changes to the cluster.

Note

Because the fields in a kubeletConfig object are passed directly to the kubelet from upstream Kubernetes, the validation of those fields is handled directly by the kubelet itself. Please refer to the relevant Kubernetes documentation for the valid values for these fields. Invalid values in the kubeletConfig object can render cluster nodes unusable.

Procedure

  1. Obtain the label associated with the static CRD, Machine Config Pool, for the type of node you want to configure. Perform one of the following steps:

    1. Check current labels of the desired machine config pool.

      For example:

      $  oc get machineconfigpool  --show-labels

      Example output

      NAME      CONFIG                                             UPDATED   UPDATING   DEGRADED   LABELS
      master    rendered-master-e05b81f5ca4db1d249a1bf32f9ec24fd   True      False      False      operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/required-for-upgrade=
      worker    rendered-worker-f50e78e1bc06d8e82327763145bfcf62   True      False      False

    2. Add a custom label to the desired machine config pool.

      For example:

      $ oc label machineconfigpool worker custom-kubelet=enabled
  2. Create a kubeletconfig custom resource (CR) for your configuration change.

    For example:

    Sample configuration for a custom-config CR

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: KubeletConfig
    metadata:
      name: custom-config 1
    spec:
      machineConfigPoolSelector:
        matchLabels:
          custom-kubelet: enabled 2
      kubeletConfig: 3
        podsPerCore: 10
        maxPods: 250
        systemReserved:
          cpu: 2000m
          memory: 1Gi

    1
    Assign a name to CR.
    2
    Specify the label to apply the configuration change, this is the label you added to the machine config pool.
    3
    Specify the new value(s) you want to change.
  3. Create the CR object.

    $ oc create -f <file-name>

    For example:

    $ oc create -f master-kube-config.yaml

Most Kubelet Configuration options can be set by the user. The following options are not allowed to be overwritten:

  • CgroupDriver
  • ClusterDNS
  • ClusterDomain
  • RuntimeRequestTimeout
  • StaticPodPath
Note

If a single node contains more than 50 images, pod scheduling might be imbalanced across nodes. This is because the list of images on a node is shortened to 50 by default. You can disable the image limit by editing the KubeletConfig object and setting the value of nodeStatusMaxImages to -1.

5.3.2. Configuring control plane nodes as schedulable

You can configure control plane nodes (also known as the master nodes) to be schedulable, meaning that new pods are allowed for placement on the master nodes. By default, control plane nodes are not schedulable.

You can set the masters to be schedulable, but must retain the worker nodes.

Note

You can deploy OpenShift Container Platform with no worker nodes on a bare metal cluster. In this case, the control plane nodes are marked schedulable by default.

You can allow or disallow control plane nodes to be schedulable by configuring the mastersSchedulable field.

Important

When you configure control plane nodes from the default unschedulable to schedulable, additional subscriptions are required. This is because control plane nodes then become worker nodes.

Procedure

  1. Edit the schedulers.config.openshift.io resource.

    $ oc edit schedulers.config.openshift.io cluster
  2. Configure the mastersSchedulable field.

    apiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1
    kind: Scheduler
    metadata:
      creationTimestamp: "2019-09-10T03:04:05Z"
      generation: 1
      name: cluster
      resourceVersion: "433"
      selfLink: /apis/config.openshift.io/v1/schedulers/cluster
      uid: a636d30a-d377-11e9-88d4-0a60097bee62
    spec:
      mastersSchedulable: false 1
      policy:
        name: ""
    status: {}
    1
    Set to true to allow control plane nodes to be schedulable, or false to disallow control plane nodes to be schedulable.
  3. Save the file to apply the changes.

5.3.3. Setting SELinux booleans

OpenShift Container Platform allows you to enable and disable an SELinux boolean on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) node. The following procedure explains how to modify SELinux booleans on nodes using the Machine Config Operator (MCO). This procedure uses container_manage_cgroup as the example boolean. You can modify this value to whichever boolean you need.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure

  1. Create a new YAML file with a MachineConfig object, displayed in the following example:

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: MachineConfig
    metadata:
      labels:
        machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: worker
      name: 99-worker-setsebool
    spec:
      config:
        ignition:
          version: 2.2.0
        systemd:
          units:
          - contents: |
              [Unit]
              Description=Set SELinux booleans
              Before=kubelet.service
    
              [Service]
              Type=oneshot
              ExecStart=/sbin/setsebool container_manage_cgroup=on
              RemainAfterExit=true
    
              [Install]
              WantedBy=multi-user.target graphical.target
            enabled: true
            name: setsebool.service
  2. Create the new MachineConfig object by running the following command:

    $ oc create -f 99-worker-setsebool.yaml
Note

Applying any changes to the MachineConfig object causes all affected nodes to gracefully reboot after the change is applied.

5.3.4. Adding kernel arguments to nodes

In some special cases, you might want to add kernel arguments to a set of nodes in your cluster. This should only be done with caution and clear understanding of the implications of the arguments you set.

Warning

Improper use of kernel arguments can result in your systems becoming unbootable.

Examples of kernel arguments you could set include:

  • enforcing=0: Configures Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) to run in permissive mode. In permissive mode, the system acts as if SELinux is enforcing the loaded security policy, including labeling objects and emitting access denial entries in the logs, but it does not actually deny any operations. While not supported for production systems, permissive mode can be helpful for debugging.
  • nosmt: Disables symmetric multithreading (SMT) in the kernel. Multithreading allows multiple logical threads for each CPU. You could consider nosmt in multi-tenant environments to reduce risks from potential cross-thread attacks. By disabling SMT, you essentially choose security over performance.

See Kernel.org kernel parameters for a list and descriptions of kernel arguments.

In the following procedure, you create a MachineConfig object that identifies:

  • A set of machines to which you want to add the kernel argument. In this case, machines with a worker role.
  • Kernel arguments that are appended to the end of the existing kernel arguments.
  • A label that indicates where in the list of machine configs the change is applied.

Prerequisites

  • Have administrative privilege to a working OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

Procedure

  1. List existing MachineConfig objects for your OpenShift Container Platform cluster to determine how to label your machine config:

    $ oc get MachineConfig

    Example output

    NAME                                               GENERATEDBYCONTROLLER                      IGNITIONVERSION   AGE
    00-master                                          52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    00-worker                                          52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    01-master-container-runtime                        52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    01-master-kubelet                                  52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    01-worker-container-runtime                        52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    01-worker-kubelet                                  52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    99-master-generated-registries                     52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    99-master-ssh                                                                                 3.2.0             40m
    99-worker-generated-registries                     52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    99-worker-ssh                                                                                 3.2.0             40m
    rendered-master-23e785de7587df95a4b517e0647e5ab7   52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    rendered-worker-5d596d9293ca3ea80c896a1191735bb1   52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m

  2. Create a MachineConfig object file that identifies the kernel argument (for example, 05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive.yaml)

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: MachineConfig
    metadata:
      labels:
        machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: worker1
      name: 05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive2
    spec:
      config:
        ignition:
          version: 3.2.0
      kernelArguments:
        - enforcing=03
    1
    Applies the new kernel argument only to worker nodes.
    2
    Named to identify where it fits among the machine configs (05) and what it does (adds a kernel argument to configure SELinux permissive mode).
    3
    Identifies the exact kernel argument as enforcing=0.
  3. Create the new machine config:

    $ oc create -f 05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive.yaml
  4. Check the machine configs to see that the new one was added:

    $ oc get MachineConfig

    Example output

    NAME                                               GENERATEDBYCONTROLLER                      IGNITIONVERSION   AGE
    00-master                                          52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    00-worker                                          52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    01-master-container-runtime                        52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    01-master-kubelet                                  52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    01-worker-container-runtime                        52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    01-worker-kubelet                                  52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive                                                         3.2.0             105s
    99-master-generated-registries                     52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    99-master-ssh                                                                                 3.2.0             40m
    99-worker-generated-registries                     52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    99-worker-ssh                                                                                 3.2.0             40m
    rendered-master-23e785de7587df95a4b517e0647e5ab7   52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m
    rendered-worker-5d596d9293ca3ea80c896a1191735bb1   52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.2.0             33m

  5. Check the nodes:

    $ oc get nodes

    Example output

    NAME                           STATUS                     ROLES    AGE   VERSION
    ip-10-0-136-161.ec2.internal   Ready                      worker   28m   v1.21.0
    ip-10-0-136-243.ec2.internal   Ready                      master   34m   v1.21.0
    ip-10-0-141-105.ec2.internal   Ready,SchedulingDisabled   worker   28m   v1.21.0
    ip-10-0-142-249.ec2.internal   Ready                      master   34m   v1.21.0
    ip-10-0-153-11.ec2.internal    Ready                      worker   28m   v1.21.0
    ip-10-0-153-150.ec2.internal   Ready                      master   34m   v1.21.0

    You can see that scheduling on each worker node is disabled as the change is being applied.

  6. Check that the kernel argument worked by going to one of the worker nodes and listing the kernel command line arguments (in /proc/cmdline on the host):

    $ oc debug node/ip-10-0-141-105.ec2.internal

    Example output

    Starting pod/ip-10-0-141-105ec2internal-debug ...
    To use host binaries, run `chroot /host`
    
    sh-4.2# cat /host/proc/cmdline
    BOOT_IMAGE=/ostree/rhcos-... console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8
    rootflags=defaults,prjquota rw root=UUID=fd0... ostree=/ostree/boot.0/rhcos/16...
    coreos.oem.id=qemu coreos.oem.id=ec2 ignition.platform.id=ec2 enforcing=0
    
    sh-4.2# exit

    You should see the enforcing=0 argument added to the other kernel arguments.

5.4. Managing the maximum number of pods per node

In OpenShift Container Platform, you can configure the number of pods that can run on a node based on the number of processor cores on the node, a hard limit or both. If you use both options, the lower of the two limits the number of pods on a node.

Exceeding these values can result in:

  • Increased CPU utilization by OpenShift Container Platform.
  • Slow pod scheduling.
  • Potential out-of-memory scenarios, depending on the amount of memory in the node.
  • Exhausting the IP address pool.
  • Resource overcommitting, leading to poor user application performance.
Note

A pod that is holding a single container actually uses two containers. The second container sets up networking prior to the actual container starting. As a result, a node running 10 pods actually has 20 containers running.

The podsPerCore parameter limits the number of pods the node can run based on the number of processor cores on the node. For example, if podsPerCore is set to 10 on a node with 4 processor cores, the maximum number of pods allowed on the node is 40.

The maxPods parameter limits the number of pods the node can run to a fixed value, regardless of the properties of the node.

5.4.1. Configuring the maximum number of pods per node

Two parameters control the maximum number of pods that can be scheduled to a node: podsPerCore and maxPods. If you use both options, the lower of the two limits the number of pods on a node.

For example, if podsPerCore is set to 10 on a node with 4 processor cores, the maximum number of pods allowed on the node will be 40.

Prerequisites

  1. Obtain the label associated with the static MachineConfigPool CRD for the type of node you want to configure by entering the following command:

    $ oc edit machineconfigpool <name>

    For example:

    $ oc edit machineconfigpool worker

    Example output

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: MachineConfigPool
    metadata:
      creationTimestamp: "2022-11-16T15:34:25Z"
      generation: 4
      labels:
        pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: "" 1
      name: worker

    1
    The label appears under Labels.
    Tip

    If the label is not present, add a key/value pair such as:

    $ oc label machineconfigpool worker custom-kubelet=small-pods

Procedure

  1. Create a custom resource (CR) for your configuration change.

    Sample configuration for a max-pods CR

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: KubeletConfig
    metadata:
      name: set-max-pods 1
    spec:
      machineConfigPoolSelector:
        matchLabels:
          pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: "" 2
      kubeletConfig:
        podsPerCore: 10 3
        maxPods: 250 4

    1
    Assign a name to CR.
    2
    Specify the label from the machine config pool.
    3
    Specify the number of pods the node can run based on the number of processor cores on the node.
    4
    Specify the number of pods the node can run to a fixed value, regardless of the properties of the node.
    Note

    Setting podsPerCore to 0 disables this limit.

    In the above example, the default value for podsPerCore is 10 and the default value for maxPods is 250. This means that unless the node has 25 cores or more, by default, podsPerCore will be the limiting factor.

  2. Run the following command to create the CR:

    $ oc create -f <file_name>.yaml

Verification

  1. List the MachineConfigPool CRDs to see if the change is applied. The UPDATING column reports True if the change is picked up by the Machine Config Controller:

    $ oc get machineconfigpools

    Example output

    NAME     CONFIG                        UPDATED   UPDATING   DEGRADED
    master   master-9cc2c72f205e103bb534   False     False      False
    worker   worker-8cecd1236b33ee3f8a5e   False     True       False

    Once the change is complete, the UPDATED column reports True.

    $ oc get machineconfigpools

    Example output

    NAME     CONFIG                        UPDATED   UPDATING   DEGRADED
    master   master-9cc2c72f205e103bb534   False     True       False
    worker   worker-8cecd1236b33ee3f8a5e   True      False      False

5.5. Using the Node Tuning Operator

Learn about the Node Tuning Operator and how you can use it to manage node-level tuning by orchestrating the tuned daemon.

The Node Tuning Operator helps you manage node-level tuning by orchestrating the TuneD daemon. The majority of high-performance applications require some level of kernel tuning. The Node Tuning Operator provides a unified management interface to users of node-level sysctls and more flexibility to add custom tuning specified by user needs.

The Operator manages the containerized TuneD daemon for OpenShift Container Platform as a Kubernetes daemon set. It ensures the custom tuning specification is passed to all containerized TuneD daemons running in the cluster in the format that the daemons understand. The daemons run on all nodes in the cluster, one per node.

Node-level settings applied by the containerized TuneD daemon are rolled back on an event that triggers a profile change or when the containerized TuneD daemon is terminated gracefully by receiving and handling a termination signal.

The Node Tuning Operator is part of a standard OpenShift Container Platform installation in version 4.1 and later.

5.5.1. Accessing an example Node Tuning Operator specification

Use this process to access an example Node Tuning Operator specification.

Procedure

  1. Run:

    $ oc get Tuned/default -o yaml -n openshift-cluster-node-tuning-operator

The default CR is meant for delivering standard node-level tuning for the OpenShift Container Platform platform and it can only be modified to set the Operator Management state. Any other custom changes to the default CR will be overwritten by the Operator. For custom tuning, create your own Tuned CRs. Newly created CRs will be combined with the default CR and custom tuning applied to OpenShift Container Platform nodes based on node or pod labels and profile priorities.

Warning

While in certain situations the support for pod labels can be a convenient way of automatically delivering required tuning, this practice is discouraged and strongly advised against, especially in large-scale clusters. The default Tuned CR ships without pod label matching. If a custom profile is created with pod label matching, then the functionality will be enabled at that time. The pod label functionality might be deprecated in future versions of the Node Tuning Operator.

5.5.2. Custom tuning specification

The custom resource (CR) for the Operator has two major sections. The first section, profile:, is a list of TuneD profiles and their names. The second, recommend:, defines the profile selection logic.

Multiple custom tuning specifications can co-exist as multiple CRs in the Operator’s namespace. The existence of new CRs or the deletion of old CRs is detected by the Operator. All existing custom tuning specifications are merged and appropriate objects for the containerized TuneD daemons are updated.

Management state

The Operator Management state is set by adjusting the default Tuned CR. By default, the Operator is in the Managed state and the spec.managementState field is not present in the default Tuned CR. Valid values for the Operator Management state are as follows:

  • Managed: the Operator will update its operands as configuration resources are updated
  • Unmanaged: the Operator will ignore changes to the configuration resources
  • Removed: the Operator will remove its operands and resources the Operator provisioned

Profile data

The profile: section lists TuneD profiles and their names.

profile:
- name: tuned_profile_1
  data: |
    # TuneD profile specification
    [main]
    summary=Description of tuned_profile_1 profile

    [sysctl]
    net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
    # ... other sysctl's or other TuneD daemon plugins supported by the containerized TuneD

# ...

- name: tuned_profile_n
  data: |
    # TuneD profile specification
    [main]
    summary=Description of tuned_profile_n profile

    # tuned_profile_n profile settings

Recommended profiles

The profile: selection logic is defined by the recommend: section of the CR. The recommend: section is a list of items to recommend the profiles based on a selection criteria.

recommend:
<recommend-item-1>
# ...
<recommend-item-n>

The individual items of the list:

- machineConfigLabels: 1
    <mcLabels> 2
  match: 3
    <match> 4
  priority: <priority> 5
  profile: <tuned_profile_name> 6
  operand: 7
    debug: <bool> 8
1
Optional.
2
A dictionary of key/value MachineConfig labels. The keys must be unique.
3
If omitted, profile match is assumed unless a profile with a higher priority matches first or machineConfigLabels is set.
4
An optional list.
5
Profile ordering priority. Lower numbers mean higher priority (0 is the highest priority).
6
A TuneD profile to apply on a match. For example tuned_profile_1.
7
Optional operand configuration.
8
Turn debugging on or off for the TuneD daemon. Options are true for on or false for off. The default is false.

<match> is an optional list recursively defined as follows:

- label: <label_name> 1
  value: <label_value> 2
  type: <label_type> 3
    <match> 4
1
Node or pod label name.
2
Optional node or pod label value. If omitted, the presence of <label_name> is enough to match.
3
Optional object type (node or pod). If omitted, node is assumed.
4
An optional <match> list.

If <match> is not omitted, all nested <match> sections must also evaluate to true. Otherwise, false is assumed and the profile with the respective <match> section will not be applied or recommended. Therefore, the nesting (child <match> sections) works as logical AND operator. Conversely, if any item of the <match> list matches, the entire <match> list evaluates to true. Therefore, the list acts as logical OR operator.

If machineConfigLabels is defined, machine config pool based matching is turned on for the given recommend: list item. <mcLabels> specifies the labels for a machine config. The machine config is created automatically to apply host settings, such as kernel boot parameters, for the profile <tuned_profile_name>. This involves finding all machine config pools with machine config selector matching <mcLabels> and setting the profile <tuned_profile_name> on all nodes that are assigned the found machine config pools. To target nodes that have both master and worker roles, you must use the master role.

The list items match and machineConfigLabels are connected by the logical OR operator. The match item is evaluated first in a short-circuit manner. Therefore, if it evaluates to true, the machineConfigLabels item is not considered.

Important

When using machine config pool based matching, it is advised to group nodes with the same hardware configuration into the same machine config pool. Not following this practice might result in TuneD operands calculating conflicting kernel parameters for two or more nodes sharing the same machine config pool.

Example: node or pod label based matching

- match:
  - label: tuned.openshift.io/elasticsearch
    match:
    - label: node-role.kubernetes.io/master
    - label: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
    type: pod
  priority: 10
  profile: openshift-control-plane-es
- match:
  - label: node-role.kubernetes.io/master
  - label: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
  priority: 20
  profile: openshift-control-plane
- priority: 30
  profile: openshift-node

The CR above is translated for the containerized TuneD daemon into its recommend.conf file based on the profile priorities. The profile with the highest priority (10) is openshift-control-plane-es and, therefore, it is considered first. The containerized TuneD daemon running on a given node looks to see if there is a pod running on the same node with the tuned.openshift.io/elasticsearch label set. If not, the entire <match> section evaluates as false. If there is such a pod with the label, in order for the <match> section to evaluate to true, the node label also needs to be node-role.kubernetes.io/master or node-role.kubernetes.io/infra.

If the labels for the profile with priority 10 matched, openshift-control-plane-es profile is applied and no other profile is considered. If the node/pod label combination did not match, the second highest priority profile (openshift-control-plane) is considered. This profile is applied if the containerized TuneD pod runs on a node with labels node-role.kubernetes.io/master or node-role.kubernetes.io/infra.

Finally, the profile openshift-node has the lowest priority of 30. It lacks the <match> section and, therefore, will always match. It acts as a profile catch-all to set openshift-node profile, if no other profile with higher priority matches on a given node.

Decision workflow

Example: machine config pool based matching

apiVersion: tuned.openshift.io/v1
kind: Tuned
metadata:
  name: openshift-node-custom
  namespace: openshift-cluster-node-tuning-operator
spec:
  profile:
  - data: |
      [main]
      summary=Custom OpenShift node profile with an additional kernel parameter
      include=openshift-node
      [bootloader]
      cmdline_openshift_node_custom=+skew_tick=1
    name: openshift-node-custom

  recommend:
  - machineConfigLabels:
      machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: "worker-custom"
    priority: 20
    profile: openshift-node-custom

To minimize node reboots, label the target nodes with a label the machine config pool’s node selector will match, then create the Tuned CR above and finally create the custom machine config pool itself.

5.5.3. Default profiles set on a cluster

The following are the default profiles set on a cluster.

apiVersion: tuned.openshift.io/v1
kind: Tuned
metadata:
  name: default
  namespace: openshift-cluster-node-tuning-operator
spec:
  profile:
  - name: "openshift"
    data: |
      [main]
      summary=Optimize systems running OpenShift (parent profile)
      include=${f:virt_check:virtual-guest:throughput-performance}

      [selinux]
      avc_cache_threshold=8192

      [net]
      nf_conntrack_hashsize=131072

      [sysctl]
      net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
      kernel.pid_max=>4194304
      net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_max=1048576
      net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_announce=2
      net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh1=8192
      net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh2=32768
      net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh3=65536
      net.ipv6.neigh.default.gc_thresh1=8192
      net.ipv6.neigh.default.gc_thresh2=32768
      net.ipv6.neigh.default.gc_thresh3=65536
      vm.max_map_count=262144

      [sysfs]
      /sys/module/nvme_core/parameters/io_timeout=4294967295
      /sys/module/nvme_core/parameters/max_retries=10

  - name: "openshift-control-plane"
    data: |
      [main]
      summary=Optimize systems running OpenShift control plane
      include=openshift

      [sysctl]
      # ktune sysctl settings, maximizing i/o throughput
      #
      # Minimal preemption granularity for CPU-bound tasks:
      # (default: 1 msec#  (1 + ilog(ncpus)), units: nanoseconds)
      kernel.sched_min_granularity_ns=10000000
      # The total time the scheduler will consider a migrated process
      # "cache hot" and thus less likely to be re-migrated
      # (system default is 500000, i.e. 0.5 ms)
      kernel.sched_migration_cost_ns=5000000
      # SCHED_OTHER wake-up granularity.
      #
      # Preemption granularity when tasks wake up.  Lower the value to
      # improve wake-up latency and throughput for latency critical tasks.
      kernel.sched_wakeup_granularity_ns=4000000

  - name: "openshift-node"
    data: |
      [main]
      summary=Optimize systems running OpenShift nodes
      include=openshift

      [sysctl]
      net.ipv4.tcp_fastopen=3
      fs.inotify.max_user_watches=65536
      fs.inotify.max_user_instances=8192

  recommend:
  - profile: "openshift-control-plane"
    priority: 30
    match:
    - label: "node-role.kubernetes.io/master"
    - label: "node-role.kubernetes.io/infra"

  - profile: "openshift-node"
    priority: 40

5.5.4. Supported TuneD daemon plugins

Excluding the [main] section, the following TuneD plugins are supported when using custom profiles defined in the profile: section of the Tuned CR:

  • audio
  • cpu
  • disk
  • eeepc_she
  • modules
  • mounts
  • net
  • scheduler
  • scsi_host
  • selinux
  • sysctl
  • sysfs
  • usb
  • video
  • vm

There is some dynamic tuning functionality provided by some of these plugins that is not supported. The following TuneD plugins are currently not supported:

  • bootloader
  • script
  • systemd

See Available TuneD Plugins and Getting Started with TuneD for more information.

5.6. Remediating nodes with the Poison Pill Operator

You can use the Poison Pill Operator to automatically reboot unhealthy nodes. This remediation strategy minimizes downtime for stateful applications and ReadWriteOnce (RWO) volumes, and restores compute capacity if transient failures occur.

5.6.1. About the Poison Pill Operator

The Poison Pill Operator runs on the cluster nodes and reboots nodes that are identified as unhealthy. The Operator uses the MachineHealthCheck controller to detect the health of a node in the cluster. When a node is identified as unhealthy, the MachineHealthCheck resource creates the PoisonPillRemediation custom resource (CR), which triggers the Poison Pill Operator.

The Poison Pill Operator provides the following capabilities:

  • Minimizes downtime for stateful applications and restores compute capacity if transient failures occur.
  • Independent of any management interface, such as IPMI or an API to provision a node.

5.6.1.1. Understanding the Poison Pill Operator configuration

The Poison Pill Operator creates the PoisonPillConfig CR with the name poison-pill-config in the Poison Pill Operator’s namespace. You can edit this CR. However, you cannot create a new CR for the Poison Pill Operator.

A change in the PoisonPillConfig CR re-creates the Poison Pill daemon set.

The PoisonPillConfig CR resembles the following YAML file:

apiVersion: poison-pill.medik8s.io/v1alpha1
kind: PoisonPillConfig
metadata:
  name: poison-pill-config
  namespace: openshift-operators
spec:
  safeTimeToAssumeNodeRebootedSeconds: 180 1
  watchdogFilePath: /test/watchdog1 2
1
Specify the timeout duration for the surviving peer, after which the Operator can assume that an unhealthy node has been rebooted. The Operator automatically calculates the lower limit for this value. However, if different nodes have different watchdog timeouts, you must change this value to a higher value.
2
Specify the file path of the watchdog device in the nodes. If a watchdog device is unavailable, the PoisonPillConfig CR uses a software reboot.

5.6.2. Installing the Poison Pill Operator by using the web console

You can use the OpenShift Container Platform web console to install the Poison Pill Operator.

Prerequisites

  • Log in as a user with cluster-admin privileges.

Procedure

  1. In the OpenShift Container Platform web console, navigate to OperatorsOperatorHub.
  2. Search for the Poison Pill Operator from the list of available Operators, and then click Install.
  3. Keep the default selection of Installation mode and namespace to ensure that the Operator is installed to the poison-pill namespace.
  4. Click Install.

Verification

To confirm that the installation is successful:

  1. Navigate to the OperatorsInstalled Operators page.
  2. Check that the Operator is installed in the poison-pill namespace and its status is Succeeded.

If the Operator is not installed successfully:

  1. Navigate to the OperatorsInstalled Operators page and inspect the Status column for any errors or failures.
  2. Navigate to the WorkloadsPods page and check the logs in any pods in the poison-pill-controller-manager project that are reporting issues.

5.6.3. Installing the Poison Pill Operator by using the CLI

You can use the OpenShift CLI (oc) to install the Poison Pill Operator.

Prerequisites

  • Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).
  • Log in as a user with cluster-admin privileges.

Procedure

  1. Create a Namespace custom resource (CR) for the Poison Pill Operator:

    1. Define the Namespace CR and save the YAML file, for example, poison-pill-namespace.yaml:

      apiVersion: v1
      kind: Namespace
      metadata:
        name: poison-pill
    2. To create the Namespace CR, run the following command:

      $ oc create -f poison-pill-namespace.yaml
  2. Create an OperatorGroup CR:

    1. Define the OperatorGroup CR and save the YAML file, for example, poison-pill-operator-group.yaml:

      apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1
      kind: OperatorGroup
      metadata:
        name: poison-pill-manager
        namespace: poison-pill
      spec:
        targetNamespaces:
        - poison-pill
    2. To create the OperatorGroup CR, run the following command:

      $ oc create -f poison-pill-operator-group.yaml
  3. Create a Subscription CR:

    1. Define the Subscription CR and save the YAML file, for example, poison-pill-subscription.yaml:

      apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
      kind: Subscription
      metadata:
          name: poison-pill-manager
          namespace: poison-pill
      spec:
          channel: alpha
          name: poison-pill-manager
          source: redhat-operators
          sourceNamespace: openshift-marketplace
          package: poison-pill-manager
    2. To create the Subscription CR, run the following command:

      $ oc create -f poison-pill-subscription.yaml

Verification

  1. Verify that the installation succeeded by inspecting the CSV resource:

    $ oc get csv -n poison-pill

    Example output

    NAME                   DISPLAY                 VERSION   REPLACES    PHASE
    poison-pill.v0.1.4     Poison Pill Operator    0.1.4                 Succeeded

  2. Verify that the Poison Pill Operator is up and running:

    $ oc get deploy -n poison-pill

    Example output

    NAME                                 READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
    poison-pill-controller-manager       1/1     1            1           10d

  3. Verify that the Poison Pill Operator created the PoisonPillConfig CR:

    $ oc get PoisonPillConfig -n poison-pill

    Example output

    NAME                 AGE
    poison-pill-config   10d

  4. Verify that each poison pill pod is scheduled and running on each worker node:

    $ oc get daemonset -n poison-pill

    Example output

    NAME             DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   NODE SELECTOR   AGE
    poison-pill-ds   2         2         2       2            2           <none>          10d

    Note

    This command is unsupported for the control plane nodes.

5.6.4. Configuring machine health checks to use the Poison Pill Operator

Use the following procedure to configure the machine health checks to use the Poison Pill Operator as a remediation provider.

Prerequisites

  • Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).
  • Log in as a user with cluster-admin privileges.

Procedure

  1. Create a PoisonPillRemediationTemplate CR:

    1. Define the PoisonPillRemediationTemplate CR:

      apiVersion: poison-pill.medik8s.io/v1alpha1
      kind: PoisonPillRemediationTemplate
      metadata:
        namespace: openshift-machine-api
        name: poisonpillremediationtemplate-sample
      spec:
        template:
          spec: {}
    2. To create the PoisonPillRemediationTemplate CR, run the following command:

      $ oc create -f <ppr-name>.yaml
  2. Create or update the MachineHealthCheck CR to point to the PoisonPillRemediationTemplate CR:

    1. Define or update the MachineHealthCheck CR:

      apiVersion: machine.openshift.io/v1beta1
      kind: MachineHealthCheck
      metadata:
        name: machine-health-check
        namespace: openshift-machine-api
      spec:
        selector:
          matchLabels:
            machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-machine-role: "worker"
            machine.openshift.io/cluster-api-machine-type: "worker"
        unhealthyConditions:
        - type:    "Ready"
          timeout: "300s"
          status: "False"
        - type:    "Ready"
          timeout: "300s"
          status: "Unknown"
        maxUnhealthy: "40%"
        nodeStartupTimeout: "10m"
        remediationTemplate: 1
          kind: PoisonPillRemediationTemplate
          apiVersion: poison-pill.medik8s.io/v1alpha1
          name: <poison-pill-remediation-template-sample>
      1
      Specify the details for the remediation template.
    2. To create a MachineHealthCheck CR, run the following command:

      $ oc create -f <file-name>.yaml
    3. To update a MachineHealthCheck CR, run the following command:

      $ oc apply -f <file-name>.yaml

5.6.5. Troubleshooting the Poison Pill Operator

5.6.5.1. General troubleshooting

Issue
You want to troubleshoot issues with the Poison Pill Operator.
Resolution
Check the Operator logs.

5.6.5.2. Checking the daemon set

Issue
The Poison Pill Operator is installed but the daemon set is not available.
Resolution
Check the Operator logs for errors or warnings.

5.6.5.3. Unsuccessful remediation

Issue
An unhealthy node was not remediated.
Resolution

Verify that the PoisonPillRemediation CR was created by running the following command:

$ oc get ppr -A

If the MachineHealthCheck controller did not create the PoisonPillRemediation CR when the node turned unhealthy, check the logs of the MachineHealthCheck controller. Additionally, ensure that the MachineHealthCheck CR includes the required specification to use the remediation template.

If the PoisonPillRemediation CR was created, ensure that its name matches the unhealthy node or the machine object.

5.6.5.4. Daemon set and other Poison Pill Operator resources exist even after uninstalling the Poison Pill Operator

Issue
The Poison Pill Operator resources, such as the daemon set, configuration CR, and the remediation template CR, exist even after after uninstalling the Operator.
Resolution

To remove the Poison Pill Operator resources, delete the resources by running the following commands for each resource type:

$ oc delete ds <poison-pill-ds> -n <namespace>
$ oc delete ppc <poison-pill-config> -n <namespace>
$ oc delete pprt <poison-pill-remediation-template> -n <namespace>

5.6.6. Additional resources

5.7. Understanding node rebooting

To reboot a node without causing an outage for applications running on the platform, it is important to first evacuate the pods. For pods that are made highly available by the routing tier, nothing else needs to be done. For other pods needing storage, typically databases, it is critical to ensure that they can remain in operation with one pod temporarily going offline. While implementing resiliency for stateful pods is different for each application, in all cases it is important to configure the scheduler to use node anti-affinity to ensure that the pods are properly spread across available nodes.

Another challenge is how to handle nodes that are running critical infrastructure such as the router or the registry. The same node evacuation process applies, though it is important to understand certain edge cases.

5.7.1. About rebooting nodes running critical infrastructure

When rebooting nodes that host critical OpenShift Container Platform infrastructure components, such as router pods, registry pods, and monitoring pods, ensure that there are at least three nodes available to run these components.

The following scenario demonstrates how service interruptions can occur with applications running on OpenShift Container Platform when only two nodes are available:

  • Node A is marked unschedulable and all pods are evacuated.
  • The registry pod running on that node is now redeployed on node B. Node B is now running both registry pods.
  • Node B is now marked unschedulable and is evacuated.
  • The service exposing the two pod endpoints on node B loses all endpoints, for a brief period of time, until they are redeployed to node A.

When using three nodes for infrastructure components, this process does not result in a service disruption. However, due to pod scheduling, the last node that is evacuated and brought back into rotation does not have a registry pod. One of the other nodes has two registry pods. To schedule the third registry pod on the last node, use pod anti-affinity to prevent the scheduler from locating two registry pods on the same node.

Additional information

5.7.2. Rebooting a node using pod anti-affinity

Pod anti-affinity is slightly different than node anti-affinity. Node anti-affinity can be violated if there are no other suitable locations to deploy a pod. Pod anti-affinity can be set to either required or preferred.

With this in place, if only two infrastructure nodes are available and one is rebooted, the container image registry pod is prevented from running on the other node. oc get pods reports the pod as unready until a suitable node is available. Once a node is available and all pods are back in ready state, the next node can be restarted.

Procedure

To reboot a node using pod anti-affinity:

  1. Edit the node specification to configure pod anti-affinity:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Pod
    metadata:
      name: with-pod-antiaffinity
    spec:
      affinity:
        podAntiAffinity: 1
          preferredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution: 2
          - weight: 100 3
            podAffinityTerm:
              labelSelector:
                matchExpressions:
                - key: registry 4
                  operator: In 5
                  values:
                  - default
              topologyKey: kubernetes.io/hostname
    1
    Stanza to configure pod anti-affinity.
    2
    Defines a preferred rule.
    3
    Specifies a weight for a preferred rule. The node with the highest weight is preferred.
    4
    Description of the pod label that determines when the anti-affinity rule applies. Specify a key and value for the label.
    5
    The operator represents the relationship between the label on the existing pod and the set of values in the matchExpression parameters in the specification for the new pod. Can be In, NotIn, Exists, or DoesNotExist.

    This example assumes the container image registry pod has a label of registry=default. Pod anti-affinity can use any Kubernetes match expression.

  2. Enable the MatchInterPodAffinity scheduler predicate in the scheduling policy file.
  3. Perform a graceful restart of the node.

5.7.3. Understanding how to reboot nodes running routers

In most cases, a pod running an OpenShift Container Platform router exposes a host port.

The PodFitsPorts scheduler predicate ensures that no router pods using the same port can run on the same node, and pod anti-affinity is achieved. If the routers are relying on IP failover for high availability, there is nothing else that is needed.

For router pods relying on an external service such as AWS Elastic Load Balancing for high availability, it is that service’s responsibility to react to router pod restarts.

In rare cases, a router pod may not have a host port configured. In those cases, it is important to follow the recommended restart process for infrastructure nodes.

5.7.4. Rebooting a node gracefully

Before rebooting a node, it is recommended to backup etcd data to avoid any data loss on the node.

Procedure

To perform a graceful restart of a node:

  1. Mark the node as unschedulable:

    $ oc adm cordon <node1>
  2. Drain the node to remove all the running pods:

    $ oc adm drain <node1> --ignore-daemonsets --delete-emptydir-data

    You might receive errors that pods associated with custom pod disruption budgets (PDB) cannot be evicted.

    Example error

    error when evicting pods/"rails-postgresql-example-1-72v2w" -n "rails" (will retry after 5s): Cannot evict pod as it would violate the pod's disruption budget.

    In this case, run the drain command again, adding the disable-eviction flag, which bypasses the PDB checks:

    $ oc adm drain <node1> --ignore-daemonsets --delete-emptydir-data --force --disable-eviction
  3. Access the node in debug mode:

    $ oc debug node/<node1>
  4. Change your root directory to /host:

    $ chroot /host
  5. Restart the node:

    $ systemctl reboot

    In a moment, the node enters the NotReady state.

  6. After the reboot is complete, mark the node as schedulable by running the following command:

    $ oc adm uncordon <node1>
  7. Verify that the node is ready:

    $ oc get node <node1>

    Example output

    NAME    STATUS  ROLES    AGE     VERSION
    <node1> Ready   worker   6d22h   v1.18.3+b0068a8

Additional information

For information on etcd data backup, see Backing up etcd data.

5.8. Freeing node resources using garbage collection

As an administrator, you can use OpenShift Container Platform to ensure that your nodes are running efficiently by freeing up resources through garbage collection.

The OpenShift Container Platform node performs two types of garbage collection:

  • Container garbage collection: Removes terminated containers.
  • Image garbage collection: Removes images not referenced by any running pods.

5.8.1. Understanding how terminated containers are removed through garbage collection

Container garbage collection can be performed using eviction thresholds.

When eviction thresholds are set for garbage collection, the node tries to keep any container for any pod accessible from the API. If the pod has been deleted, the containers will be as well. Containers are preserved as long the pod is not deleted and the eviction threshold is not reached. If the node is under disk pressure, it will remove containers and their logs will no longer be accessible using oc logs.

  • eviction-soft - A soft eviction threshold pairs an eviction threshold with a required administrator-specified grace period.
  • eviction-hard - A hard eviction threshold has no grace period, and if observed, OpenShift Container Platform takes immediate action.

The following table lists the eviction thresholds:

Table 5.2. Variables for configuring container garbage collection

Node conditionEviction signalDescription

MemoryPressure

memory.available

The available memory on the node.

DiskPressure

  • nodefs.available
  • nodefs.inodesFree
  • imagefs.available
  • imagefs.inodesFree

The available disk space or inodes on the node root file system, nodefs, or image file system, imagefs.

Note

For evictionHard you must specify all of these parameters. If you do not specify all parameters, only the specified parameters are applied and the garbage collection will not function properly.

If a node is oscillating above and below a soft eviction threshold, but not exceeding its associated grace period, the corresponding node would constantly oscillate between true and false. As a consequence, the scheduler could make poor scheduling decisions.

To protect against this oscillation, use the eviction-pressure-transition-period flag to control how long OpenShift Container Platform must wait before transitioning out of a pressure condition. OpenShift Container Platform will not set an eviction threshold as being met for the specified pressure condition for the period specified before toggling the condition back to false.

5.8.2. Understanding how images are removed through garbage collection

Image garbage collection relies on disk usage as reported by cAdvisor on the node to decide which images to remove from the node.

The policy for image garbage collection is based on two conditions:

  • The percent of disk usage (expressed as an integer) which triggers image garbage collection. The default is 85.
  • The percent of disk usage (expressed as an integer) to which image garbage collection attempts to free. Default is 80.

For image garbage collection, you can modify any of the following variables using a custom resource.

Table 5.3. Variables for configuring image garbage collection

SettingDescription

imageMinimumGCAge

The minimum age for an unused image before the image is removed by garbage collection. The default is 2m.

imageGCHighThresholdPercent

The percent of disk usage, expressed as an integer, which triggers image garbage collection. The default is 85.

imageGCLowThresholdPercent

The percent of disk usage, expressed as an integer, to which image garbage collection attempts to free. The default is 80.

Two lists of images are retrieved in each garbage collector run:

  1. A list of images currently running in at least one pod.
  2. A list of images available on a host.

As new containers are run, new images appear. All images are marked with a time stamp. If the image is running (the first list above) or is newly detected (the second list above), it is marked with the current time. The remaining images are already marked from the previous spins. All images are then sorted by the time stamp.

Once the collection starts, the oldest images get deleted first until the stopping criterion is met.

5.8.3. Configuring garbage collection for containers and images

As an administrator, you can configure how OpenShift Container Platform performs garbage collection by creating a kubeletConfig object for each machine config pool.

Note

OpenShift Container Platform supports only one kubeletConfig object for each machine config pool.

You can configure any combination of the following:

  • Soft eviction for containers
  • Hard eviction for containers
  • Eviction for images

Prerequisites

  1. Obtain the label associated with the static MachineConfigPool CRD for the type of node you want to configure by entering the following command:

    $ oc edit machineconfigpool <name>

    For example:

    $ oc edit machineconfigpool worker

    Example output

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: MachineConfigPool
    metadata:
      creationTimestamp: "2022-11-16T15:34:25Z"
      generation: 4
      labels:
        pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: "" 1
      name: worker

    1
    The label appears under Labels.
    Tip

    If the label is not present, add a key/value pair such as:

    $ oc label machineconfigpool worker custom-kubelet=small-pods

Procedure

  1. Create a custom resource (CR) for your configuration change.

    Important

    If there is one file system, or if /var/lib/kubelet and /var/lib/containers/ are in the same file system, the settings with the highest values trigger evictions, as those are met first. The file system triggers the eviction.

    Sample configuration for a container garbage collection CR:

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: KubeletConfig
    metadata:
      name: worker-kubeconfig 1
    spec:
      machineConfigPoolSelector:
        matchLabels:
          pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: "" 2
      kubeletConfig:
        evictionSoft: 3
          memory.available: "500Mi" 4
          nodefs.available: "10%"
          nodefs.inodesFree: "5%"
          imagefs.available: "15%"
          imagefs.inodesFree: "10%"
        evictionSoftGracePeriod:  5
          memory.available: "1m30s"
          nodefs.available: "1m30s"
          nodefs.inodesFree: "1m30s"
          imagefs.available: "1m30s"
          imagefs.inodesFree: "1m30s"
        evictionHard: 6
          memory.available: "200Mi"
          nodefs.available: "5%"
          nodefs.inodesFree: "4%"
          imagefs.available: "10%"
          imagefs.inodesFree: "5%"
        evictionPressureTransitionPeriod: 0s 7
        imageMinimumGCAge: 5m 8
        imageGCHighThresholdPercent: 80 9
        imageGCLowThresholdPercent: 75 10

    1
    Name for the object.
    2
    Specify the label from the machine config pool.
    3
    Type of eviction: evictionSoft or evictionHard.
    4
    Eviction thresholds based on a specific eviction trigger signal.
    5
    Grace periods for the soft eviction. This parameter does not apply to eviction-hard.
    6
    Eviction thresholds based on a specific eviction trigger signal. For evictionHard you must specify all of these parameters. If you do not specify all parameters, only the specified parameters are applied and the garbage collection will not function properly.
    7
    The duration to wait before transitioning out of an eviction pressure condition.
    8
    The minimum age for an unused image before the image is removed by garbage collection.
    9
    The percent of disk usage (expressed as an integer) that triggers image garbage collection.
    10
    The percent of disk usage (expressed as an integer) that image garbage collection attempts to free.
  2. Run the following command to create the CR:

    $ oc create -f <file_name>.yaml

    For example:

    $ oc create -f gc-container.yaml

    Example output

    kubeletconfig.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/gc-container created

Verification

  1. Verify that garbage collection is active by entering the following command. The Machine Config Pool you specified in the custom resource appears with UPDATING as 'true` until the change is fully implemented:

    $ oc get machineconfigpool

    Example output

    NAME     CONFIG                                   UPDATED   UPDATING
    master   rendered-master-546383f80705bd5aeaba93   True      False
    worker   rendered-worker-b4c51bb33ccaae6fc4a6a5   False     True

5.9. Allocating resources for nodes in an OpenShift Container Platform cluster

To provide more reliable scheduling and minimize node resource overcommitment, reserve a portion of the CPU and memory resources for use by the underlying node components, such as kubelet and kube-proxy, and the remaining system components, such as sshd and NetworkManager. By specifying the resources to reserve, you provide the scheduler with more information about the remaining CPU and memory resources that a node has available for use by pods. You can allow OpenShift Container Platform to automatically determine the optimal system-reserved CPU and memory resources for your nodes or you can manually determine and set the best resources for your nodes.

5.9.1. Understanding how to allocate resources for nodes

CPU and memory resources reserved for node components in OpenShift Container Platform are based on two node settings:

SettingDescription

kube-reserved

This setting is not used with OpenShift Container Platform. Add the CPU and memory resources that you planned to reserve to the system-reserved setting.

system-reserved

This setting identifies the resources to reserve for the node components and system components, such as CRI-O and Kubelet. The default settings depend on the OpenShift Container Platform and Machine Config Operator versions. Confirm the default systemReserved parameter on the machine-config-operator repository.

If a flag is not set, the defaults are used. If none of the flags are set, the allocated resource is set to the node’s capacity as it was before the introduction of allocatable resources.

Note

Any CPUs specifically reserved using the reservedSystemCPUs parameter are not available for allocation using kube-reserved or system-reserved.

5.9.1.1. How OpenShift Container Platform computes allocated resources

An allocated amount of a resource is computed based on the following formula:

[Allocatable] = [Node Capacity] - [system-reserved] - [Hard-Eviction-Thresholds]
Note

The withholding of Hard-Eviction-Thresholds from Allocatable improves system reliability because the value for Allocatable is enforced for pods at the node level.

If Allocatable is negative, it is set to 0.

Each node reports the system resources that are used by the container runtime and kubelet. To simplify configuring the system-reserved parameter, view the resource use for the node by using the node summary API. The node summary is available at /api/v1/nodes/<node>/proxy/stats/summary.

5.9.1.2. How nodes enforce resource constraints

The node is able to limit the total amount of resources that pods can consume based on the configured allocatable value. This feature significantly improves the reliability of the node by preventing pods from using CPU and memory resources that are needed by system services such as the container runtime and node agent. To improve node reliability, administrators should reserve resources based on a target for resource use.

The node enforces resource constraints by using a new cgroup hierarchy that enforces quality of service. All pods are launched in a dedicated cgroup hierarchy that is separate from system daemons.

Administrators should treat system daemons similar to pods that have a guaranteed quality of service. System daemons can burst within their bounding control groups and this behavior must be managed as part of cluster deployments. Reserve CPU and memory resources for system daemons by specifying the amount of CPU and memory resources in system-reserved.

Enforcing system-reserved limits can prevent critical system services from receiving CPU and memory resources. As a result, a critical system service can be ended by the out-of-memory killer. The recommendation is to enforce system-reserved only if you have profiled the nodes exhaustively to determine precise estimates and you are confident that critical system services can recover if any process in that group is ended by the out-of-memory killer.

5.9.1.3. Understanding Eviction Thresholds

If a node is under memory pressure, it can impact the entire node and all pods running on the node. For example, a system daemon that uses more than its reserved amount of memory can trigger an out-of-memory event. To avoid or reduce the probability of system out-of-memory events, the node provides out-of-resource handling.

You can reserve some memory using the --eviction-hard flag. The node attempts to evict pods whenever memory availability on the node drops below the absolute value or percentage. If system daemons do not exist on a node, pods are limited to the memory capacity - eviction-hard. For this reason, resources set aside as a buffer for eviction before reaching out of memory conditions are not available for pods.

The following is an example to illustrate the impact of node allocatable for memory:

  • Node capacity is 32Gi
  • --system-reserved is 3Gi
  • --eviction-hard is set to 100Mi.

For this node, the effective node allocatable value is 28.9Gi. If the node and system components use all their reservation, the memory available for pods is 28.9Gi, and kubelet evicts pods when it exceeds this threshold.

If you enforce node allocatable, 28.9Gi, with top-level cgroups, then pods can never exceed 28.9Gi. Evictions are not performed unless system daemons consume more than 3.1Gi of memory.

If system daemons do not use up all their reservation, with the above example, pods would face memcg OOM kills from their bounding cgroup before node evictions kick in. To better enforce QoS under this situation, the node applies the hard eviction thresholds to the top-level cgroup for all pods to be Node Allocatable + Eviction Hard Thresholds.

If system daemons do not use up all their reservation, the node will evict pods whenever they consume more than 28.9Gi of memory. If eviction does not occur in time, a pod will be OOM killed if pods consume 29Gi of memory.

5.9.1.4. How the scheduler determines resource availability

The scheduler uses the value of node.Status.Allocatable instead of node.Status.Capacity to decide if a node will become a candidate for pod scheduling.

By default, the node will report its machine capacity as fully schedulable by the cluster.

5.9.2. Automatically allocating resources for nodes

OpenShift Container Platform can automatically determine the optimal system-reserved CPU and memory resources for nodes associated with a specific machine config pool and update the nodes with those values when the nodes start. By default, the system-reserved CPU is 500m and system-reserved memory is 1Gi.

To automatically determine and allocate the system-reserved resources on nodes, create a KubeletConfig custom resource (CR) to set the autoSizingReserved: true parameter. A script on each node calculates the optimal values for the respective reserved resources based on the installed CPU and memory capacity on each node. The script takes into account that increased capacity requires a corresponding increase in the reserved resources.

Automatically determining the optimal system-reserved settings ensures that your cluster is running efficiently and prevents node failure due to resource starvation of system components, such as CRI-O and kubelet, without your needing to manually calculate and update the values.

This feature is disabled by default.

Prerequisites

  1. Obtain the label associated with the static MachineConfigPool object for the type of node you want to configure by entering the following command:

    $ oc edit machineconfigpool <name>

    For example:

    $ oc edit machineconfigpool worker

    Example output

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: MachineConfigPool
    metadata:
      creationTimestamp: "2022-11-16T15:34:25Z"
      generation: 4
      labels:
        pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: "" 1
      name: worker
     ...

    1
    The label appears under Labels.
    Tip

    If the label is not present, add a key/value pair such as:

    $ oc label machineconfigpool worker custom-kubelet=small-pods

Procedure

  1. Create a custom resource (CR) for your configuration change:

    Sample configuration for a resource allocation CR

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: KubeletConfig
    metadata:
      name: dynamic-node 1
    spec:
      autoSizingReserved: true 2
      machineConfigPoolSelector:
        matchLabels:
          pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: "" 3

    1
    Assign a name to CR.
    2
    Add the autoSizingReserved parameter set to true to allow OpenShift Container Platform to automatically determine and allocate the system-reserved resources on the nodes associated with the specified label. To disable automatic allocation on those nodes, set this parameter to false.
    3
    Specify the label from the machine config pool.

    The previous example enables automatic resource allocation on all worker nodes. OpenShift Container Platform drains the nodes, applies the kubelet config, and restarts the nodes.

  2. Create the CR by entering the following command:

    $ oc create -f <file_name>.yaml

Verification

  1. Log in to a node you configured by entering the following command:

    $ oc debug node/<node_name>
  2. Set /host as the root directory within the debug shell:

    # chroot /host
  3. View the /etc/node-sizing.env file:

    Example output

    SYSTEM_RESERVED_MEMORY=3Gi
    SYSTEM_RESERVED_CPU=0.08

    The kubelet uses the system-reserved values in the /etc/node-sizing.env file. In the previous example, the worker nodes are allocated 0.08 CPU and 3 Gi of memory. It can take several minutes for the optimal values to appear.

5.9.3. Manually allocating resources for nodes

OpenShift Container Platform supports the CPU and memory resource types for allocation. The ephemeral-resource resource type is supported as well. For the cpu type, the resource quantity is specified in units of cores, such as 200m, 0.5, or 1. For memory and ephemeral-storage, it is specified in units of bytes, such as 200Ki, 50Mi, or 5Gi. By default, the system-reserved CPU is 500m and system-reserved memory is 1Gi.

As an administrator, you can set these using a custom resource (CR) through a set of <resource_type>=<resource_quantity> pairs (e.g., cpu=200m,memory=512Mi).

For details on the recommended system-reserved values, refer to the recommended system-reserved values.

Prerequisites

  1. Obtain the label associated with the static MachineConfigPool CRD for the type of node you want to configure by entering the following command:

    $ oc edit machineconfigpool <name>

    For example:

    $ oc edit machineconfigpool worker

    Example output

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: MachineConfigPool
    metadata:
      creationTimestamp: "2022-11-16T15:34:25Z"
      generation: 4
      labels:
        pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: "" 1
      name: worker

    1
    The label appears under Labels.
    Tip

    If the label is not present, add a key/value pair such as:

    $ oc label machineconfigpool worker custom-kubelet=small-pods

Procedure

  1. Create a custom resource (CR) for your configuration change.

    Sample configuration for a resource allocation CR

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: KubeletConfig
    metadata:
      name: set-allocatable 1
    spec:
      machineConfigPoolSelector:
        matchLabels:
          pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: "" 2
      kubeletConfig:
        systemReserved: 3
          cpu: 1000m
          memory: 1Gi

    1
    Assign a name to CR.
    2
    Specify the label from the machine config pool.
    3
    Specify the resources to reserve for the node components and system components.
  2. Run the following command to create the CR:

    $ oc create -f <file_name>.yaml

5.10. Allocating specific CPUs for nodes in a cluster

When using the static CPU Manager policy, you can reserve specific CPUs for use by specific nodes in your cluster. For example, on a system with 24 CPUs, you could reserve CPUs numbered 0 - 3 for the control plane allowing the compute nodes to use CPUs 4 - 23.

5.10.1. Reserving CPUs for nodes

To explicitly define a list of CPUs that are reserved for specific nodes, create a KubeletConfig custom resource (CR) to define the reservedSystemCPUs parameter. This list supersedes the CPUs that might be reserved using the systemReserved and kubeReserved parameters.

Procedure

  1. Obtain the label associated with the machine config pool (MCP) for the type of node you want to configure:

    $ oc describe machineconfigpool <name>

    For example:

    $ oc describe machineconfigpool worker

    Example output

    Name:         worker
    Namespace:
    Labels:       machineconfiguration.openshift.io/mco-built-in=
                  pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker= 1
    Annotations:  <none>
    API Version:  machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    Kind:         MachineConfigPool
    ...

    1
    Get the MCP label.
  2. Create a YAML file for the KubeletConfig CR:

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: KubeletConfig
    metadata:
      name: set-reserved-cpus 1
    spec:
      kubeletConfig:
        reservedSystemCPUs: "0,1,2,3" 2
      machineConfigPoolSelector:
        matchLabels:
          pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: "" 3
    1
    Specify a name for the CR.
    2
    Specify the core IDs of the CPUs you want to reserve for the nodes associated with the MCP.
    3
    Specify the label from the MCP.
  3. Create the CR object:

    $ oc create -f <file_name>.yaml

Additional resources

5.11. Enabling TLS security profiles for the kubelet

You can use a TLS (Transport Layer Security) security profile to define which TLS ciphers are required by the kubelet when it is acting as an HTTP server. The kubelet uses its HTTP/GRPC server to communicate with the Kubernetes API server, which sends commands to pods, gathers logs, and run exec commands on pods through the kubelet.

A TLS security profile defines the TLS ciphers that the Kubernetes API server must use when connecting with the kubelet to protect communication between the kubelet and the Kubernetes API server.

Note

By default, when the kubelet acts as a client with the Kubernetes API server, it automatically negotiates the TLS parameters with the API server.

5.11.1. Understanding TLS security profiles

You can use a TLS (Transport Layer Security) security profile to define which TLS ciphers are required by various OpenShift Container Platform components. The OpenShift Container Platform TLS security profiles are based on Mozilla recommended configurations.

You can specify one of the following TLS security profiles for each component:

Table 5.4. TLS security profiles

ProfileDescription

Old

This profile is intended for use with legacy clients or libraries. The profile is based on the Old backward compatibility recommended configuration.

The Old profile requires a minimum TLS version of 1.0.

Note

For the Ingress Controller, the minimum TLS version is converted from 1.0 to 1.1.

Intermediate

This profile is the recommended configuration for the majority of clients. It is the default TLS security profile for the Ingress Controller, kubelet, and control plane. The profile is based on the Intermediate compatibility recommended configuration.

The Intermediate profile requires a minimum TLS version of 1.2.

Modern

This profile is intended for use with modern clients that have no need for backwards compatibility. This profile is based on the Modern compatibility recommended configuration.

The Modern profile requires a minimum TLS version of 1.3.

Note

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.6, 4.7, and 4.8, the Modern profile is unsupported. If selected, the Intermediate profile is enabled.

Important

The Modern profile is currently not supported.

Custom

This profile allows you to define the TLS version and ciphers to use.

Warning

Use caution when using a Custom profile, because invalid configurations can cause problems.

Note

OpenShift Container Platform router enables Red Hat-distributed OpenSSL default set of TLS 1.3 cipher suites. Your cluster might accept TLS 1.3 connections and cipher suites, even though TLS 1.3 is unsupported in OpenShift Container Platform 4.6, 4.7, and 4.8.

Note

When using one of the predefined profile types, the effective profile configuration is subject to change between releases. For example, given a specification to use the Intermediate profile deployed on release X.Y.Z, an upgrade to release X.Y.Z+1 might cause a new profile configuration to be applied, resulting in a rollout.

5.11.2. Configuring the TLS security profile for the kubelet

To configure a TLS security profile for the kubelet when it is acting as an HTTP server, create a KubeletConfig custom resource (CR) to specify a predefined or custom TLS security profile for specific nodes. If a TLS security profile is not configured, the default TLS security profile is Intermediate.

Sample KubeletConfig CR that configures the Old TLS security profile on worker nodes

apiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1
kind: KubeletConfig
 ...
spec:
  tlsSecurityProfile:
    old: {}
    type: Old
  machineConfigPoolSelector:
    matchLabels:
      pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: ""

You can see the ciphers and the minimum TLS version of the configured TLS security profile in the kubelet.conf file on a configured node.

Prerequisites

  • You have access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role.

Procedure

  1. Create a KubeletConfig CR to configure the TLS security profile:

    Sample KubeletConfig CR for a Custom profile

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: KubeletConfig
    metadata:
      name: set-kubelet-tls-security-profile
    spec:
      tlsSecurityProfile:
        type: Custom 1
        custom: 2
          ciphers: 3
          - ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305
          - ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305
          - ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
          - ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
          minTLSVersion: VersionTLS11
      machineConfigPoolSelector:
        matchLabels:
          pools.operator.machineconfiguration.openshift.io/worker: "" 4

    1
    Specify the TLS security profile type (Old, Intermediate, or Custom). The default is Intermediate.
    2
    Specify the appropriate field for the selected type:
    • old: {}
    • intermediate: {}
    • custom:
    3
    For the custom type, specify a list of TLS ciphers and minimum accepted TLS version.
    4
    Optional: Specify the machine config pool label for the nodes you want to apply the TLS security profile.
  2. Create the KubeletConfig object:

    $ oc create -f <filename>

    Depending on the number of worker nodes in the cluster, wait for the configured nodes to be rebooted one by one.

Verification

To verify that the profile is set, perform the following steps after the nodes are in the Ready state:

  1. Start a debug session for a configured node:

    $ oc debug node/<node_name>
  2. Set /host as the root directory within the debug shell:

    sh-4.4# chroot /host
  3. View the kubelet.conf file:

    sh-4.4# cat /etc/kubernetes/kubelet.conf

    Example output

    kind: KubeletConfiguration
    apiVersion: kubelet.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
     ...
      "tlsCipherSuites": [
        "TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256",
        "TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256",
        "TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384",
        "TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384",
        "TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256",
        "TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256"
      ],
      "tlsMinVersion": "VersionTLS12",

5.12. Machine Config Daemon metrics

The Machine Config Daemon is a part of the Machine Config Operator. It runs on every node in the cluster. The Machine Config Daemon manages configuration changes and updates on each of the nodes.

5.12.1. Machine Config Daemon metrics

Beginning with OpenShift Container Platform 4.3, the Machine Config Daemon provides a set of metrics. These metrics can be accessed using the Prometheus Cluster Monitoring stack.

The following table describes this set of metrics.

Note

Metrics marked with * in the *Name* and Description columns represent serious errors that might cause performance problems. Such problems might prevent updates and upgrades from proceeding.

Note

While some entries contain commands for getting specific logs, the most comprehensive set of logs is available using the oc adm must-gather command.

Table 5.5. MCO metrics

NameFormatDescriptionNotes

mcd_host_os_and_version

[]string{"os", "version"}

Shows the OS that MCD is running on, such as RHCOS or RHEL. In case of RHCOS, the version is provided.

 

ssh_accessed

counter

Shows the number of successful SSH authentications into the node.

The non-zero value shows that someone might have made manual changes to the node. Such changes might cause irreconcilable errors due to the differences between the state on the disk and the state defined in the machine configuration.

mcd_drain*

{"drain_time", "err"}

Logs errors received during failed drain. *

While drains might need multiple tries to succeed, terminal failed drains prevent updates from proceeding. The drain_time metric, which shows how much time the drain took, might help with troubleshooting.

For further investigation, see the logs by running:

$ oc logs -f -n openshift-machine-config-operator machine-config-daemon-<hash> -c machine-config-daemon

mcd_pivot_err*

[]string{"pivot_target", "err"}

Logs errors encountered during pivot. *

Pivot errors might prevent OS upgrades from proceeding.

For further investigation, run this command to access the node and see all its logs:

$ oc debug node/<node> — chroot /host journalctl -u pivot.service

Alternatively, you can run this command to only see the logs from the machine-config-daemon container:

$ oc logs -f -n openshift-machine-config-operator machine-config-daemon-<hash> -c machine-config-daemon

mcd_state

[]string{"state", "reason"}

State of Machine Config Daemon for the indicated node. Possible states are "Done", "Working", and "Degraded". In case of "Degraded", the reason is included.

For further investigation, see the logs by running:

$ oc logs -f -n openshift-machine-config-operator machine-config-daemon-<hash> -c machine-config-daemon

mcd_kubelet_state*

[]string{"err"}

Logs kubelet health failures. *

This is expected to be empty, with failure count of 0. If failure count exceeds 2, the error indicating threshold is exceeded. This indicates a possible issue with the health of the kubelet.

For further investigation, run this command to access the node and see all its logs:

$ oc debug node/<node> — chroot /host journalctl -u kubelet

mcd_reboot_err*

[]string{"message", "err"}

Logs the failed reboots and the corresponding errors. *

This is expected to be empty, which indicates a successful reboot.

For further investigation, see the logs by running:

$ oc logs -f -n openshift-machine-config-operator machine-config-daemon-<hash> -c machine-config-daemon

mcd_update_state

[]string{"config", "err"}

Logs success or failure of configuration updates and the corresponding errors.

The expected value is rendered-master/rendered-worker-XXXX. If the update fails, an error is present.

For further investigation, see the logs by running:

$ oc logs -f -n openshift-machine-config-operator machine-config-daemon-<hash> -c machine-config-daemon

5.13. Creating infrastructure nodes

Important

This process is not applicable for clusters with manually provisioned machines. You can use the advanced machine management and scaling capabilities only in clusters where the Machine API is operational.

You can use infrastructure machine sets to create machines that host only infrastructure components, such as the default router, the integrated container image registry, and the components for cluster metrics and monitoring. These infrastructure machines are not counted toward the total number of subscriptions that are required to run the environment.

In a production deployment, it is recommended that you deploy at least three machine sets to hold infrastructure components. Both OpenShift Logging and Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh deploy Elasticsearch, which requires three instances to be installed on different nodes. Each of these nodes can be deployed to different availability zones for high availability. This configuration requires three different machine sets, one for each availability zone. In global Azure regions that do not have multiple availability zones, you can use availability sets to ensure high availability.

5.13.1. OpenShift Container Platform infrastructure components

The following infrastructure workloads do not incur OpenShift Container Platform worker subscriptions:

  • Kubernetes and OpenShift Container Platform control plane services that run on masters
  • The default router
  • The integrated container image registry
  • The HAProxy-based Ingress Controller
  • The cluster metrics collection, or monitoring service, including components for monitoring user-defined projects
  • Cluster aggregated logging
  • Service brokers
  • Red Hat Quay
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage
  • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Manager
  • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes
  • Red Hat OpenShift GitOps
  • Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines

Any node that runs any other container, pod, or component is a worker node that your subscription must cover.

For information about infrastructure nodes and which components can run on infrastructure nodes, see the "Red Hat OpenShift control plane and infrastructure nodes" section in the OpenShift sizing and subscription guide for enterprise Kubernetes document.

To create an infrastructure node, you can use a machine set, label the node, or use a machine config pool.

5.13.1.1. Creating an infrastructure node

Important

See Creating infrastructure machine sets for installer-provisioned infrastructure environments or for any cluster where the control plane nodes (also known as the master nodes) are managed by the machine API.

Requirements of the cluster dictate that infrastructure, also called infra nodes, be provisioned. The installer only provides provisions for control plane and worker nodes. Worker nodes can be designated as infrastructure nodes or application, also called app, nodes through labeling.

Procedure

  1. Add a label to the worker node that you want to act as application node:

    $ oc label node <node-name> node-role.kubernetes.io/app=""
  2. Add a label to the worker nodes that you want to act as infrastructure nodes:

    $ oc label node <node-name> node-role.kubernetes.io/infra=""
  3. Check to see if applicable nodes now have the infra role and app roles:

    $ oc get nodes
  4. Create a default cluster-wide node selector. The default node selector is applied to pods created in all namespaces. This creates an intersection with any existing node selectors on a pod, which additionally constrains the pod’s selector.

    Important

    If the default node selector key conflicts with the key of a pod’s label, then the default node selector is not applied.

    However, do not set a default node selector that might cause a pod to become unschedulable. For example, setting the default node selector to a specific node role, such as node-role.kubernetes.io/infra="", when a pod’s label is set to a different node role, such as node-role.kubernetes.io/master="", can cause the pod to become unschedulable. For this reason, use caution when setting the default node selector to specific node roles.

    You can alternatively use a project node selector to avoid cluster-wide node selector key conflicts.

    1. Edit the Scheduler object:

      $ oc edit scheduler cluster
    2. Add the defaultNodeSelector field with the appropriate node selector:

      apiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1
      kind: Scheduler
      metadata:
        name: cluster
      ...
      spec:
        defaultNodeSelector: topology.kubernetes.io/region=us-east-1 1
      ...
      1
      This example node selector deploys pods on nodes in the us-east-1 region by default.
    3. Save the file to apply the changes.

You can now move infrastructure resources to the newly labeled infra nodes.