Chapter 10. Installing on IBM Cloud VPC

10.1. Preparing to install on IBM Cloud VPC

The installation workflows documented in this section are for IBM Cloud VPC infrastructure environments. IBM Cloud Classic is not supported at this time. For more information about the difference between Classic and VPC infrastructures, see the IBM documentation.

10.1.1. Prerequisites

10.1.2. Requirements for installing OpenShift Container Platform on IBM Cloud VPC

Before installing OpenShift Container Platform on IBM Cloud VPC, you must create a service account and configure an IBM Cloud account. See Configuring an IBM Cloud account for details about creating an account, enabling API services, configuring DNS, IBM Cloud account limits, and supported IBM Cloud VPC regions.

You must manually manage your cloud credentials when installing a cluster to IBM Cloud VPC. Do this by configuring the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) for manual mode before you install the cluster. For more information, see Configuring IAM for IBM Cloud VPC.

10.1.3. Choosing a method to install OpenShift Container Platform on IBM Cloud VPC

You can install OpenShift Container Platform on IBM Cloud VPC using installer-provisioned infrastructure. This process involves using an installation program to provision the underlying infrastructure for your cluster. Installing OpenShift Container Platform on IBM Cloud VPC using user-provisioned infrastructure is not supported at this time.

See Installation process for more information about installer-provisioned installation processes.

10.1.3.1. Installing a cluster on installer-provisioned infrastructure

You can install a cluster on IBM Cloud VPC infrastructure that is provisioned by the OpenShift Container Platform installation program by using one of the following methods:

10.1.4. Next steps

10.2. Configuring an IBM Cloud account

Before you can install OpenShift Container Platform, you must configure an IBM Cloud account.

10.2.1. Prerequisites

  • You have an IBM Cloud account with a subscription. You cannot install OpenShift Container Platform on a free or trial IBM Cloud account.

10.2.2. Quotas and limits on IBM Cloud VPC

The OpenShift Container Platform cluster uses a number of IBM Cloud VPC components, and the default quotas and limits affect your ability to install OpenShift Container Platform clusters. If you use certain cluster configurations, deploy your cluster in certain regions, or run multiple clusters from your account, you might need to request additional resources for your IBM Cloud account.

For a comprehensive list of the default IBM Cloud VPC quotas and service limits, see IBM Cloud’s documentation for Quotas and service limits.

Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

Each OpenShift Container Platform cluster creates its own VPC. The default quota of VPCs per region is 10 and will allow 10 clusters. To have more than 10 clusters in a single region, you must increase this quota.

Application load balancer

By default, each cluster creates three application load balancers (ALBs):

  • Internal load balancer for the master API server
  • External load balancer for the master API server
  • Load balancer for the router

You can create additional LoadBalancer service objects to create additional ALBs. The default quota of VPC ALBs are 50 per region. To have more than 50 ALBs, you must increase this quota.

VPC ALBs are supported. Classic ALBs are not supported for IBM Cloud VPC.

Floating IP address

By default, the installation program distributes control plane and compute machines across all availability zones within a region to provision the cluster in a highly available configuration. In each availability zone, a public gateway is created and requires a separate floating IP address.

The default quota for a floating IP address is 20 addresses per availability zone. The default cluster configuration yields three floating IP addresses:

  • Two floating IP addresses in the us-east-1 primary zone. The IP address associated with the bootstrap node is removed after installation.
  • One floating IP address in the us-east-2 secondary zone.
  • One floating IP address in the us-east-3 secondary zone.

IBM Cloud VPC can support up to 19 clusters per region in an account. If you plan to have more than 19 default clusters, you must increase this quota.

Virtual Server Instances (VSI)

By default, a cluster creates VSIs using bx2-4x16 profiles, which includes the following resources by default:

  • 4 vCPUs
  • 16 GB RAM

The following nodes are created:

  • One bx2-4x16 bootstrap machine, which is removed after the installation is complete
  • Three bx2-4x16 control plane nodes
  • Three bx2-4x16 compute nodes

For more information, see IBM Cloud’s documentation on supported profiles.

Table 10.1. VSI component quotas and limits

VSI componentDefault IBM Cloud VPC quotaDefault cluster configurationMaximum number of clusters

vCPU

200 vCPUs per region

28 vCPUs, or 24 vCPUs after bootstrap removal

8 per region

RAM

1600 GB per region

112 GB, or 96 GB after bootstrap removal

16 per region

Storage

18 TB per region

1050 GB, or 900 GB after bootstrap removal

19 per region

If you plan to exceed the resources stated in the table, you must increase your IBM Cloud account quota.

Block Storage Volumes

For each VPC machine, a block storage device is attached for its boot volume. The default cluster configuration creates seven VPC machines, resulting in seven block storage volumes. Additional Kubernetes persistent volume claims (PVCs) of the IBM Cloud VPC storage class create additional block storage volumes. The default quota of VPC block storage volumes are 300 per region. To have more than 300 volumes, you must increase this quota.

10.2.3. Configuring DNS resolution

How you configure DNS resolution depends on the type of OpenShift Container Platform cluster you are installing:

  • If you are installing a public cluster, you use IBM Cloud Internet Services (CIS).
  • If you are installing a private cluster, you use IBM Cloud DNS Services (DNS Services)

10.2.3.1. Using IBM Cloud Internet Services for DNS resolution

The installation program uses IBM Cloud Internet Services (CIS) to configure cluster DNS resolution and provide name lookup for a public cluster.

Note

IBM Cloud VPC does not support IPv6, so dual stack or IPv6 environments are not possible.

You must create a domain zone in CIS in the same account as your cluster. You must also ensure the zone is authoritative for the domain. You can do this using a root domain or subdomain.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed the IBM Cloud CLI.
  • You have an existing domain and registrar. For more information, see the IBM documentation.

Procedure

  1. Create a CIS instance to use with your cluster:

    1. Install the CIS plugin: 

      $ ibmcloud plugin install cis

    2. Create the CIS instance: 

      $ ibmcloud cis instance-create <instance_name> standard 1
      1
      At a minimum, a Standard plan is required for CIS to manage the cluster subdomain and its DNS records.

  2. Connect an existing domain to your CIS instance:

    1. Set the context instance for CIS: 

      $ ibmcloud cis instance-set <instance_name> 1
      1
      The instance cloud resource name.

    2. Add the domain for CIS: 

      $ ibmcloud cis domain-add <domain_name> 1
      1
      The fully qualified domain name. You can use either the root domain or subdomain value as the domain name, depending on which you plan to configure.
      Note

      A root domain uses the form openshiftcorp.com. A subdomain uses the form clusters.openshiftcorp.com.

  3. Open the CIS web console, navigate to the Overview page, and note your CIS name servers. These name servers will be used in the next step.
  4. Configure the name servers for your domains or subdomains at the domain’s registrar or DNS provider. For more information, see IBM Cloud’s documentation.

10.2.3.2. Using IBM Cloud DNS Services for DNS resolution

The installation program uses IBM Cloud DNS Services to configure cluster DNS resolution and provide name lookup for a private cluster.

You configure DNS resolution by creating a DNS services instance for the cluster, and then adding a DNS zone to the DNS Services instance. Ensure that the zone is authoritative for the domain. You can do this using a root domain or subdomain.

Note

IBM Cloud VPC does not support IPv6, so dual stack or IPv6 environments are not possible.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed the IBM Cloud CLI.
  • You have an existing domain and registrar. For more information, see the IBM documentation.

Procedure

  1. Create a DNS Services instance to use with your cluster:

    1. Install the DNS Services plugin by running the following command: 

      $ ibmcloud plugin install cloud-dns-services

    2. Create the DNS Services instance by running the following command: 

      $ ibmcloud dns instance-create <instance-name> standard-dns 1
      1
      At a minimum, a Standard plan is required for DNS Services to manage the cluster subdomain and its DNS records.

  2. Create a DNS zone for the DNS Services instance:

    1. Set the target operating DNS Services instance by running the following command: 

      $ ibmcloud dns instance-target <instance-name>

    2. Add the DNS zone to the DNS Services instance by running the following command: 

      $ ibmcloud dns zone-create <zone-name> 1
      1
      The fully qualified zone name. You can use either the root domain or subdomain value as the zone name, depending on which you plan to configure. A root domain uses the form openshiftcorp.com. A subdomain uses the form clusters.openshiftcorp.com.
  3. Record the name of the DNS zone you have created. As part of the installation process, you must update the install-config.yaml file before deploying the cluster. Use the name of the DNS zone as the value for the baseDomain parameter.
Note

You do not have to manage permitted networks or configure an "A" DNS resource record. As required, the installation program configures these resources automatically.

10.2.4. IBM Cloud VPC IAM Policies and API Key

To install OpenShift Container Platform into your IBM Cloud account, the installation program requires an IAM API key, which provides authentication and authorization to access IBM Cloud service APIs. You can use an existing IAM API key that contains the required policies or create a new one.

For an IBM Cloud IAM overview, see the IBM Cloud documentation.

10.2.4.1. Required access policies

You must assign the required access policies to your IBM Cloud account.

Table 10.2. Required access policies

Service typeServiceAccess policy scopePlatform accessService access

Account management

IAM Identity Service

All resources or a subset of resources [1]

Editor, Operator, Viewer, Administrator

Service ID creator

Account management [2]

Identity and Access Management

All resources

Editor, Operator, Viewer, Administrator

 

Account management

Resource group only

All resource groups in the account

Administrator

 

IAM services

Cloud Object Storage

All resources or a subset of resources [1]

Editor, Operator, Viewer, Administrator

Reader, Writer, Manager, Content Reader, Object Reader, Object Writer

IAM services

Internet Services

All resources or a subset of resources [1]

Editor, Operator, Viewer, Administrator

Reader, Writer, Manager

IAM services

DNS Services

All resources or a subset of resources [1]

Editor, Operator, Viewer, Administrator

Reader, Writer, Manager

IAM services

VPC Infrastructure Services

All resources or a subset of resources [1]

Editor, Operator, Viewer, Administrator

Reader, Writer, Manager

  1. The policy access scope should be set based on how granular you want to assign access. The scope can be set to All resources or Resources based on selected attributes.
  2. Optional: This access policy is only required if you want the installation program to create a resource group. For more information about resource groups, see the IBM documentation.

10.2.4.2. Access policy assignment

In IBM Cloud VPC IAM, access policies can be attached to different subjects:

  • Access group (Recommended)
  • Service ID
  • User

The recommended method is to define IAM access policies in an access group. This helps organize all the access required for OpenShift Container Platform and enables you to onboard users and service IDs to this group. You can also assign access to users and service IDs directly, if desired.

10.2.4.3. Creating an API key

You must create a user API key or a service ID API key for your IBM Cloud account.

Prerequisites

  • You have assigned the required access policies to your IBM Cloud account.
  • You have attached you IAM access policies to an access group, or other appropriate resource.

Procedure

  • Create an API key, depending on how you defined your IAM access policies.

    For example, if you assigned your access policies to a user, you must create a user API key. If you assigned your access policies to a service ID, you must create a service ID API key. If your access policies are assigned to an access group, you can use either API key type. For more information on IBM Cloud VPC API keys, see Understanding API keys.

10.2.5. Supported IBM Cloud VPC regions

You can deploy an OpenShift Container Platform cluster to the following regions:

  • au-syd (Sydney, Australia)
  • br-sao (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
  • ca-tor (Toronto, Canada)
  • eu-de (Frankfurt, Germany)
  • eu-gb (London, United Kingdom)
  • jp-osa (Osaka, Japan)
  • jp-tok (Tokyo, Japan)
  • us-east (Washington DC, United States)
  • us-south (Dallas, United States)

10.2.6. Next steps

10.3. Configuring IAM for IBM Cloud VPC

In environments where the cloud identity and access management (IAM) APIs are not reachable, you must put the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) into manual mode before you install the cluster.

10.3.1. Alternatives to storing administrator-level secrets in the kube-system project

The Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) manages cloud provider credentials as Kubernetes custom resource definitions (CRDs). You can configure the CCO to suit the security requirements of your organization by setting different values for the credentialsMode parameter in the install-config.yaml file.

Storing an administrator-level credential secret in the cluster kube-system project is not supported for IBM Cloud; therefore, you must set the credentialsMode parameter for the CCO to Manual when installing OpenShift Container Platform and manage your cloud credentials manually.

Using manual mode allows each cluster component to have only the permissions it requires, without storing an administrator-level credential in the cluster. You can also use this mode if your environment does not have connectivity to the cloud provider public IAM endpoint. However, you must manually reconcile permissions with new release images for every upgrade. You must also manually supply credentials for every component that requests them.

Additional resources

10.3.2. Configuring the Cloud Credential Operator utility

To create and manage cloud credentials from outside of the cluster when the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) is operating in manual mode, extract and prepare the CCO utility (ccoctl) binary.

Note

The ccoctl utility is a Linux binary that must run in a Linux environment.

Prerequisites

  • You have access to an OpenShift Container Platform account with cluster administrator access.
  • You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure

  1. Obtain the OpenShift Container Platform release image by running the following command: 

    $ RELEASE_IMAGE=$(./openshift-install version | awk '/release image/ {print $3}')

  2. Obtain the CCO container image from the OpenShift Container Platform release image by running the following command: 

    $ CCO_IMAGE=$(oc adm release info --image-for='cloud-credential-operator' $RELEASE_IMAGE -a ~/.pull-secret)
    Note

    Ensure that the architecture of the $RELEASE_IMAGE matches the architecture of the environment in which you will use the ccoctl tool.

  3. Extract the ccoctl binary from the CCO container image within the OpenShift Container Platform release image by running the following command: 

    $ oc image extract $CCO_IMAGE --file="/usr/bin/ccoctl" -a ~/.pull-secret

  4. Change the permissions to make ccoctl executable by running the following command: 

    $ chmod 775 ccoctl

Verification

  • To verify that ccoctl is ready to use, display the help file by running the following command: 

    $ ccoctl --help

    Output of ccoctl --help

    OpenShift credentials provisioning tool

Usage:
  ccoctl [command]

Available Commands:
  alibabacloud Manage credentials objects for alibaba cloud
  aws          Manage credentials objects for AWS cloud
  gcp          Manage credentials objects for Google cloud
  help         Help about any command
  ibmcloud     Manage credentials objects for IBM Cloud
  nutanix      Manage credentials objects for Nutanix

Flags:
  -h, --help   help for ccoctl

Use "ccoctl [command] --help" for more information about a command.

Additional resources

10.3.3. Next steps

10.3.4. Additional resources

10.4. Installing a cluster on IBM Cloud VPC with customizations

In OpenShift Container Platform version 4.12, you can install a customized cluster on infrastructure that the installation program provisions on IBM Cloud VPC. To customize the installation, you modify parameters in the install-config.yaml file before you install the cluster.

10.4.1. Prerequisites

10.4.2. Internet access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, you require access to the internet to install your cluster.

You must have internet access to:

  • Access OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console to download the installation program and perform subscription management. If the cluster has internet access and you do not disable Telemetry, that service automatically entitles your cluster.
  • Access Quay.io to obtain the packages that are required to install your cluster.
  • Obtain the packages that are required to perform cluster updates.
Important

If your cluster cannot have direct internet access, you can perform a restricted network installation on some types of infrastructure that you provision. During that process, you download the required content and use it to populate a mirror registry with the installation packages. With some installation types, the environment that you install your cluster in will not require internet access. Before you update the cluster, you update the content of the mirror registry.

10.4.3. Generating a key pair for cluster node SSH access

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

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

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

Important

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

Note

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

Procedure

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

    $ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N '' -f <path>/<file_name> 1
    1
    Specify the path and file name, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, of the new SSH key. If you have an existing key pair, ensure your public key is in the your ~/.ssh directory.
    Note

    If you plan to install an OpenShift Container Platform cluster that uses FIPS validated or Modules In Process cryptographic libraries on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures. do not create a key that uses the ed25519 algorithm. Instead, create a key that uses the rsa or ecdsa algorithm.

  2. View the public SSH key: 

    $ cat <path>/<file_name>.pub

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

    $ cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

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

    Note

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

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

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

      Example output

      Agent pid 31874

      Note

      If your cluster is in FIPS mode, only use FIPS-compliant algorithms to generate the SSH key. The key must be either RSA or ECDSA.

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

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

    Example output

    Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)

Next steps

  • When you install OpenShift Container Platform, provide the SSH public key to the installation program.

10.4.4. Obtaining the installation program

Before you install OpenShift Container Platform, download the installation file on the host you are using for installation.

Prerequisites

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

Procedure

  1. Access the Infrastructure Provider page on the OpenShift Cluster Manager site. If you have a Red Hat account, log in with your credentials. If you do not, create an account.
  2. Select your infrastructure provider.

  3. Navigate to the page for your installation type, download the installation program that corresponds with your host operating system and architecture, and place the file in the directory where you will store the installation configuration files.

    Important

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

    Important

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

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

    $ tar -xvf openshift-install-linux.tar.gz
  5. Download your installation pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager. This pull secret allows you to authenticate with the services that are provided by the included authorities, including Quay.io, which serves the container images for OpenShift Container Platform components.

10.4.5. Exporting the IBM Cloud VPC API key

You must set the IBM Cloud VPC API key you created as a global variable; the installation program ingests the variable during startup to set the API key.

Prerequisites

  • You have created either a user API key or service ID API key for your IBM Cloud account.

Procedure

  • Export your IBM Cloud VPC API key as a global variable: 

    $ export IC_API_KEY=<api_key>
Important

You must set the variable name exactly as specified; the installation program expects the variable name to be present during startup.

10.4.6. Creating the installation configuration file

You can customize the OpenShift Container Platform cluster you install on IBM Cloud.

Prerequisites

  • Obtain the OpenShift Container Platform installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
  • Obtain service principal permissions at the subscription level.

Procedure

  1. Create the install-config.yaml file.

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

      $ ./openshift-install create install-config --dir <installation_directory> 1
      1
      For <installation_directory>, specify the directory name to store the files that the installation program creates.

      When specifying the directory:

      • Verify that the directory has the execute permission. This permission is required to run Terraform binaries under the installation directory.
      • Use an empty directory. Some installation assets, such as bootstrap X.509 certificates, have short expiration intervals, therefore you must not reuse an installation directory. If you want to reuse individual files from another cluster installation, you can copy them into your directory. However, the file names for the installation assets might change between releases. Use caution when copying installation files from an earlier OpenShift Container Platform version.

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

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

        Note

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

      2. Select ibmcloud as the platform to target.
      3. Select the region to deploy the cluster to.
      4. Select the base domain to deploy the cluster to. The base domain corresponds to the public DNS zone that you created for your cluster.
      5. Enter a descriptive name for your cluster.
      6. Paste the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager.
  2. Modify the install-config.yaml file. You can find more information about the available parameters in the "Installation configuration parameters" section.

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

    Important

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

10.4.6.1. Installation configuration parameters

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

Note

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

10.4.6.1.1. Required configuration parameters

Required installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.3. Required parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

apiVersion

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

String

baseDomain

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

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

metadata

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

Object

metadata.name

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

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

platform

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

Object

pullSecret

Get a pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager to authenticate downloading container images for OpenShift Container Platform components from services such as Quay.io. 

{
   "auths":{
      "cloud.openshift.com":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      },
      "quay.io":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      }
   }
}
10.4.6.1.2. Network configuration parameters

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

Only IPv4 addresses are supported.

Note

Globalnet is not supported with Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation disaster recovery solutions. For regional disaster recovery scenarios, ensure that you use a nonoverlapping range of private IP addresses for the cluster and service networks in each cluster.

Table 10.4. Network parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

networking

The configuration for the cluster network.

Object

Note

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

networking.networkType

The Red Hat OpenShift Networking network plugin to install.

Either OpenShiftSDN or OVNKubernetes. OpenShiftSDN is a CNI plugin for all-Linux networks. OVNKubernetes is a CNI plugin for Linux networks and hybrid networks that contain both Linux and Windows servers. The default value is OVNKubernetes.

networking.clusterNetwork

The IP address blocks for pods.

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

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

An array of objects. For example: 

networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23

networking.clusterNetwork.cidr

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

An IPv4 network.

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

networking.clusterNetwork.hostPrefix

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

A subnet prefix.

The default value is 23.

networking.serviceNetwork

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

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

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

networking:
  serviceNetwork:
   - 172.30.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork

The IP address blocks for machines.

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

An array of objects. For example: 

networking:
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork.cidr

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

An IP network block in CIDR notation.

For example, 10.0.0.0/16.

Note

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

10.4.6.1.3. Optional configuration parameters

Optional installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.5. Optional parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

additionalTrustBundle

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

String

capabilities

Controls the installation of optional core cluster components. You can reduce the footprint of your OpenShift Container Platform cluster by disabling optional components. For more information, see the "Cluster capabilities" page in Installing.

String array

capabilities.baselineCapabilitySet

Selects an initial set of optional capabilities to enable. Valid values are None, v4.11, v4.12 and vCurrent. The default value is vCurrent.

String

capabilities.additionalEnabledCapabilities

Extends the set of optional capabilities beyond what you specify in baselineCapabilitySet. You may specify multiple capabilities in this parameter.

String array

compute

The configuration for the machines that comprise the compute nodes.

Array of MachinePool objects.

compute.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

String

compute.hyperthreading

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

Important

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

Enabled or Disabled

compute.name

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

worker

compute.platform

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

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

compute.replicas

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

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

featureSet

Enables the cluster for a feature set. A feature set is a collection of OpenShift Container Platform features that are not enabled by default. For more information about enabling a feature set during installation, see "Enabling features using feature gates".

String. The name of the feature set to enable, such as TechPreviewNoUpgrade.

controlPlane

The configuration for the machines that comprise the control plane.

Array of MachinePool objects.

controlPlane.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

String

controlPlane.hyperthreading

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

Important

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

Enabled or Disabled

controlPlane.name

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

master

controlPlane.platform

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

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

controlPlane.replicas

The number of control plane machines to provision.

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

credentialsMode

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

Note

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

Note

If your AWS account has service control policies (SCP) enabled, you must configure the credentialsMode parameter to Mint, Passthrough or Manual.

Mint, Passthrough, Manual or an empty string ("").

fips

Enable or disable FIPS mode. The default is false (disabled). If FIPS mode is enabled, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machines that OpenShift Container Platform runs on bypass the default Kubernetes cryptography suite and use the cryptography modules that are provided with RHCOS instead.

Important

To enable FIPS mode for your cluster, you must run the installation program from a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) computer configured to operate in FIPS mode. For more information about configuring FIPS mode on RHEL, see Installing the system in FIPS mode. The use of FIPS validated or Modules In Process cryptographic libraries is only supported on OpenShift Container Platform deployments on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures.

Note

If you are using Azure File storage, you cannot enable FIPS mode.

false or true

imageContentSources

Sources and repositories for the release-image content.

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

imageContentSources.source

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

String

imageContentSources.mirrors

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

Array of strings

publish

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

Internal or External. To deploy a private cluster, which cannot be accessed from the internet, set publish to Internal. The default value is External.

sshKey

The SSH key to authenticate access to your cluster machines.

Note

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

For example, sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA...

10.4.6.1.4. Additional IBM Cloud VPC configuration parameters

Additional IBM Cloud VPC configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.6. Additional IBM Cloud VPC parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

platform.ibmcloud.resourceGroupName

The name of an existing resource group to install your cluster to. This resource group must only be used for this specific cluster because the cluster components assume ownership of all of the resources in the resource group. If undefined, a new resource group is created for the cluster. [1]

String, for example existing_resource_group.

platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.profile

The new dedicated host to create. If you specify a value for platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.name, this parameter is not required.

Valid IBM Cloud VPC dedicated host profile, such as cx2-host-152x304. [2]

platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.name

An existing dedicated host. If you specify a value for platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.profile, this parameter is not required.

String, for example my-dedicated-host-name.

platform.ibmcloud.type

The instance type for all IBM Cloud VPC machines.

Valid IBM Cloud VPC instance type, such as bx2-8x32. [2]

platform.ibmcloud.vpcName

The name of the existing VPC that you want to deploy your cluster to.

String.

platform.ibmcloud.controlPlaneSubnets

The name(s) of the existing subnet(s) in your VPC that you want to deploy your control plane machines to. Specify a subnet for each availability zone.

String array

platform.ibmcloud.computeSubnets

The name(s) of the existing subnet(s) in your VPC that you want to deploy your compute machines to. Specify a subnet for each availability zone. Subnet IDs are not supported.

String array

  1. Whether you define an existing resource group, or if the installer creates one, determines how the resource group is treated when the cluster is uninstalled. If you define a resource group, the installer removes all of the installer-provisioned resources, but leaves the resource group alone; if a resource group is created as part of the installation, the installer removes all of the installer provisioned resources and the resource group.
  2. To determine which profile best meets your needs, see Instance Profiles in the IBM documentation.

10.4.6.2. Minimum resource requirements for cluster installation

Each cluster machine must meet the following minimum requirements:

Table 10.7. Minimum resource requirements

MachineOperating SystemvCPUVirtual RAMStorageIOPS

Bootstrap

RHCOS

4

16 GB

100 GB

300

Control plane

RHCOS

4

16 GB

100 GB

300

Compute

RHCOS

2

8 GB

100 GB

300

If an instance type for your platform meets the minimum requirements for cluster machines, it is supported to use in OpenShift Container Platform.

Additional resources

10.4.6.3. Sample customized install-config.yaml file for IBM Cloud VPC

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

Important

This sample YAML file is provided for reference only. You must obtain your install-config.yaml file by using the installation program and then modify it. 

apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: example.com 1
controlPlane: 2 3
  hyperthreading: Enabled 4
  name: master
  platform:
    ibmcloud: {}
  replicas: 3
compute: 5 6
- hyperthreading: Enabled 7
  name: worker
  platform:
    ibmcloud: {}
  replicas: 3
metadata:
  name: test-cluster 8
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16
  networkType: OVNKubernetes 9
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  ibmcloud:
    region: us-south 10
credentialsMode: Manual
publish: External
pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}' 11
fips: false 12
sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA... 13
1 8 10 11
Required. The installation program prompts you for this value.
2 5
If you do not provide these parameters and values, the installation program provides the default value.
3 6
The controlPlane section is a single mapping, but the compute section is a sequence of mappings. To meet the requirements of the different data structures, the first line of the compute section must begin with a hyphen, -, and the first line of the controlPlane section must not. Only one control plane pool is used.
4 7
Enables or disables simultaneous multithreading, also known as Hyper-Threading. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores. You can disable it by setting the parameter value to Disabled. If you disable simultaneous multithreading in some cluster machines, you must disable it in all cluster machines.
Important

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance. Use larger machine types, such as n1-standard-8, for your machines if you disable simultaneous multithreading.

9
The cluster network plugin to install. The supported values are OVNKubernetes and OpenShiftSDN. The default value is OVNKubernetes.
12
Enables or disables FIPS mode. By default, FIPS mode is not enabled. If FIPS mode is enabled, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machines that OpenShift Container Platform runs on bypass the default Kubernetes cryptography suite and use the cryptography modules that are provided with RHCOS instead.
Important

To enable FIPS mode for your cluster, you must run the installation program from a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) computer configured to operate in FIPS mode. For more information about configuring FIPS mode on RHEL, see Installing the system in FIPS mode. The use of FIPS Validated or Modules in Process cryptographic libraries is only supported on OpenShift Container Platform deployments on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures.

13
Optional: provide the sshKey value that you use to access the machines in your cluster.
Note

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

10.4.6.4. Configuring the cluster-wide proxy during installation

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

Prerequisites

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

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

    Note

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

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

Procedure

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

    apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: my.domain.com
proxy:
  httpProxy: http://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> 1
  httpsProxy: https://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> 2
  noProxy: example.com 3
additionalTrustBundle: | 4
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    <MY_TRUSTED_CA_CERT>
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
additionalTrustBundlePolicy: <policy_to_add_additionalTrustBundle> 5
    1
    A proxy URL to use for creating HTTP connections outside the cluster. The URL scheme must be http.
    2
    A proxy URL to use for creating HTTPS connections outside the cluster.
    3
    A comma-separated list of destination domain names, IP addresses, or other network CIDRs to exclude from proxying. Preface a domain with . to match subdomains only. For example, .y.com matches x.y.com, but not y.com. Use * to bypass the proxy for all destinations.
    4
    If provided, the installation program generates a config map that is named user-ca-bundle in the openshift-config namespace that contains one or more additional CA certificates that are required for proxying HTTPS connections. The Cluster Network Operator then creates a trusted-ca-bundle config map that merges these contents with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) trust bundle, and this config map is referenced in the trustedCA field of the Proxy object. The additionalTrustBundle field is required unless the proxy’s identity certificate is signed by an authority from the RHCOS trust bundle.
    5
    Optional: The policy to determine the configuration of the Proxy object to reference the user-ca-bundle config map in the trustedCA field. The allowed values are Proxyonly and Always. Use Proxyonly to reference the user-ca-bundle config map only when http/https proxy is configured. Use Always to always reference the user-ca-bundle config map. The default value is Proxyonly.
    Note

    The installation program does not support the proxy readinessEndpoints field.

    Note

    If the installer times out, restart and then complete the deployment by using the wait-for command of the installer. For example: 

    $ ./openshift-install wait-for install-complete --log-level debug
  2. Save the file and reference it when installing OpenShift Container Platform.

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

Note

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

10.4.7. Manually creating IAM for IBM Cloud VPC

Installing the cluster requires that the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) operate in manual mode. While the installation program configures the CCO for manual mode, you must specify the identity and access management secrets for you cloud provider.

You can use the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) utility (ccoctl) to create the required IBM Cloud VPC resources.

Prerequisites

  • You have configured the ccoctl binary.
  • You have an existing install-config.yaml file.

Procedure

  1. Edit the install-config.yaml configuration file so that it contains the credentialsMode parameter set to Manual.

    Example install-config.yaml configuration file

    apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: cluster1.example.com
credentialsMode: Manual 1
compute:
- architecture: amd64
  hyperthreading: Enabled

    1
    This line is added to set the credentialsMode parameter to Manual.

  2. To generate the manifests, run the following command from the directory that contains the installation program: 

    $ openshift-install create manifests --dir <installation_directory>

  3. From the directory that contains the installation program, obtain the OpenShift Container Platform release image that your openshift-install binary is built to use: 

    $ RELEASE_IMAGE=$(./openshift-install version | awk '/release image/ {print $3}')

  4. Extract the CredentialsRequest objects from the OpenShift Container Platform release image: 

    $ oc adm release extract --cloud=ibmcloud --credentials-requests $RELEASE_IMAGE \
    --to=<path_to_credential_requests_directory> 1
    1
    The directory where the credential requests will be stored.

    This command creates a YAML file for each CredentialsRequest object.

    Sample CredentialsRequest object

      apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
  kind: CredentialsRequest
  metadata:
    labels:
      controller-tools.k8s.io: "1.0"
    name: openshift-image-registry-ibmcos
    namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator
  spec:
    secretRef:
      name: installer-cloud-credentials
      namespace: openshift-image-registry
    providerSpec:
      apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
      kind: IBMCloudProviderSpec
      policies:
      - attributes:
        - name: serviceName
          value: cloud-object-storage
        roles:
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Viewer
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Operator
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Editor
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::serviceRole:Reader
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::serviceRole:Writer
      - attributes:
        - name: resourceType
          value: resource-group
        roles:
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Viewer

  5. If your cluster uses cluster capabilities to disable one or more optional components, delete the CredentialsRequest custom resources for any disabled components.

    Example credrequests directory contents for OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 on IBM Cloud VPC

    0000_26_cloud-controller-manager-operator_15_credentialsrequest-ibm.yaml 1
0000_30_machine-api-operator_00_credentials-request.yaml 2
0000_50_cluster-image-registry-operator_01-registry-credentials-request-ibmcos.yaml 3
0000_50_cluster-ingress-operator_00-ingress-credentials-request.yaml 4
0000_50_cluster-storage-operator_03_credentials_request_ibm.yaml 5

    1
    The Cloud Controller Manager Operator CR is required.
    2
    The Machine API Operator CR is required.
    3
    The Image Registry Operator CR is required.
    4
    The Ingress Operator CR is required.
    5
    The Storage Operator CR is an optional component and might be disabled in your cluster.

  6. Create the service ID for each credential request, assign the policies defined, create an API key in IBM Cloud VPC, and generate the secret: 

    $ ccoctl ibmcloud create-service-id \
    --credentials-requests-dir <path_to_credential_requests_directory> \ 1
    --name <cluster_name> \ 2
    --output-dir <installation_directory> \
    --resource-group-name <resource_group_name> 3
    1
    The directory where the credential requests are stored.
    2
    The name of the OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
    3
    Optional: The name of the resource group used for scoping the access policies.
    Note

    If your cluster uses Technology Preview features that are enabled by the TechPreviewNoUpgrade feature set, you must include the --enable-tech-preview parameter.

    If an incorrect resource group name is provided, the installation fails during the bootstrap phase. To find the correct resource group name, run the following command: 

    $ grep resourceGroupName <installation_directory>/manifests/cluster-infrastructure-02-config.yml

Verification

  • Ensure that the appropriate secrets were generated in your cluster’s manifests directory.

10.4.8. Deploying the cluster

You can install OpenShift Container Platform on a compatible cloud platform.

Important

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

Prerequisites

  • Configure an account with the cloud platform that hosts your cluster.
  • Obtain the OpenShift Container Platform installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
  • Verify the cloud provider account on your host has the correct permissions to deploy the cluster. An account with incorrect permissions causes the installation process to fail with an error message that displays the missing permissions.

Procedure

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

    $ ./openshift-install create cluster --dir <installation_directory> \ 1
    --log-level=info 2
    1
    For <installation_directory>, specify the location of your customized ./install-config.yaml file.
    2
    To view different installation details, specify warn, debug, or error instead of info.
    Note

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

Verification

When the cluster deployment completes successfully:

  • The terminal displays directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to the web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user.
  • Credential information also outputs to <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log.
Important

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

Example output

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

Important
  • The Ignition config files that the installation program generates contain certificates that expire after 24 hours, which are then renewed at that time. If the cluster is shut down before renewing the certificates and the cluster is later restarted after the 24 hours have elapsed, the cluster automatically recovers the expired certificates. The exception is that you must manually approve the pending node-bootstrapper certificate signing requests (CSRs) to recover kubelet certificates. See the documentation for Recovering from expired control plane certificates for more information.
  • It is recommended that you use Ignition config files within 12 hours after they are generated because the 24-hour certificate rotates from 16 to 22 hours after the cluster is installed. By using the Ignition config files within 12 hours, you can avoid installation failure if the certificate update runs during installation.

10.4.9. Installing the OpenShift CLI by downloading the binary

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

Important

If you installed an earlier version of oc, you cannot use it to complete all of the commands in OpenShift Container Platform 4.12. Download and install the new version of oc.

Installing the OpenShift CLI on Linux

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the architecture from the Product Variant drop-down list.
  3. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
  4. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 Linux Client entry and save the file.

  5. Unpack the archive: 

    $ tar xvf <file>

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

    To check your PATH, execute the following command: 

    $ echo $PATH

Verification

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

    $ oc <command>
Installing the OpenShift CLI on Windows

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 Windows Client entry and save the file.
  4. Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.

  5. Move the oc binary to a directory that is on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, open the command prompt and execute the following command: 

    C:\> path

Verification

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

    C:\> oc <command>
Installing the OpenShift CLI on macOS

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.

  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 macOS Client entry and save the file.

    Note

    For macOS arm64, choose the OpenShift v4.12 macOS arm64 Client entry.

  4. Unpack and unzip the archive.

  5. Move the oc binary to a directory on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, open a terminal and execute the following command: 

    $ echo $PATH

Verification

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

    $ oc <command>

10.4.10. Logging in to the cluster by using the CLI

You can log in to your cluster as a default system user by exporting the cluster kubeconfig file. The kubeconfig file contains information about the cluster that is used by the CLI to connect a client to the correct cluster and API server. The file is specific to a cluster and is created during OpenShift Container Platform installation.

Prerequisites

  • You deployed an OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
  • You installed the oc CLI.

Procedure

  1. Export the kubeadmin credentials: 

    $ export KUBECONFIG=<installation_directory>/auth/kubeconfig 1
    1
    For <installation_directory>, specify the path to the directory that you stored the installation files in.

  2. Verify you can run oc commands successfully using the exported configuration: 

    $ oc whoami

    Example output

    system:admin

Additional resources

10.4.11. Telemetry access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, the Telemetry service, which runs by default to provide metrics about cluster health and the success of updates, requires internet access. If your cluster is connected to the internet, Telemetry runs automatically, and your cluster is registered to OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console.

After you confirm that your OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console inventory is correct, either maintained automatically by Telemetry or manually by using OpenShift Cluster Manager, use subscription watch to track your OpenShift Container Platform subscriptions at the account or multi-cluster level.

Additional resources

10.4.12. Next steps

10.5. Installing a cluster on IBM Cloud VPC with network customizations

In OpenShift Container Platform version 4.12, you can install a cluster with a customized network configuration on infrastructure that the installation program provisions on IBM Cloud VPC. By customizing your network configuration, your cluster can coexist with existing IP address allocations in your environment and integrate with existing MTU and VXLAN configurations. To customize the installation, you modify parameters in the install-config.yaml file before you install the cluster.

You must set most of the network configuration parameters during installation, and you can modify only kubeProxy configuration parameters in a running cluster.

10.5.1. Prerequisites

10.5.2. Internet access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, you require access to the internet to install your cluster.

You must have internet access to:

  • Access OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console to download the installation program and perform subscription management. If the cluster has internet access and you do not disable Telemetry, that service automatically entitles your cluster.
  • Access Quay.io to obtain the packages that are required to install your cluster.
  • Obtain the packages that are required to perform cluster updates.
Important

If your cluster cannot have direct internet access, you can perform a restricted network installation on some types of infrastructure that you provision. During that process, you download the required content and use it to populate a mirror registry with the installation packages. With some installation types, the environment that you install your cluster in will not require internet access. Before you update the cluster, you update the content of the mirror registry.

10.5.3. Generating a key pair for cluster node SSH access

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

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

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

Important

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

Note

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

Procedure

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

    $ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N '' -f <path>/<file_name> 1
    1
    Specify the path and file name, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, of the new SSH key. If you have an existing key pair, ensure your public key is in the your ~/.ssh directory.
    Note

    If you plan to install an OpenShift Container Platform cluster that uses FIPS validated or Modules In Process cryptographic libraries on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures. do not create a key that uses the ed25519 algorithm. Instead, create a key that uses the rsa or ecdsa algorithm.

  2. View the public SSH key: 

    $ cat <path>/<file_name>.pub

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

    $ cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

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

    Note

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

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

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

      Example output

      Agent pid 31874

      Note

      If your cluster is in FIPS mode, only use FIPS-compliant algorithms to generate the SSH key. The key must be either RSA or ECDSA.

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

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

    Example output

    Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)

Next steps

  • When you install OpenShift Container Platform, provide the SSH public key to the installation program.

10.5.4. Obtaining the installation program

Before you install OpenShift Container Platform, download the installation file on the host you are using for installation.

Prerequisites

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

Procedure

  1. Access the Infrastructure Provider page on the OpenShift Cluster Manager site. If you have a Red Hat account, log in with your credentials. If you do not, create an account.
  2. Select your infrastructure provider.

  3. Navigate to the page for your installation type, download the installation program that corresponds with your host operating system and architecture, and place the file in the directory where you will store the installation configuration files.

    Important

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

    Important

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

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

    $ tar -xvf openshift-install-linux.tar.gz
  5. Download your installation pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager. This pull secret allows you to authenticate with the services that are provided by the included authorities, including Quay.io, which serves the container images for OpenShift Container Platform components.

10.5.5. Exporting the IBM Cloud VPC API key

You must set the IBM Cloud VPC API key you created as a global variable; the installation program ingests the variable during startup to set the API key.

Prerequisites

  • You have created either a user API key or service ID API key for your IBM Cloud account.

Procedure

  • Export your IBM Cloud VPC API key as a global variable: 

    $ export IC_API_KEY=<api_key>
Important

You must set the variable name exactly as specified; the installation program expects the variable name to be present during startup.

10.5.6. Creating the installation configuration file

You can customize the OpenShift Container Platform cluster you install on IBM Cloud.

Prerequisites

  • Obtain the OpenShift Container Platform installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
  • Obtain service principal permissions at the subscription level.

Procedure

  1. Create the install-config.yaml file.

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

      $ ./openshift-install create install-config --dir <installation_directory> 1
      1
      For <installation_directory>, specify the directory name to store the files that the installation program creates.

      When specifying the directory:

      • Verify that the directory has the execute permission. This permission is required to run Terraform binaries under the installation directory.
      • Use an empty directory. Some installation assets, such as bootstrap X.509 certificates, have short expiration intervals, therefore you must not reuse an installation directory. If you want to reuse individual files from another cluster installation, you can copy them into your directory. However, the file names for the installation assets might change between releases. Use caution when copying installation files from an earlier OpenShift Container Platform version.

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

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

        Note

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

      2. Select ibmcloud as the platform to target.
      3. Select the region to deploy the cluster to.
      4. Select the base domain to deploy the cluster to. The base domain corresponds to the public DNS zone that you created for your cluster.
      5. Enter a descriptive name for your cluster.
      6. Paste the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager.
  2. Modify the install-config.yaml file. You can find more information about the available parameters in the "Installation configuration parameters" section.

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

    Important

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

10.5.6.1. Installation configuration parameters

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

Note

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

10.5.6.1.1. Required configuration parameters

Required installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.8. Required parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

apiVersion

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

String

baseDomain

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

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

metadata

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

Object

metadata.name

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

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

platform

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

Object

pullSecret

Get a pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager to authenticate downloading container images for OpenShift Container Platform components from services such as Quay.io. 

{
   "auths":{
      "cloud.openshift.com":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      },
      "quay.io":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      }
   }
}
10.5.6.1.2. Network configuration parameters

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

Only IPv4 addresses are supported.

Note

Globalnet is not supported with Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation disaster recovery solutions. For regional disaster recovery scenarios, ensure that you use a nonoverlapping range of private IP addresses for the cluster and service networks in each cluster.

Table 10.9. Network parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

networking

The configuration for the cluster network.

Object

Note

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

networking.networkType

The Red Hat OpenShift Networking network plugin to install.

Either OpenShiftSDN or OVNKubernetes. OpenShiftSDN is a CNI plugin for all-Linux networks. OVNKubernetes is a CNI plugin for Linux networks and hybrid networks that contain both Linux and Windows servers. The default value is OVNKubernetes.

networking.clusterNetwork

The IP address blocks for pods.

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

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

An array of objects. For example: 

networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23

networking.clusterNetwork.cidr

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

An IPv4 network.

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

networking.clusterNetwork.hostPrefix

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

A subnet prefix.

The default value is 23.

networking.serviceNetwork

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

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

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

networking:
  serviceNetwork:
   - 172.30.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork

The IP address blocks for machines.

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

An array of objects. For example: 

networking:
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork.cidr

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

An IP network block in CIDR notation.

For example, 10.0.0.0/16.

Note

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

10.5.6.1.3. Optional configuration parameters

Optional installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.10. Optional parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

additionalTrustBundle

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

String

capabilities

Controls the installation of optional core cluster components. You can reduce the footprint of your OpenShift Container Platform cluster by disabling optional components. For more information, see the "Cluster capabilities" page in Installing.

String array

capabilities.baselineCapabilitySet

Selects an initial set of optional capabilities to enable. Valid values are None, v4.11, v4.12 and vCurrent. The default value is vCurrent.

String

capabilities.additionalEnabledCapabilities

Extends the set of optional capabilities beyond what you specify in baselineCapabilitySet. You may specify multiple capabilities in this parameter.

String array

compute

The configuration for the machines that comprise the compute nodes.

Array of MachinePool objects.

compute.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

String

compute.hyperthreading

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

Important

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

Enabled or Disabled

compute.name

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

worker

compute.platform

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

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

compute.replicas

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

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

featureSet

Enables the cluster for a feature set. A feature set is a collection of OpenShift Container Platform features that are not enabled by default. For more information about enabling a feature set during installation, see "Enabling features using feature gates".

String. The name of the feature set to enable, such as TechPreviewNoUpgrade.

controlPlane

The configuration for the machines that comprise the control plane.

Array of MachinePool objects.

controlPlane.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

String

controlPlane.hyperthreading

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

Important

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

Enabled or Disabled

controlPlane.name

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

master

controlPlane.platform

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

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

controlPlane.replicas

The number of control plane machines to provision.

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

credentialsMode

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

Note

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

Note

If your AWS account has service control policies (SCP) enabled, you must configure the credentialsMode parameter to Mint, Passthrough or Manual.

Mint, Passthrough, Manual or an empty string ("").

fips

Enable or disable FIPS mode. The default is false (disabled). If FIPS mode is enabled, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machines that OpenShift Container Platform runs on bypass the default Kubernetes cryptography suite and use the cryptography modules that are provided with RHCOS instead.

Important

To enable FIPS mode for your cluster, you must run the installation program from a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) computer configured to operate in FIPS mode. For more information about configuring FIPS mode on RHEL, see Installing the system in FIPS mode. The use of FIPS validated or Modules In Process cryptographic libraries is only supported on OpenShift Container Platform deployments on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures.

Note

If you are using Azure File storage, you cannot enable FIPS mode.

false or true

imageContentSources

Sources and repositories for the release-image content.

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

imageContentSources.source

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

String

imageContentSources.mirrors

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

Array of strings

publish

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

Internal or External. To deploy a private cluster, which cannot be accessed from the internet, set publish to Internal. The default value is External.

sshKey

The SSH key to authenticate access to your cluster machines.

Note

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

For example, sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA...

10.5.6.1.4. Additional IBM Cloud VPC configuration parameters

Additional IBM Cloud VPC configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.11. Additional IBM Cloud VPC parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

platform.ibmcloud.resourceGroupName

The name of an existing resource group to install your cluster to. This resource group must only be used for this specific cluster because the cluster components assume ownership of all of the resources in the resource group. If undefined, a new resource group is created for the cluster. [1]

String, for example existing_resource_group.

platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.profile

The new dedicated host to create. If you specify a value for platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.name, this parameter is not required.

Valid IBM Cloud VPC dedicated host profile, such as cx2-host-152x304. [2]

platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.name

An existing dedicated host. If you specify a value for platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.profile, this parameter is not required.

String, for example my-dedicated-host-name.

platform.ibmcloud.type

The instance type for all IBM Cloud VPC machines.

Valid IBM Cloud VPC instance type, such as bx2-8x32. [2]

platform.ibmcloud.vpcName

The name of the existing VPC that you want to deploy your cluster to.

String.

platform.ibmcloud.controlPlaneSubnets

The name(s) of the existing subnet(s) in your VPC that you want to deploy your control plane machines to. Specify a subnet for each availability zone.

String array

platform.ibmcloud.computeSubnets

The name(s) of the existing subnet(s) in your VPC that you want to deploy your compute machines to. Specify a subnet for each availability zone. Subnet IDs are not supported.

String array

  1. Whether you define an existing resource group, or if the installer creates one, determines how the resource group is treated when the cluster is uninstalled. If you define a resource group, the installer removes all of the installer-provisioned resources, but leaves the resource group alone; if a resource group is created as part of the installation, the installer removes all of the installer provisioned resources and the resource group.
  2. To determine which profile best meets your needs, see Instance Profiles in the IBM documentation.

10.5.6.2. Minimum resource requirements for cluster installation

Each cluster machine must meet the following minimum requirements:

Table 10.12. Minimum resource requirements

MachineOperating SystemvCPUVirtual RAMStorageIOPS

Bootstrap

RHCOS

4

16 GB

100 GB

300

Control plane

RHCOS

4

16 GB

100 GB

300

Compute

RHCOS

2

8 GB

100 GB

300

If an instance type for your platform meets the minimum requirements for cluster machines, it is supported to use in OpenShift Container Platform.

Additional resources

10.5.6.3. Sample customized install-config.yaml file for IBM Cloud VPC

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

Important

This sample YAML file is provided for reference only. You must obtain your install-config.yaml file by using the installation program and then modify it. 

apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: example.com 1
controlPlane: 2 3
  hyperthreading: Enabled 4
  name: master
  platform:
    ibmcloud: {}
  replicas: 3
compute: 5 6
- hyperthreading: Enabled 7
  name: worker
  platform:
    ibmcloud: {}
  replicas: 3
metadata:
  name: test-cluster 8
networking: 9
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16
  networkType: OVNKubernetes 10
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  ibmcloud:
    region: us-south 11
credentialsMode: Manual
publish: External
pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}' 12
fips: false 13
sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA... 14
1 8 11 12
Required. The installation program prompts you for this value.
2 5 9
If you do not provide these parameters and values, the installation program provides the default value.
3 6
The controlPlane section is a single mapping, but the compute section is a sequence of mappings. To meet the requirements of the different data structures, the first line of the compute section must begin with a hyphen, -, and the first line of the controlPlane section must not. Only one control plane pool is used.
4 7
Enables or disables simultaneous multithreading, also known as Hyper-Threading. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores. You can disable it by setting the parameter value to Disabled. If you disable simultaneous multithreading in some cluster machines, you must disable it in all cluster machines.
Important

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance. Use larger machine types, such as n1-standard-8, for your machines if you disable simultaneous multithreading.

10
The cluster network plugin to install. The supported values are OVNKubernetes and OpenShiftSDN. The default value is OVNKubernetes.
13
Enables or disables FIPS mode. By default, FIPS mode is not enabled. If FIPS mode is enabled, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machines that OpenShift Container Platform runs on bypass the default Kubernetes cryptography suite and use the cryptography modules that are provided with RHCOS instead.
Important

To enable FIPS mode for your cluster, you must run the installation program from a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) computer configured to operate in FIPS mode. For more information about configuring FIPS mode on RHEL, see Installing the system in FIPS mode. The use of FIPS Validated or Modules in Process cryptographic libraries is only supported on OpenShift Container Platform deployments on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures.

14
Optional: provide the sshKey value that you use to access the machines in your cluster.
Note

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

10.5.6.4. Configuring the cluster-wide proxy during installation

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

Prerequisites

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

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

    Note

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

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

Procedure

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

    apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: my.domain.com
proxy:
  httpProxy: http://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> 1
  httpsProxy: https://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> 2
  noProxy: example.com 3
additionalTrustBundle: | 4
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    <MY_TRUSTED_CA_CERT>
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
additionalTrustBundlePolicy: <policy_to_add_additionalTrustBundle> 5
    1
    A proxy URL to use for creating HTTP connections outside the cluster. The URL scheme must be http.
    2
    A proxy URL to use for creating HTTPS connections outside the cluster.
    3
    A comma-separated list of destination domain names, IP addresses, or other network CIDRs to exclude from proxying. Preface a domain with . to match subdomains only. For example, .y.com matches x.y.com, but not y.com. Use * to bypass the proxy for all destinations.
    4
    If provided, the installation program generates a config map that is named user-ca-bundle in the openshift-config namespace that contains one or more additional CA certificates that are required for proxying HTTPS connections. The Cluster Network Operator then creates a trusted-ca-bundle config map that merges these contents with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) trust bundle, and this config map is referenced in the trustedCA field of the Proxy object. The additionalTrustBundle field is required unless the proxy’s identity certificate is signed by an authority from the RHCOS trust bundle.
    5
    Optional: The policy to determine the configuration of the Proxy object to reference the user-ca-bundle config map in the trustedCA field. The allowed values are Proxyonly and Always. Use Proxyonly to reference the user-ca-bundle config map only when http/https proxy is configured. Use Always to always reference the user-ca-bundle config map. The default value is Proxyonly.
    Note

    The installation program does not support the proxy readinessEndpoints field.

    Note

    If the installer times out, restart and then complete the deployment by using the wait-for command of the installer. For example: 

    $ ./openshift-install wait-for install-complete --log-level debug
  2. Save the file and reference it when installing OpenShift Container Platform.

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

Note

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

10.5.7. Manually creating IAM for IBM Cloud VPC

Installing the cluster requires that the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) operate in manual mode. While the installation program configures the CCO for manual mode, you must specify the identity and access management secrets for you cloud provider.

You can use the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) utility (ccoctl) to create the required IBM Cloud VPC resources.

Prerequisites

  • You have configured the ccoctl binary.
  • You have an existing install-config.yaml file.

Procedure

  1. Edit the install-config.yaml configuration file so that it contains the credentialsMode parameter set to Manual.

    Example install-config.yaml configuration file

    apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: cluster1.example.com
credentialsMode: Manual 1
compute:
- architecture: amd64
  hyperthreading: Enabled

    1
    This line is added to set the credentialsMode parameter to Manual.

  2. To generate the manifests, run the following command from the directory that contains the installation program: 

    $ openshift-install create manifests --dir <installation_directory>

  3. From the directory that contains the installation program, obtain the OpenShift Container Platform release image that your openshift-install binary is built to use: 

    $ RELEASE_IMAGE=$(./openshift-install version | awk '/release image/ {print $3}')

  4. Extract the CredentialsRequest objects from the OpenShift Container Platform release image: 

    $ oc adm release extract --cloud=ibmcloud --credentials-requests $RELEASE_IMAGE \
    --to=<path_to_credential_requests_directory> 1
    1
    The directory where the credential requests will be stored.

    This command creates a YAML file for each CredentialsRequest object.

    Sample CredentialsRequest object

      apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
  kind: CredentialsRequest
  metadata:
    labels:
      controller-tools.k8s.io: "1.0"
    name: openshift-image-registry-ibmcos
    namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator
  spec:
    secretRef:
      name: installer-cloud-credentials
      namespace: openshift-image-registry
    providerSpec:
      apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
      kind: IBMCloudProviderSpec
      policies:
      - attributes:
        - name: serviceName
          value: cloud-object-storage
        roles:
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Viewer
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Operator
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Editor
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::serviceRole:Reader
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::serviceRole:Writer
      - attributes:
        - name: resourceType
          value: resource-group
        roles:
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Viewer

  5. If your cluster uses cluster capabilities to disable one or more optional components, delete the CredentialsRequest custom resources for any disabled components.

    Example credrequests directory contents for OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 on IBM Cloud VPC

    0000_26_cloud-controller-manager-operator_15_credentialsrequest-ibm.yaml 1
0000_30_machine-api-operator_00_credentials-request.yaml 2
0000_50_cluster-image-registry-operator_01-registry-credentials-request-ibmcos.yaml 3
0000_50_cluster-ingress-operator_00-ingress-credentials-request.yaml 4
0000_50_cluster-storage-operator_03_credentials_request_ibm.yaml 5

    1
    The Cloud Controller Manager Operator CR is required.
    2
    The Machine API Operator CR is required.
    3
    The Image Registry Operator CR is required.
    4
    The Ingress Operator CR is required.
    5
    The Storage Operator CR is an optional component and might be disabled in your cluster.

  6. Create the service ID for each credential request, assign the policies defined, create an API key in IBM Cloud VPC, and generate the secret: 

    $ ccoctl ibmcloud create-service-id \
    --credentials-requests-dir <path_to_credential_requests_directory> \ 1
    --name <cluster_name> \ 2
    --output-dir <installation_directory> \
    --resource-group-name <resource_group_name> 3
    1
    The directory where the credential requests are stored.
    2
    The name of the OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
    3
    Optional: The name of the resource group used for scoping the access policies.
    Note

    If your cluster uses Technology Preview features that are enabled by the TechPreviewNoUpgrade feature set, you must include the --enable-tech-preview parameter.

    If an incorrect resource group name is provided, the installation fails during the bootstrap phase. To find the correct resource group name, run the following command: 

    $ grep resourceGroupName <installation_directory>/manifests/cluster-infrastructure-02-config.yml

Verification

  • Ensure that the appropriate secrets were generated in your cluster’s manifests directory.

10.5.8. Network configuration phases

There are two phases prior to OpenShift Container Platform installation where you can customize the network configuration.

Phase 1

You can customize the following network-related fields in the install-config.yaml file before you create the manifest files:

  • networking.networkType
  • networking.clusterNetwork
  • networking.serviceNetwork

  • networking.machineNetwork

    For more information on these fields, refer to Installation configuration parameters.

    Note

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

    Important

    The CIDR range 172.17.0.0/16 is reserved by libVirt. You cannot use this range or any range that overlaps with this range for any networks in your cluster.

Phase 2
After creating the manifest files by running openshift-install create manifests, you can define a customized Cluster Network Operator manifest with only the fields you want to modify. You can use the manifest to specify advanced network configuration.

You cannot override the values specified in phase 1 in the install-config.yaml file during phase 2. However, you can further customize the network plugin during phase 2.

10.5.9. Specifying advanced network configuration

You can use advanced network configuration for your network plugin to integrate your cluster into your existing network environment. You can specify advanced network configuration only before you install the cluster.

Important

Customizing your network configuration by modifying the OpenShift Container Platform manifest files created by the installation program is not supported. Applying a manifest file that you create, as in the following procedure, is supported.

Prerequisites

  • You have created the install-config.yaml file and completed any modifications to it.

Procedure

  1. Change to the directory that contains the installation program and create the manifests: 

    $ ./openshift-install create manifests --dir <installation_directory> 1
    1
    <installation_directory> specifies the name of the directory that contains the install-config.yaml file for your cluster.

  2. Create a stub manifest file for the advanced network configuration that is named cluster-network-03-config.yml in the <installation_directory>/manifests/ directory: 

    apiVersion: operator.openshift.io/v1
kind: Network
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:

  3. Specify the advanced network configuration for your cluster in the cluster-network-03-config.yml file, such as in the following example:

    Specify a different VXLAN port for the OpenShift SDN network provider

    apiVersion: operator.openshift.io/v1
kind: Network
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:
  defaultNetwork:
    openshiftSDNConfig:
      vxlanPort: 4800

  4. Optional: Back up the manifests/cluster-network-03-config.yml file. The installation program consumes the manifests/ directory when you create the Ignition config files.

10.5.10. Cluster Network Operator configuration

The configuration for the cluster network is specified as part of the Cluster Network Operator (CNO) configuration and stored in a custom resource (CR) object that is named cluster. The CR specifies the fields for the Network API in the operator.openshift.io API group.

The CNO configuration inherits the following fields during cluster installation from the Network API in the Network.config.openshift.io API group and these fields cannot be changed:

clusterNetwork
IP address pools from which pod IP addresses are allocated.
serviceNetwork
IP address pool for services.
defaultNetwork.type
Cluster network plugin, such as OpenShift SDN or OVN-Kubernetes.

You can specify the cluster network plugin configuration for your cluster by setting the fields for the defaultNetwork object in the CNO object named cluster.

10.5.10.1. Cluster Network Operator configuration object

The fields for the Cluster Network Operator (CNO) are described in the following table:

Table 10.13. Cluster Network Operator configuration object

FieldTypeDescription

metadata.name

string

The name of the CNO object. This name is always cluster.

spec.clusterNetwork

array

A list specifying the blocks of IP addresses from which pod IP addresses are allocated and the subnet prefix length assigned to each individual node in the cluster. For example: 

spec:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/19
    hostPrefix: 23
  - cidr: 10.128.32.0/19
    hostPrefix: 23

You can customize this field only in the install-config.yaml file before you create the manifests. The value is read-only in the manifest file.

spec.serviceNetwork

array

A block of IP addresses for services. The OpenShift SDN and OVN-Kubernetes network plugins support only a single IP address block for the service network. For example: 

spec:
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/14

You can customize this field only in the install-config.yaml file before you create the manifests. The value is read-only in the manifest file.

spec.defaultNetwork

object

Configures the network plugin for the cluster network.

spec.kubeProxyConfig

object

The fields for this object specify the kube-proxy configuration. If you are using the OVN-Kubernetes cluster network plugin, the kube-proxy configuration has no effect.

defaultNetwork object configuration

The values for the defaultNetwork object are defined in the following table:

Table 10.14. defaultNetwork object

FieldTypeDescription

type

string

Either OpenShiftSDN or OVNKubernetes. The Red Hat OpenShift Networking network plugin is selected during installation. This value cannot be changed after cluster installation.

Note

OpenShift Container Platform uses the OVN-Kubernetes network plugin by default.

openshiftSDNConfig

object

This object is only valid for the OpenShift SDN network plugin.

ovnKubernetesConfig

object

This object is only valid for the OVN-Kubernetes network plugin.

Configuration for the OpenShift SDN network plugin

The following table describes the configuration fields for the OpenShift SDN network plugin:

Table 10.15. openshiftSDNConfig object

FieldTypeDescription

mode

string

Configures the network isolation mode for OpenShift SDN. The default value is NetworkPolicy.

The values Multitenant and Subnet are available for backwards compatibility with OpenShift Container Platform 3.x but are not recommended. This value cannot be changed after cluster installation.

mtu

integer

The maximum transmission unit (MTU) for the VXLAN overlay network. This is detected automatically based on the MTU of the primary network interface. You do not normally need to override the detected MTU.

If the auto-detected value is not what you expect it to be, confirm that the MTU on the primary network interface on your nodes is correct. You cannot use this option to change the MTU value of the primary network interface on the nodes.

If your cluster requires different MTU values for different nodes, you must set this value to 50 less than the lowest MTU value in your cluster. For example, if some nodes in your cluster have an MTU of 9001, and some have an MTU of 1500, you must set this value to 1450.

This value cannot be changed after cluster installation.

vxlanPort

integer

The port to use for all VXLAN packets. The default value is 4789. This value cannot be changed after cluster installation.

If you are running in a virtualized environment with existing nodes that are part of another VXLAN network, then you might be required to change this. For example, when running an OpenShift SDN overlay on top of VMware NSX-T, you must select an alternate port for the VXLAN, because both SDNs use the same default VXLAN port number.

On Amazon Web Services (AWS), you can select an alternate port for the VXLAN between port 9000 and port 9999.

Example OpenShift SDN configuration

defaultNetwork:
  type: OpenShiftSDN
  openshiftSDNConfig:
    mode: NetworkPolicy
    mtu: 1450
    vxlanPort: 4789

Configuration for the OVN-Kubernetes network plugin

The following table describes the configuration fields for the OVN-Kubernetes network plugin:

Table 10.16. ovnKubernetesConfig object

FieldTypeDescription

mtu

integer

The maximum transmission unit (MTU) for the Geneve (Generic Network Virtualization Encapsulation) overlay network. This is detected automatically based on the MTU of the primary network interface. You do not normally need to override the detected MTU.

If the auto-detected value is not what you expect it to be, confirm that the MTU on the primary network interface on your nodes is correct. You cannot use this option to change the MTU value of the primary network interface on the nodes.

If your cluster requires different MTU values for different nodes, you must set this value to 100 less than the lowest MTU value in your cluster. For example, if some nodes in your cluster have an MTU of 9001, and some have an MTU of 1500, you must set this value to 1400.

genevePort

integer

The port to use for all Geneve packets. The default value is 6081. This value cannot be changed after cluster installation.

policyAuditConfig

object

Specify a configuration object for customizing network policy audit logging. If unset, the defaults audit log settings are used.

gatewayConfig

object

Optional: Specify a configuration object for customizing how egress traffic is sent to the node gateway.

Note

While migrating egress traffic, you can expect some disruption to workloads and service traffic until the Cluster Network Operator (CNO) successfully rolls out the changes.

v4InternalSubnet

If your existing network infrastructure overlaps with the 100.64.0.0/16 IPv4 subnet, you can specify a different IP address range for internal use by OVN-Kubernetes. You must ensure that the IP address range does not overlap with any other subnet used by your OpenShift Container Platform installation. The IP address range must be larger than the maximum number of nodes that can be added to the cluster. For example, if the clusterNetwork.cidr value is 10.128.0.0/14 and the clusterNetwork.hostPrefix value is /23, then the maximum number of nodes is 2^(23-14)=512.

This field cannot be changed after installation.

The default value is 100.64.0.0/16.

v6InternalSubnet

If your existing network infrastructure overlaps with the fd98::/48 IPv6 subnet, you can specify a different IP address range for internal use by OVN-Kubernetes. You must ensure that the IP address range does not overlap with any other subnet used by your OpenShift Container Platform installation. The IP address range must be larger than the maximum number of nodes that can be added to the cluster.

This field cannot be changed after installation.

The default value is fd98::/48.

Note

IPsec for the OVN-Kubernetes network plugin is not supported when installing a cluster on IBM Cloud.

Table 10.17. policyAuditConfig object

FieldTypeDescription

rateLimit

integer

The maximum number of messages to generate every second per node. The default value is 20 messages per second.

maxFileSize

integer

The maximum size for the audit log in bytes. The default value is 50000000 or 50 MB.

destination

string

One of the following additional audit log targets:

libc
The libc syslog() function of the journald process on the host.
udp:<host>:<port>
A syslog server. Replace <host>:<port> with the host and port of the syslog server.
unix:<file>
A Unix Domain Socket file specified by <file>.
null
Do not send the audit logs to any additional target.

syslogFacility

string

The syslog facility, such as kern, as defined by RFC5424. The default value is local0.

Table 10.18. gatewayConfig object

FieldTypeDescription

routingViaHost

boolean

Set this field to true to send egress traffic from pods to the host networking stack. For highly-specialized installations and applications that rely on manually configured routes in the kernel routing table, you might want to route egress traffic to the host networking stack. By default, egress traffic is processed in OVN to exit the cluster and is not affected by specialized routes in the kernel routing table. The default value is false.

This field has an interaction with the Open vSwitch hardware offloading feature. If you set this field to true, you do not receive the performance benefits of the offloading because egress traffic is processed by the host networking stack.

Example OVN-Kubernetes configuration with IPSec enabled

defaultNetwork:
  type: OVNKubernetes
  ovnKubernetesConfig:
    mtu: 1400
    genevePort: 6081

kubeProxyConfig object configuration

The values for the kubeProxyConfig object are defined in the following table:

Table 10.19. kubeProxyConfig object

FieldTypeDescription

iptablesSyncPeriod

string

The refresh period for iptables rules. The default value is 30s. Valid suffixes include s, m, and h and are described in the Go time package documentation.

Note

Because of performance improvements introduced in OpenShift Container Platform 4.3 and greater, adjusting the iptablesSyncPeriod parameter is no longer necessary.

proxyArguments.iptables-min-sync-period

array

The minimum duration before refreshing iptables rules. This field ensures that the refresh does not happen too frequently. Valid suffixes include s, m, and h and are described in the Go time package. The default value is: 

kubeProxyConfig:
  proxyArguments:
    iptables-min-sync-period:
    - 0s

10.5.11. Deploying the cluster

You can install OpenShift Container Platform on a compatible cloud platform.

Important

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

Prerequisites

  • Configure an account with the cloud platform that hosts your cluster.
  • Obtain the OpenShift Container Platform installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
  • Verify the cloud provider account on your host has the correct permissions to deploy the cluster. An account with incorrect permissions causes the installation process to fail with an error message that displays the missing permissions.

Procedure

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

    $ ./openshift-install create cluster --dir <installation_directory> \ 1
    --log-level=info 2
    1
    For <installation_directory>, specify the location of your customized ./install-config.yaml file.
    2
    To view different installation details, specify warn, debug, or error instead of info.
    Note

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

Verification

When the cluster deployment completes successfully:

  • The terminal displays directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to the web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user.
  • Credential information also outputs to <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log.
Important

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

Example output

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

Important
  • The Ignition config files that the installation program generates contain certificates that expire after 24 hours, which are then renewed at that time. If the cluster is shut down before renewing the certificates and the cluster is later restarted after the 24 hours have elapsed, the cluster automatically recovers the expired certificates. The exception is that you must manually approve the pending node-bootstrapper certificate signing requests (CSRs) to recover kubelet certificates. See the documentation for Recovering from expired control plane certificates for more information.
  • It is recommended that you use Ignition config files within 12 hours after they are generated because the 24-hour certificate rotates from 16 to 22 hours after the cluster is installed. By using the Ignition config files within 12 hours, you can avoid installation failure if the certificate update runs during installation.

10.5.12. Installing the OpenShift CLI by downloading the binary

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

Important

If you installed an earlier version of oc, you cannot use it to complete all of the commands in OpenShift Container Platform 4.12. Download and install the new version of oc.

Installing the OpenShift CLI on Linux

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the architecture from the Product Variant drop-down list.
  3. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
  4. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 Linux Client entry and save the file.

  5. Unpack the archive: 

    $ tar xvf <file>

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

    To check your PATH, execute the following command: 

    $ echo $PATH

Verification

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

    $ oc <command>
Installing the OpenShift CLI on Windows

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 Windows Client entry and save the file.
  4. Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.

  5. Move the oc binary to a directory that is on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, open the command prompt and execute the following command: 

    C:\> path

Verification

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

    C:\> oc <command>
Installing the OpenShift CLI on macOS

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.

  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 macOS Client entry and save the file.

    Note

    For macOS arm64, choose the OpenShift v4.12 macOS arm64 Client entry.

  4. Unpack and unzip the archive.

  5. Move the oc binary to a directory on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, open a terminal and execute the following command: 

    $ echo $PATH

Verification

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

    $ oc <command>

10.5.13. Logging in to the cluster by using the CLI

You can log in to your cluster as a default system user by exporting the cluster kubeconfig file. The kubeconfig file contains information about the cluster that is used by the CLI to connect a client to the correct cluster and API server. The file is specific to a cluster and is created during OpenShift Container Platform installation.

Prerequisites

  • You deployed an OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
  • You installed the oc CLI.

Procedure

  1. Export the kubeadmin credentials: 

    $ export KUBECONFIG=<installation_directory>/auth/kubeconfig 1
    1
    For <installation_directory>, specify the path to the directory that you stored the installation files in.

  2. Verify you can run oc commands successfully using the exported configuration: 

    $ oc whoami

    Example output

    system:admin

Additional resources

10.5.14. Telemetry access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, the Telemetry service, which runs by default to provide metrics about cluster health and the success of updates, requires internet access. If your cluster is connected to the internet, Telemetry runs automatically, and your cluster is registered to OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console.

After you confirm that your OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console inventory is correct, either maintained automatically by Telemetry or manually by using OpenShift Cluster Manager, use subscription watch to track your OpenShift Container Platform subscriptions at the account or multi-cluster level.

Additional resources

10.5.15. Next steps

10.6. Installing a cluster on IBM Cloud VPC into an existing VPC

In OpenShift Container Platform version 4.12, you can install a cluster into an existing Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) on IBM Cloud VPC. The installation program provisions the rest of the required infrastructure, which you can then further customize. To customize the installation, you modify parameters in the install-config.yaml file before you install the cluster.

10.6.1. Prerequisites

10.6.2. About using a custom VPC

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, you can deploy a cluster into the subnets of an existing IBM Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Deploying OpenShift Container Platform into an existing VPC can help you avoid limit constraints in new accounts or more easily abide by the operational constraints that your company’s guidelines set. If you cannot obtain the infrastructure creation permissions that are required to create the VPC yourself, use this installation option.

Because the installation program cannot know what other components are in your existing subnets, it cannot choose subnet CIDRs and so forth. You must configure networking for the subnets to which you will install the cluster.

10.6.2.1. Requirements for using your VPC

You must correctly configure the existing VPC and its subnets before you install the cluster. The installation program does not create the following components:

  • NAT gateways
  • Subnets
  • Route tables
  • VPC network

The installation program cannot:

  • Subdivide network ranges for the cluster to use
  • Set route tables for the subnets
  • Set VPC options like DHCP
Note

The installation program requires that you use the cloud-provided DNS server. Using a custom DNS server is not supported and causes the installation to fail.

10.6.2.2. VPC validation

The VPC and all of the subnets must be in an existing resource group. The cluster is deployed to this resource group.

As part of the installation, specify the following in the install-config.yaml file:

  • The name of the resource group
  • The name of VPC
  • The subnets for control plane machines and compute machines

To ensure that the subnets that you provide are suitable, the installation program confirms the following:

  • All of the subnets that you specify exist.

  • For each availability zone in the region, you specify:

    • One subnet for control plane machines.
    • One subnet for compute machines.
  • The machine CIDR that you specified contains the subnets for the compute machines and control plane machines.
Note

Subnet IDs are not supported.

10.6.2.3. Isolation between clusters

If you deploy OpenShift Container Platform to an existing network, the isolation of cluster services is reduced in the following ways:

  • You can install multiple OpenShift Container Platform clusters in the same VPC.
  • ICMP ingress is allowed to the entire network.
  • TCP port 22 ingress (SSH) is allowed to the entire network.
  • Control plane TCP 6443 ingress (Kubernetes API) is allowed to the entire network.
  • Control plane TCP 22623 ingress (MCS) is allowed to the entire network.

10.6.3. Internet access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, you require access to the internet to install your cluster.

You must have internet access to:

  • Access OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console to download the installation program and perform subscription management. If the cluster has internet access and you do not disable Telemetry, that service automatically entitles your cluster.
  • Access Quay.io to obtain the packages that are required to install your cluster.
  • Obtain the packages that are required to perform cluster updates.
Important

If your cluster cannot have direct internet access, you can perform a restricted network installation on some types of infrastructure that you provision. During that process, you download the required content and use it to populate a mirror registry with the installation packages. With some installation types, the environment that you install your cluster in will not require internet access. Before you update the cluster, you update the content of the mirror registry.

10.6.4. Generating a key pair for cluster node SSH access

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

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

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

Important

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

Note

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

Procedure

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

    $ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N '' -f <path>/<file_name> 1
    1
    Specify the path and file name, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, of the new SSH key. If you have an existing key pair, ensure your public key is in the your ~/.ssh directory.
    Note

    If you plan to install an OpenShift Container Platform cluster that uses FIPS validated or Modules In Process cryptographic libraries on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures. do not create a key that uses the ed25519 algorithm. Instead, create a key that uses the rsa or ecdsa algorithm.

  2. View the public SSH key: 

    $ cat <path>/<file_name>.pub

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

    $ cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

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

    Note

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

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

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

      Example output

      Agent pid 31874

      Note

      If your cluster is in FIPS mode, only use FIPS-compliant algorithms to generate the SSH key. The key must be either RSA or ECDSA.

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

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

    Example output

    Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)

Next steps

  • When you install OpenShift Container Platform, provide the SSH public key to the installation program.

10.6.5. Obtaining the installation program

Before you install OpenShift Container Platform, download the installation file on the host you are using for installation.

Prerequisites

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

Procedure

  1. Access the Infrastructure Provider page on the OpenShift Cluster Manager site. If you have a Red Hat account, log in with your credentials. If you do not, create an account.
  2. Select your infrastructure provider.

  3. Navigate to the page for your installation type, download the installation program that corresponds with your host operating system and architecture, and place the file in the directory where you will store the installation configuration files.

    Important

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

    Important

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

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

    $ tar -xvf openshift-install-linux.tar.gz
  5. Download your installation pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager. This pull secret allows you to authenticate with the services that are provided by the included authorities, including Quay.io, which serves the container images for OpenShift Container Platform components.

10.6.6. Exporting the IBM Cloud VPC API key

You must set the IBM Cloud VPC API key you created as a global variable; the installation program ingests the variable during startup to set the API key.

Prerequisites

  • You have created either a user API key or service ID API key for your IBM Cloud account.

Procedure

  • Export your IBM Cloud VPC API key as a global variable: 

    $ export IC_API_KEY=<api_key>
Important

You must set the variable name exactly as specified; the installation program expects the variable name to be present during startup.

10.6.7. Creating the installation configuration file

You can customize the OpenShift Container Platform cluster you install on IBM Cloud.

Prerequisites

  • Obtain the OpenShift Container Platform installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
  • Obtain service principal permissions at the subscription level.

Procedure

  1. Create the install-config.yaml file.

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

      $ ./openshift-install create install-config --dir <installation_directory> 1
      1
      For <installation_directory>, specify the directory name to store the files that the installation program creates.

      When specifying the directory:

      • Verify that the directory has the execute permission. This permission is required to run Terraform binaries under the installation directory.
      • Use an empty directory. Some installation assets, such as bootstrap X.509 certificates, have short expiration intervals, therefore you must not reuse an installation directory. If you want to reuse individual files from another cluster installation, you can copy them into your directory. However, the file names for the installation assets might change between releases. Use caution when copying installation files from an earlier OpenShift Container Platform version.

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

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

        Note

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

      2. Select ibmcloud as the platform to target.
      3. Select the region to deploy the cluster to.
      4. Select the base domain to deploy the cluster to. The base domain corresponds to the public DNS zone that you created for your cluster.
      5. Enter a descriptive name for your cluster.
      6. Paste the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager.
  2. Modify the install-config.yaml file. You can find more information about the available parameters in the "Installation configuration parameters" section.

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

    Important

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

10.6.7.1. Installation configuration parameters

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

Note

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

10.6.7.1.1. Required configuration parameters

Required installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.20. Required parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

apiVersion

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

String

baseDomain

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

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

metadata

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

Object

metadata.name

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

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

platform

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

Object

pullSecret

Get a pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager to authenticate downloading container images for OpenShift Container Platform components from services such as Quay.io. 

{
   "auths":{
      "cloud.openshift.com":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      },
      "quay.io":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      }
   }
}
10.6.7.1.2. Network configuration parameters

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

Only IPv4 addresses are supported.

Note

Globalnet is not supported with Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation disaster recovery solutions. For regional disaster recovery scenarios, ensure that you use a nonoverlapping range of private IP addresses for the cluster and service networks in each cluster.

Table 10.21. Network parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

networking

The configuration for the cluster network.

Object

Note

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

networking.networkType

The Red Hat OpenShift Networking network plugin to install.

Either OpenShiftSDN or OVNKubernetes. OpenShiftSDN is a CNI plugin for all-Linux networks. OVNKubernetes is a CNI plugin for Linux networks and hybrid networks that contain both Linux and Windows servers. The default value is OVNKubernetes.

networking.clusterNetwork

The IP address blocks for pods.

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

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

An array of objects. For example: 

networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23

networking.clusterNetwork.cidr

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

An IPv4 network.

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

networking.clusterNetwork.hostPrefix

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

A subnet prefix.

The default value is 23.

networking.serviceNetwork

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

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

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

networking:
  serviceNetwork:
   - 172.30.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork

The IP address blocks for machines.

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

An array of objects. For example: 

networking:
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork.cidr

Required if you use networking.machineNetwork. An IP address block. The default value is 10.0.0.0/16 for all platforms other than libvirt. For libvirt, the default value is 192.168.126.0/24. The CIDR must contain the subnets defined in platform.ibmcloud.controlPlaneSubnets and platform.ibmcloud.computeSubnets.

An IP network block in CIDR notation.

For example, 10.0.0.0/16.

Note

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

10.6.7.1.3. Optional configuration parameters

Optional installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.22. Optional parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

additionalTrustBundle

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

String

capabilities

Controls the installation of optional core cluster components. You can reduce the footprint of your OpenShift Container Platform cluster by disabling optional components. For more information, see the "Cluster capabilities" page in Installing.

String array

capabilities.baselineCapabilitySet

Selects an initial set of optional capabilities to enable. Valid values are None, v4.11, v4.12 and vCurrent. The default value is vCurrent.

String

capabilities.additionalEnabledCapabilities

Extends the set of optional capabilities beyond what you specify in baselineCapabilitySet. You may specify multiple capabilities in this parameter.

String array

compute

The configuration for the machines that comprise the compute nodes.

Array of MachinePool objects.

compute.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

String

compute.hyperthreading

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

Important

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

Enabled or Disabled

compute.name

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

worker

compute.platform

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

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

compute.replicas

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

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

featureSet

Enables the cluster for a feature set. A feature set is a collection of OpenShift Container Platform features that are not enabled by default. For more information about enabling a feature set during installation, see "Enabling features using feature gates".

String. The name of the feature set to enable, such as TechPreviewNoUpgrade.

controlPlane

The configuration for the machines that comprise the control plane.

Array of MachinePool objects.

controlPlane.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

String

controlPlane.hyperthreading

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

Important

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

Enabled or Disabled

controlPlane.name

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

master

controlPlane.platform

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

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

controlPlane.replicas

The number of control plane machines to provision.

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

credentialsMode

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

Note

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

Note

If your AWS account has service control policies (SCP) enabled, you must configure the credentialsMode parameter to Mint, Passthrough or Manual.

Mint, Passthrough, Manual or an empty string ("").

fips

Enable or disable FIPS mode. The default is false (disabled). If FIPS mode is enabled, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machines that OpenShift Container Platform runs on bypass the default Kubernetes cryptography suite and use the cryptography modules that are provided with RHCOS instead.

Important

To enable FIPS mode for your cluster, you must run the installation program from a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) computer configured to operate in FIPS mode. For more information about configuring FIPS mode on RHEL, see Installing the system in FIPS mode. The use of FIPS validated or Modules In Process cryptographic libraries is only supported on OpenShift Container Platform deployments on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures.

Note

If you are using Azure File storage, you cannot enable FIPS mode.

false or true

imageContentSources

Sources and repositories for the release-image content.

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

imageContentSources.source

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

String

imageContentSources.mirrors

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

Array of strings

publish

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

Internal or External. To deploy a private cluster, which cannot be accessed from the internet, set publish to Internal. The default value is External.

sshKey

The SSH key to authenticate access to your cluster machines.

Note

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

For example, sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA...

10.6.7.1.4. Additional IBM Cloud VPC configuration parameters

Additional IBM Cloud VPC configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.23. Additional IBM Cloud VPC parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

platform.ibmcloud.resourceGroupName

The name of an existing resource group. The existing VPC and subnets should be in this resource group. Cluster installation resources are created in this resource group.

String, for example existing_resource_group.

platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.profile

The new dedicated host to create. If you specify a value for platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.name, this parameter is not required.

Valid IBM Cloud VPC dedicated host profile, such as cx2-host-152x304. [1]

platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.name

An existing dedicated host. If you specify a value for platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.profile, this parameter is not required.

String, for example my-dedicated-host-name.

platform.ibmcloud.type

The instance type for all IBM Cloud VPC machines.

Valid IBM Cloud VPC instance type, such as bx2-8x32. [1]

platform.ibmcloud.vpcName

The name of the existing VPC that you want to deploy your cluster to.

String.

platform.ibmcloud.controlPlaneSubnets

The name(s) of the existing subnet(s) in your VPC that you want to deploy your control plane machines to. Specify a subnet for each availability zone.

String array

platform.ibmcloud.computeSubnets

The name(s) of the existing subnet(s) in your VPC that you want to deploy your compute machines to. Specify a subnet for each availability zone. Subnet IDs are not supported.

String array

  1. To determine which profile best meets your needs, see Instance Profiles in the IBM documentation.

10.6.7.2. Minimum resource requirements for cluster installation

Each cluster machine must meet the following minimum requirements:

Table 10.24. Minimum resource requirements

MachineOperating SystemvCPUVirtual RAMStorageIOPS

Bootstrap

RHCOS

4

16 GB

100 GB

300

Control plane

RHCOS

4

16 GB

100 GB

300

Compute

RHCOS

2

8 GB

100 GB

300

If an instance type for your platform meets the minimum requirements for cluster machines, it is supported to use in OpenShift Container Platform.

Additional resources

10.6.7.3. Sample customized install-config.yaml file for IBM Cloud VPC

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

Important

This sample YAML file is provided for reference only. You must obtain your install-config.yaml file by using the installation program and then modify it. 

apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: example.com 1
controlPlane: 2 3
  hyperthreading: Enabled 4
  name: master
  platform:
    ibmcloud: {}
  replicas: 3
compute: 5 6
- hyperthreading: Enabled 7
  name: worker
  platform:
    ibmcloud: {}
  replicas: 3
metadata:
  name: test-cluster 8
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14 9
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16
  networkType: OVNKubernetes 10
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  ibmcloud:
    region: eu-gb 11
    resourceGroupName: eu-gb-example-network-rg 12
    vpcName: eu-gb-example-network-1 13
    controlPlaneSubnets: 14
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-cp-eu-gb-1
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-cp-eu-gb-2
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-cp-eu-gb-3
    computeSubnets: 15
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-compute-eu-gb-1
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-compute-eu-gb-2
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-compute-eu-gb-3
credentialsMode: Manual
publish: External
pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}' 16
fips: false 17
sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA... 18
1 8 11 16
Required. The installation program prompts you for this value.
2 5
If you do not provide these parameters and values, the installation program provides the default value.
3 6
The controlPlane section is a single mapping, but the compute section is a sequence of mappings. To meet the requirements of the different data structures, the first line of the compute section must begin with a hyphen, -, and the first line of the controlPlane section must not. Only one control plane pool is used.
4 7
Enables or disables simultaneous multithreading, also known as Hyper-Threading. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores. You can disable it by setting the parameter value to Disabled. If you disable simultaneous multithreading in some cluster machines, you must disable it in all cluster machines.
Important

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance. Use larger machine types, such as n1-standard-8, for your machines if you disable simultaneous multithreading.

9
The machine CIDR must contain the subnets for the compute machines and control plane machines.
10
The cluster network plugin to install. The supported values are OVNKubernetes and OpenShiftSDN. The default value is OVNKubernetes.
12
The name of an existing resource group. The existing VPC and subnets should be in this resource group. The cluster is deployed to this resource group.
13
Specify the name of an existing VPC.
14
Specify the name of the existing subnets to which to deploy the control plane machines. The subnets must belong to the VPC that you specified. Specify a subnet for each availability zone in the region.
15
Specify the name of the existing subnets to which to deploy the compute machines. The subnets must belong to the VPC that you specified. Specify a subnet for each availability zone in the region.
17
Enables or disables FIPS mode. By default, FIPS mode is not enabled. If FIPS mode is enabled, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machines that OpenShift Container Platform runs on bypass the default Kubernetes cryptography suite and use the cryptography modules that are provided with RHCOS instead.
Important

The use of FIPS Validated or Modules in Process cryptographic libraries is only supported on OpenShift Container Platform deployments on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures.

18
Optional: provide the sshKey value that you use to access the machines in your cluster.
Note

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

10.6.7.4. Configuring the cluster-wide proxy during installation

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

Prerequisites

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

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

    Note

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

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

Procedure

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

    apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: my.domain.com
proxy:
  httpProxy: http://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> 1
  httpsProxy: https://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> 2
  noProxy: example.com 3
additionalTrustBundle: | 4
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    <MY_TRUSTED_CA_CERT>
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
additionalTrustBundlePolicy: <policy_to_add_additionalTrustBundle> 5
    1
    A proxy URL to use for creating HTTP connections outside the cluster. The URL scheme must be http.
    2
    A proxy URL to use for creating HTTPS connections outside the cluster.
    3
    A comma-separated list of destination domain names, IP addresses, or other network CIDRs to exclude from proxying. Preface a domain with . to match subdomains only. For example, .y.com matches x.y.com, but not y.com. Use * to bypass the proxy for all destinations.
    4
    If provided, the installation program generates a config map that is named user-ca-bundle in the openshift-config namespace that contains one or more additional CA certificates that are required for proxying HTTPS connections. The Cluster Network Operator then creates a trusted-ca-bundle config map that merges these contents with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) trust bundle, and this config map is referenced in the trustedCA field of the Proxy object. The additionalTrustBundle field is required unless the proxy’s identity certificate is signed by an authority from the RHCOS trust bundle.
    5
    Optional: The policy to determine the configuration of the Proxy object to reference the user-ca-bundle config map in the trustedCA field. The allowed values are Proxyonly and Always. Use Proxyonly to reference the user-ca-bundle config map only when http/https proxy is configured. Use Always to always reference the user-ca-bundle config map. The default value is Proxyonly.
    Note

    The installation program does not support the proxy readinessEndpoints field.

    Note

    If the installer times out, restart and then complete the deployment by using the wait-for command of the installer. For example: 

    $ ./openshift-install wait-for install-complete --log-level debug
  2. Save the file and reference it when installing OpenShift Container Platform.

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

Note

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

10.6.8. Manually creating IAM for IBM Cloud VPC

Installing the cluster requires that the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) operate in manual mode. While the installation program configures the CCO for manual mode, you must specify the identity and access management secrets for you cloud provider.

You can use the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) utility (ccoctl) to create the required IBM Cloud VPC resources.

Prerequisites

  • You have configured the ccoctl binary.
  • You have an existing install-config.yaml file.

Procedure

  1. Edit the install-config.yaml configuration file so that it contains the credentialsMode parameter set to Manual.

    Example install-config.yaml configuration file

    apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: cluster1.example.com
credentialsMode: Manual 1
compute:
- architecture: amd64
  hyperthreading: Enabled

    1
    This line is added to set the credentialsMode parameter to Manual.

  2. To generate the manifests, run the following command from the directory that contains the installation program: 

    $ openshift-install create manifests --dir <installation_directory>

  3. From the directory that contains the installation program, obtain the OpenShift Container Platform release image that your openshift-install binary is built to use: 

    $ RELEASE_IMAGE=$(./openshift-install version | awk '/release image/ {print $3}')

  4. Extract the CredentialsRequest objects from the OpenShift Container Platform release image: 

    $ oc adm release extract --cloud=ibmcloud --credentials-requests $RELEASE_IMAGE \
    --to=<path_to_credential_requests_directory> 1
    1
    The directory where the credential requests will be stored.

    This command creates a YAML file for each CredentialsRequest object.

    Sample CredentialsRequest object

      apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
  kind: CredentialsRequest
  metadata:
    labels:
      controller-tools.k8s.io: "1.0"
    name: openshift-image-registry-ibmcos
    namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator
  spec:
    secretRef:
      name: installer-cloud-credentials
      namespace: openshift-image-registry
    providerSpec:
      apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
      kind: IBMCloudProviderSpec
      policies:
      - attributes:
        - name: serviceName
          value: cloud-object-storage
        roles:
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Viewer
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Operator
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Editor
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::serviceRole:Reader
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::serviceRole:Writer
      - attributes:
        - name: resourceType
          value: resource-group
        roles:
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Viewer

  5. If your cluster uses cluster capabilities to disable one or more optional components, delete the CredentialsRequest custom resources for any disabled components.

    Example credrequests directory contents for OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 on IBM Cloud VPC

    0000_26_cloud-controller-manager-operator_15_credentialsrequest-ibm.yaml 1
0000_30_machine-api-operator_00_credentials-request.yaml 2
0000_50_cluster-image-registry-operator_01-registry-credentials-request-ibmcos.yaml 3
0000_50_cluster-ingress-operator_00-ingress-credentials-request.yaml 4
0000_50_cluster-storage-operator_03_credentials_request_ibm.yaml 5

    1
    The Cloud Controller Manager Operator CR is required.
    2
    The Machine API Operator CR is required.
    3
    The Image Registry Operator CR is required.
    4
    The Ingress Operator CR is required.
    5
    The Storage Operator CR is an optional component and might be disabled in your cluster.

  6. Create the service ID for each credential request, assign the policies defined, create an API key in IBM Cloud VPC, and generate the secret: 

    $ ccoctl ibmcloud create-service-id \
    --credentials-requests-dir <path_to_credential_requests_directory> \ 1
    --name <cluster_name> \ 2
    --output-dir <installation_directory> \
    --resource-group-name <resource_group_name> 3
    1
    The directory where the credential requests are stored.
    2
    The name of the OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
    3
    Optional: The name of the resource group used for scoping the access policies.
    Note

    If your cluster uses Technology Preview features that are enabled by the TechPreviewNoUpgrade feature set, you must include the --enable-tech-preview parameter.

    If an incorrect resource group name is provided, the installation fails during the bootstrap phase. To find the correct resource group name, run the following command: 

    $ grep resourceGroupName <installation_directory>/manifests/cluster-infrastructure-02-config.yml

Verification

  • Ensure that the appropriate secrets were generated in your cluster’s manifests directory.

10.6.9. Deploying the cluster

You can install OpenShift Container Platform on a compatible cloud platform.

Important

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

Prerequisites

  • Configure an account with the cloud platform that hosts your cluster.
  • Obtain the OpenShift Container Platform installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
  • Verify the cloud provider account on your host has the correct permissions to deploy the cluster. An account with incorrect permissions causes the installation process to fail with an error message that displays the missing permissions.

Procedure

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

    $ ./openshift-install create cluster --dir <installation_directory> \ 1
    --log-level=info 2
    1
    For <installation_directory>, specify the location of your customized ./install-config.yaml file.
    2
    To view different installation details, specify warn, debug, or error instead of info.
    Note

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

Verification

When the cluster deployment completes successfully:

  • The terminal displays directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to the web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user.
  • Credential information also outputs to <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log.
Important

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

Example output

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

Important
  • The Ignition config files that the installation program generates contain certificates that expire after 24 hours, which are then renewed at that time. If the cluster is shut down before renewing the certificates and the cluster is later restarted after the 24 hours have elapsed, the cluster automatically recovers the expired certificates. The exception is that you must manually approve the pending node-bootstrapper certificate signing requests (CSRs) to recover kubelet certificates. See the documentation for Recovering from expired control plane certificates for more information.
  • It is recommended that you use Ignition config files within 12 hours after they are generated because the 24-hour certificate rotates from 16 to 22 hours after the cluster is installed. By using the Ignition config files within 12 hours, you can avoid installation failure if the certificate update runs during installation.

10.6.10. Installing the OpenShift CLI by downloading the binary

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

Important

If you installed an earlier version of oc, you cannot use it to complete all of the commands in OpenShift Container Platform 4.12. Download and install the new version of oc.

Installing the OpenShift CLI on Linux

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the architecture from the Product Variant drop-down list.
  3. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
  4. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 Linux Client entry and save the file.

  5. Unpack the archive: 

    $ tar xvf <file>

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

    To check your PATH, execute the following command: 

    $ echo $PATH

Verification

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

    $ oc <command>
Installing the OpenShift CLI on Windows

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 Windows Client entry and save the file.
  4. Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.

  5. Move the oc binary to a directory that is on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, open the command prompt and execute the following command: 

    C:\> path

Verification

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

    C:\> oc <command>
Installing the OpenShift CLI on macOS

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.

  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 macOS Client entry and save the file.

    Note

    For macOS arm64, choose the OpenShift v4.12 macOS arm64 Client entry.

  4. Unpack and unzip the archive.

  5. Move the oc binary to a directory on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, open a terminal and execute the following command: 

    $ echo $PATH

Verification

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

    $ oc <command>

10.6.11. Logging in to the cluster by using the CLI

You can log in to your cluster as a default system user by exporting the cluster kubeconfig file. The kubeconfig file contains information about the cluster that is used by the CLI to connect a client to the correct cluster and API server. The file is specific to a cluster and is created during OpenShift Container Platform installation.

Prerequisites

  • You deployed an OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
  • You installed the oc CLI.

Procedure

  1. Export the kubeadmin credentials: 

    $ export KUBECONFIG=<installation_directory>/auth/kubeconfig 1
    1
    For <installation_directory>, specify the path to the directory that you stored the installation files in.

  2. Verify you can run oc commands successfully using the exported configuration: 

    $ oc whoami

    Example output

    system:admin

Additional resources

10.6.12. Telemetry access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, the Telemetry service, which runs by default to provide metrics about cluster health and the success of updates, requires internet access. If your cluster is connected to the internet, Telemetry runs automatically, and your cluster is registered to OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console.

After you confirm that your OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console inventory is correct, either maintained automatically by Telemetry or manually by using OpenShift Cluster Manager, use subscription watch to track your OpenShift Container Platform subscriptions at the account or multi-cluster level.

Additional resources

10.6.13. Next steps

10.7. Installing a private cluster on IBM Cloud VPC

In OpenShift Container Platform version 4.12, you can install a private cluster into an existing VPC. The installation program provisions the rest of the required infrastructure, which you can further customize. To customize the installation, you modify parameters in the install-config.yaml file before you install the cluster.

10.7.1. Prerequisites

10.7.2. Private clusters

You can deploy a private OpenShift Container Platform cluster that does not expose external endpoints. Private clusters are accessible from only an internal network and are not visible to the internet.

By default, OpenShift Container Platform is provisioned to use publicly-accessible DNS and endpoints. A private cluster sets the DNS, Ingress Controller, and API server to private when you deploy your cluster. This means that the cluster resources are only accessible from your internal network and are not visible to the internet.

Important

If the cluster has any public subnets, load balancer services created by administrators might be publicly accessible. To ensure cluster security, verify that these services are explicitly annotated as private.

To deploy a private cluster, you must:

  • Use existing networking that meets your requirements. Your cluster resources might be shared between other clusters on the network.
  • Create a DNS zone using IBM Cloud DNS Services and specify it as the base domain of the cluster. For more information, see "Using IBM Cloud DNS Services to configure DNS resolution".

  • Deploy from a machine that has access to:

    • The API services for the cloud to which you provision.
    • The hosts on the network that you provision.
    • The internet to obtain installation media.

You can use any machine that meets these access requirements and follows your company’s guidelines. For example, this machine can be a bastion host on your cloud network or a machine that has access to the network through a VPN.

10.7.3. Private clusters in IBM Cloud VPC

To create a private cluster on IBM Cloud VPC, you must provide an existing private VPC and subnets to host the cluster. The installation program must also be able to resolve the DNS records that the cluster requires. The installation program configures the Ingress Operator and API server for only internal traffic.

The cluster still requires access to internet to access the IBM Cloud VPC APIs.

The following items are not required or created when you install a private cluster:

  • Public subnets
  • Public network load balancers, which support public ingress
  • A public DNS zone that matches the baseDomain for the cluster

The installation program does use the baseDomain that you specify to create a private DNS zone and the required records for the cluster. The cluster is configured so that the Operators do not create public records for the cluster and all cluster machines are placed in the private subnets that you specify.

10.7.3.1. Limitations

Private clusters on IBM Cloud VPC are subject only to the limitations associated with the existing VPC that was used for cluster deployment.

10.7.4. About using a custom VPC

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, you can deploy a cluster into the subnets of an existing IBM Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Deploying OpenShift Container Platform into an existing VPC can help you avoid limit constraints in new accounts or more easily abide by the operational constraints that your company’s guidelines set. If you cannot obtain the infrastructure creation permissions that are required to create the VPC yourself, use this installation option.

Because the installation program cannot know what other components are in your existing subnets, it cannot choose subnet CIDRs and so forth. You must configure networking for the subnets to which you will install the cluster.

10.7.4.1. Requirements for using your VPC

You must correctly configure the existing VPC and its subnets before you install the cluster. The installation program does not create the following components:

  • NAT gateways
  • Subnets
  • Route tables
  • VPC network

The installation program cannot:

  • Subdivide network ranges for the cluster to use
  • Set route tables for the subnets
  • Set VPC options like DHCP
Note

The installation program requires that you use the cloud-provided DNS server. Using a custom DNS server is not supported and causes the installation to fail.

10.7.4.2. VPC validation

The VPC and all of the subnets must be in an existing resource group. The cluster is deployed to this resource group.

As part of the installation, specify the following in the install-config.yaml file:

  • The name of the resource group
  • The name of VPC
  • The subnets for control plane machines and compute machines

To ensure that the subnets that you provide are suitable, the installation program confirms the following:

  • All of the subnets that you specify exist.

  • For each availability zone in the region, you specify:

    • One subnet for control plane machines.
    • One subnet for compute machines.
  • The machine CIDR that you specified contains the subnets for the compute machines and control plane machines.
Note

Subnet IDs are not supported.

10.7.4.3. Isolation between clusters

If you deploy OpenShift Container Platform to an existing network, the isolation of cluster services is reduced in the following ways:

  • You can install multiple OpenShift Container Platform clusters in the same VPC.
  • ICMP ingress is allowed to the entire network.
  • TCP port 22 ingress (SSH) is allowed to the entire network.
  • Control plane TCP 6443 ingress (Kubernetes API) is allowed to the entire network.
  • Control plane TCP 22623 ingress (MCS) is allowed to the entire network.

10.7.5. Internet access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, you require access to the internet to install your cluster.

You must have internet access to:

  • Access OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console to download the installation program and perform subscription management. If the cluster has internet access and you do not disable Telemetry, that service automatically entitles your cluster.
  • Access Quay.io to obtain the packages that are required to install your cluster.
  • Obtain the packages that are required to perform cluster updates.
Important

If your cluster cannot have direct internet access, you can perform a restricted network installation on some types of infrastructure that you provision. During that process, you download the required content and use it to populate a mirror registry with the installation packages. With some installation types, the environment that you install your cluster in will not require internet access. Before you update the cluster, you update the content of the mirror registry.

10.7.6. Generating a key pair for cluster node SSH access

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

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

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

Important

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

Note

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

Procedure

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

    $ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N '' -f <path>/<file_name> 1
    1
    Specify the path and file name, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, of the new SSH key. If you have an existing key pair, ensure your public key is in the your ~/.ssh directory.
    Note

    If you plan to install an OpenShift Container Platform cluster that uses FIPS validated or Modules In Process cryptographic libraries on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures. do not create a key that uses the ed25519 algorithm. Instead, create a key that uses the rsa or ecdsa algorithm.

  2. View the public SSH key: 

    $ cat <path>/<file_name>.pub

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

    $ cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

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

    Note

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

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

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

      Example output

      Agent pid 31874

      Note

      If your cluster is in FIPS mode, only use FIPS-compliant algorithms to generate the SSH key. The key must be either RSA or ECDSA.

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

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

    Example output

    Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)

Next steps

  • When you install OpenShift Container Platform, provide the SSH public key to the installation program.

10.7.7. Obtaining the installation program

Before you install OpenShift Container Platform, download the installation file on a bastion host on your cloud network or a machine that has access to the to the network through a VPN.

For more information about private cluster installation requirements, see "Private clusters".

Prerequisites

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

Procedure

  1. Access the Infrastructure Provider page on the OpenShift Cluster Manager site. If you have a Red Hat account, log in with your credentials. If you do not, create an account.
  2. Select your infrastructure provider.

  3. Navigate to the page for your installation type, download the installation program that corresponds with your host operating system and architecture, and place the file in the directory where you will store the installation configuration files.

    Important

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

    Important

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

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

    $ tar -xvf openshift-install-linux.tar.gz
  5. Download your installation pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager. This pull secret allows you to authenticate with the services that are provided by the included authorities, including Quay.io, which serves the container images for OpenShift Container Platform components.

10.7.8. Exporting the IBM Cloud VPC API key

You must set the IBM Cloud VPC API key you created as a global variable; the installation program ingests the variable during startup to set the API key.

Prerequisites

  • You have created either a user API key or service ID API key for your IBM Cloud account.

Procedure

  • Export your IBM Cloud VPC API key as a global variable: 

    $ export IC_API_KEY=<api_key>
Important

You must set the variable name exactly as specified; the installation program expects the variable name to be present during startup.

10.7.9. Manually creating the installation configuration file

Installing the cluster requires that you manually create the installation configuration file.

Prerequisites

  • You have an SSH public key on your local machine to provide to the installation program. The key will be used for SSH authentication onto your cluster nodes for debugging and disaster recovery.
  • You have obtained the OpenShift Container Platform installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.

Procedure

  1. Create an installation directory to store your required installation assets in: 

    $ mkdir <installation_directory>
    Important

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

  2. Customize the sample install-config.yaml file template that is provided and save it in the <installation_directory>.

    Note

    You must name this configuration file install-config.yaml.

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

    Important

    The install-config.yaml file is consumed during the next step of the installation process. You must back it up now.

10.7.9.1. Installation configuration parameters

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

Note

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

10.7.9.1.1. Required configuration parameters

Required installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.25. Required parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

apiVersion

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

String

baseDomain

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

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

metadata

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

Object

metadata.name

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

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

platform

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

Object

pullSecret

Get a pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager to authenticate downloading container images for OpenShift Container Platform components from services such as Quay.io. 

{
   "auths":{
      "cloud.openshift.com":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      },
      "quay.io":{
         "auth":"b3Blb=",
         "email":"you@example.com"
      }
   }
}
10.7.9.1.2. Network configuration parameters

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

Only IPv4 addresses are supported.

Note

Globalnet is not supported with Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation disaster recovery solutions. For regional disaster recovery scenarios, ensure that you use a nonoverlapping range of private IP addresses for the cluster and service networks in each cluster.

Table 10.26. Network parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

networking

The configuration for the cluster network.

Object

Note

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

networking.networkType

The Red Hat OpenShift Networking network plugin to install.

Either OpenShiftSDN or OVNKubernetes. OpenShiftSDN is a CNI plugin for all-Linux networks. OVNKubernetes is a CNI plugin for Linux networks and hybrid networks that contain both Linux and Windows servers. The default value is OVNKubernetes.

networking.clusterNetwork

The IP address blocks for pods.

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

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

An array of objects. For example: 

networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23

networking.clusterNetwork.cidr

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

An IPv4 network.

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

networking.clusterNetwork.hostPrefix

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

A subnet prefix.

The default value is 23.

networking.serviceNetwork

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

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

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

networking:
  serviceNetwork:
   - 172.30.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork

The IP address blocks for machines.

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

An array of objects. For example: 

networking:
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork.cidr

Required if you use networking.machineNetwork. An IP address block. The default value is 10.0.0.0/16 for all platforms other than libvirt. For libvirt, the default value is 192.168.126.0/24. The CIDR must contain the subnets defined in platform.ibmcloud.controlPlaneSubnets and platform.ibmcloud.computeSubnets.

An IP network block in CIDR notation.

For example, 10.0.0.0/16.

Note

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

10.7.9.1.3. Optional configuration parameters

Optional installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.27. Optional parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

additionalTrustBundle

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

String

capabilities

Controls the installation of optional core cluster components. You can reduce the footprint of your OpenShift Container Platform cluster by disabling optional components. For more information, see the "Cluster capabilities" page in Installing.

String array

capabilities.baselineCapabilitySet

Selects an initial set of optional capabilities to enable. Valid values are None, v4.11, v4.12 and vCurrent. The default value is vCurrent.

String

capabilities.additionalEnabledCapabilities

Extends the set of optional capabilities beyond what you specify in baselineCapabilitySet. You may specify multiple capabilities in this parameter.

String array

compute

The configuration for the machines that comprise the compute nodes.

Array of MachinePool objects.

compute.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

String

compute.hyperthreading

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

Important

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

Enabled or Disabled

compute.name

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

worker

compute.platform

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

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

compute.replicas

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

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

featureSet

Enables the cluster for a feature set. A feature set is a collection of OpenShift Container Platform features that are not enabled by default. For more information about enabling a feature set during installation, see "Enabling features using feature gates".

String. The name of the feature set to enable, such as TechPreviewNoUpgrade.

controlPlane

The configuration for the machines that comprise the control plane.

Array of MachinePool objects.

controlPlane.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

String

controlPlane.hyperthreading

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

Important

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

Enabled or Disabled

controlPlane.name

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

master

controlPlane.platform

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

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, vsphere, or {}

controlPlane.replicas

The number of control plane machines to provision.

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

credentialsMode

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

Note

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

Note

If your AWS account has service control policies (SCP) enabled, you must configure the credentialsMode parameter to Mint, Passthrough or Manual.

Mint, Passthrough, Manual or an empty string ("").

fips

Enable or disable FIPS mode. The default is false (disabled). If FIPS mode is enabled, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machines that OpenShift Container Platform runs on bypass the default Kubernetes cryptography suite and use the cryptography modules that are provided with RHCOS instead.

Important

To enable FIPS mode for your cluster, you must run the installation program from a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) computer configured to operate in FIPS mode. For more information about configuring FIPS mode on RHEL, see Installing the system in FIPS mode. The use of FIPS validated or Modules In Process cryptographic libraries is only supported on OpenShift Container Platform deployments on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures.

Note

If you are using Azure File storage, you cannot enable FIPS mode.

false or true

imageContentSources

Sources and repositories for the release-image content.

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

imageContentSources.source

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

String

imageContentSources.mirrors

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

Array of strings

publish

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

Internal or External. To deploy a private cluster, which cannot be accessed from the internet, set publish to Internal. The default value is External.

sshKey

The SSH key to authenticate access to your cluster machines.

Note

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

For example, sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA...

10.7.9.1.4. Additional IBM Cloud VPC configuration parameters

Additional IBM Cloud VPC configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 10.28. Additional IBM Cloud VPC parameters

ParameterDescriptionValues

platform.ibmcloud.resourceGroupName

The name of an existing resource group. The existing VPC and subnets should be in this resource group. Cluster installation resources are created in this resource group.

String, for example existing_resource_group.

platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.profile

The new dedicated host to create. If you specify a value for platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.name, this parameter is not required.

Valid IBM Cloud VPC dedicated host profile, such as cx2-host-152x304. [1]

platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.name

An existing dedicated host. If you specify a value for platform.ibmcloud.dedicatedHosts.profile, this parameter is not required.

String, for example my-dedicated-host-name.

platform.ibmcloud.type

The instance type for all IBM Cloud VPC machines.

Valid IBM Cloud VPC instance type, such as bx2-8x32. [1]

platform.ibmcloud.vpcName

The name of the existing VPC that you want to deploy your cluster to.

String.

platform.ibmcloud.controlPlaneSubnets

The name(s) of the existing subnet(s) in your VPC that you want to deploy your control plane machines to. Specify a subnet for each availability zone.

String array

platform.ibmcloud.computeSubnets

The name(s) of the existing subnet(s) in your VPC that you want to deploy your compute machines to. Specify a subnet for each availability zone. Subnet IDs are not supported.

String array

  1. To determine which profile best meets your needs, see Instance Profiles in the IBM documentation.

10.7.9.2. Minimum resource requirements for cluster installation

Each cluster machine must meet the following minimum requirements:

Table 10.29. Minimum resource requirements

MachineOperating SystemvCPUVirtual RAMStorageIOPS

Bootstrap

RHCOS

4

16 GB

100 GB

300

Control plane

RHCOS

4

16 GB

100 GB

300

Compute

RHCOS

2

8 GB

100 GB

300

If an instance type for your platform meets the minimum requirements for cluster machines, it is supported to use in OpenShift Container Platform.

Additional resources

10.7.9.3. Sample customized install-config.yaml file for IBM Cloud VPC

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

Important

This sample YAML file is provided for reference only. You must obtain your install-config.yaml file by using the installation program and then modify it. 

apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: example.com 1
controlPlane: 2 3
  hyperthreading: Enabled 4
  name: master
  platform:
    ibmcloud: {}
  replicas: 3
compute: 5 6
- hyperthreading: Enabled 7
  name: worker
  platform:
    ibmcloud: {}
  replicas: 3
metadata:
  name: test-cluster 8
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14 9
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16 10
  networkType: OVNKubernetes 11
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  ibmcloud:
    region: eu-gb 12
    resourceGroupName: eu-gb-example-network-rg 13
    vpcName: eu-gb-example-network-1 14
    controlPlaneSubnets: 15
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-cp-eu-gb-1
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-cp-eu-gb-2
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-cp-eu-gb-3
    computeSubnets: 16
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-compute-eu-gb-1
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-compute-eu-gb-2
      - eu-gb-example-network-1-compute-eu-gb-3
credentialsMode: Manual
publish: Internal 17
pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}' 18
fips: false 19
sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA... 20
1 8 12 18
Required.
2 5
If you do not provide these parameters and values, the installation program provides the default value.
3 6
The controlPlane section is a single mapping, but the compute section is a sequence of mappings. To meet the requirements of the different data structures, the first line of the compute section must begin with a hyphen, -, and the first line of the controlPlane section must not. Only one control plane pool is used.
4 7
Enables or disables simultaneous multithreading, also known as Hyper-Threading. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores. You can disable it by setting the parameter value to Disabled. If you disable simultaneous multithreading in some cluster machines, you must disable it in all cluster machines.
Important

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance. Use larger machine types, such as n1-standard-8, for your machines if you disable simultaneous multithreading.

9
The machine CIDR must contain the subnets for the compute machines and control plane machines.
10
The CIDR must contain the subnets defined in platform.ibmcloud.controlPlaneSubnets and platform.ibmcloud.computeSubnets.
11
The cluster network plugin to install. The supported values are OVNKubernetes and OpenShiftSDN. The default value is OVNKubernetes.
13
The name of an existing resource group. The existing VPC and subnets should be in this resource group. The cluster is deployed to this resource group.
14
Specify the name of an existing VPC.
15
Specify the name of the existing subnets to which to deploy the control plane machines. The subnets must belong to the VPC that you specified. Specify a subnet for each availability zone in the region.
16
Specify the name of the existing subnets to which to deploy the compute machines. The subnets must belong to the VPC that you specified. Specify a subnet for each availability zone in the region.
17
How to publish the user-facing endpoints of your cluster. Set publish to Internal to deploy a private cluster. The default value is External.
19
Enables or disables FIPS mode. By default, FIPS mode is not enabled. If FIPS mode is enabled, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) machines that OpenShift Container Platform runs on bypass the default Kubernetes cryptography suite and use the cryptography modules that are provided with RHCOS instead.
Important

The use of FIPS Validated or Modules in Process cryptographic libraries is only supported on OpenShift Container Platform deployments on the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures.

20
Optional: provide the sshKey value that you use to access the machines in your cluster.
Note

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

10.7.9.4. Configuring the cluster-wide proxy during installation

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

Prerequisites

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

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

    Note

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

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

Procedure

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

    apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: my.domain.com
proxy:
  httpProxy: http://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> 1
  httpsProxy: https://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> 2
  noProxy: example.com 3
additionalTrustBundle: | 4
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    <MY_TRUSTED_CA_CERT>
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
additionalTrustBundlePolicy: <policy_to_add_additionalTrustBundle> 5
    1
    A proxy URL to use for creating HTTP connections outside the cluster. The URL scheme must be http.
    2
    A proxy URL to use for creating HTTPS connections outside the cluster.
    3
    A comma-separated list of destination domain names, IP addresses, or other network CIDRs to exclude from proxying. Preface a domain with . to match subdomains only. For example, .y.com matches x.y.com, but not y.com. Use * to bypass the proxy for all destinations.
    4
    If provided, the installation program generates a config map that is named user-ca-bundle in the openshift-config namespace that contains one or more additional CA certificates that are required for proxying HTTPS connections. The Cluster Network Operator then creates a trusted-ca-bundle config map that merges these contents with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) trust bundle, and this config map is referenced in the trustedCA field of the Proxy object. The additionalTrustBundle field is required unless the proxy’s identity certificate is signed by an authority from the RHCOS trust bundle.
    5
    Optional: The policy to determine the configuration of the Proxy object to reference the user-ca-bundle config map in the trustedCA field. The allowed values are Proxyonly and Always. Use Proxyonly to reference the user-ca-bundle config map only when http/https proxy is configured. Use Always to always reference the user-ca-bundle config map. The default value is Proxyonly.
    Note

    The installation program does not support the proxy readinessEndpoints field.

    Note

    If the installer times out, restart and then complete the deployment by using the wait-for command of the installer. For example: 

    $ ./openshift-install wait-for install-complete --log-level debug
  2. Save the file and reference it when installing OpenShift Container Platform.

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

Note

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

10.7.10. Manually creating IAM for IBM Cloud VPC

Installing the cluster requires that the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) operate in manual mode. While the installation program configures the CCO for manual mode, you must specify the identity and access management secrets for you cloud provider.

You can use the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) utility (ccoctl) to create the required IBM Cloud VPC resources.

Prerequisites

  • You have configured the ccoctl binary.
  • You have an existing install-config.yaml file.

Procedure

  1. Edit the install-config.yaml configuration file so that it contains the credentialsMode parameter set to Manual.

    Example install-config.yaml configuration file

    apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: cluster1.example.com
credentialsMode: Manual 1
compute:
- architecture: amd64
  hyperthreading: Enabled

    1
    This line is added to set the credentialsMode parameter to Manual.

  2. To generate the manifests, run the following command from the directory that contains the installation program: 

    $ openshift-install create manifests --dir <installation_directory>

  3. From the directory that contains the installation program, obtain the OpenShift Container Platform release image that your openshift-install binary is built to use: 

    $ RELEASE_IMAGE=$(./openshift-install version | awk '/release image/ {print $3}')

  4. Extract the CredentialsRequest objects from the OpenShift Container Platform release image: 

    $ oc adm release extract --cloud=ibmcloud --credentials-requests $RELEASE_IMAGE \
    --to=<path_to_credential_requests_directory> 1
    1
    The directory where the credential requests will be stored.

    This command creates a YAML file for each CredentialsRequest object.

    Sample CredentialsRequest object

      apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
  kind: CredentialsRequest
  metadata:
    labels:
      controller-tools.k8s.io: "1.0"
    name: openshift-image-registry-ibmcos
    namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator
  spec:
    secretRef:
      name: installer-cloud-credentials
      namespace: openshift-image-registry
    providerSpec:
      apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1
      kind: IBMCloudProviderSpec
      policies:
      - attributes:
        - name: serviceName
          value: cloud-object-storage
        roles:
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Viewer
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Operator
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Editor
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::serviceRole:Reader
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::serviceRole:Writer
      - attributes:
        - name: resourceType
          value: resource-group
        roles:
        - crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::role:Viewer

  5. If your cluster uses cluster capabilities to disable one or more optional components, delete the CredentialsRequest custom resources for any disabled components.

    Example credrequests directory contents for OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 on IBM Cloud VPC

    0000_26_cloud-controller-manager-operator_15_credentialsrequest-ibm.yaml 1
0000_30_machine-api-operator_00_credentials-request.yaml 2
0000_50_cluster-image-registry-operator_01-registry-credentials-request-ibmcos.yaml 3
0000_50_cluster-ingress-operator_00-ingress-credentials-request.yaml 4
0000_50_cluster-storage-operator_03_credentials_request_ibm.yaml 5

    1
    The Cloud Controller Manager Operator CR is required.
    2
    The Machine API Operator CR is required.
    3
    The Image Registry Operator CR is required.
    4
    The Ingress Operator CR is required.
    5
    The Storage Operator CR is an optional component and might be disabled in your cluster.

  6. Create the service ID for each credential request, assign the policies defined, create an API key in IBM Cloud VPC, and generate the secret: 

    $ ccoctl ibmcloud create-service-id \
    --credentials-requests-dir <path_to_credential_requests_directory> \ 1
    --name <cluster_name> \ 2
    --output-dir <installation_directory> \
    --resource-group-name <resource_group_name> 3
    1
    The directory where the credential requests are stored.
    2
    The name of the OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
    3
    Optional: The name of the resource group used for scoping the access policies.
    Note

    If your cluster uses Technology Preview features that are enabled by the TechPreviewNoUpgrade feature set, you must include the --enable-tech-preview parameter.

    If an incorrect resource group name is provided, the installation fails during the bootstrap phase. To find the correct resource group name, run the following command: 

    $ grep resourceGroupName <installation_directory>/manifests/cluster-infrastructure-02-config.yml

Verification

  • Ensure that the appropriate secrets were generated in your cluster’s manifests directory.

10.7.11. Deploying the cluster

You can install OpenShift Container Platform on a compatible cloud platform.

Important

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

Prerequisites

  • Configure an account with the cloud platform that hosts your cluster.
  • Obtain the OpenShift Container Platform installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
  • Verify the cloud provider account on your host has the correct permissions to deploy the cluster. An account with incorrect permissions causes the installation process to fail with an error message that displays the missing permissions.

Procedure

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

    $ ./openshift-install create cluster --dir <installation_directory> \ 1
    --log-level=info 2
    1
    For <installation_directory>, specify the location of your customized ./install-config.yaml file.
    2
    To view different installation details, specify warn, debug, or error instead of info.
    Note

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

Verification

When the cluster deployment completes successfully:

  • The terminal displays directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to the web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user.
  • Credential information also outputs to <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log.
Important

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

Example output

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

Important
  • The Ignition config files that the installation program generates contain certificates that expire after 24 hours, which are then renewed at that time. If the cluster is shut down before renewing the certificates and the cluster is later restarted after the 24 hours have elapsed, the cluster automatically recovers the expired certificates. The exception is that you must manually approve the pending node-bootstrapper certificate signing requests (CSRs) to recover kubelet certificates. See the documentation for Recovering from expired control plane certificates for more information.
  • It is recommended that you use Ignition config files within 12 hours after they are generated because the 24-hour certificate rotates from 16 to 22 hours after the cluster is installed. By using the Ignition config files within 12 hours, you can avoid installation failure if the certificate update runs during installation.

10.7.12. Installing the OpenShift CLI by downloading the binary

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

Important

If you installed an earlier version of oc, you cannot use it to complete all of the commands in OpenShift Container Platform 4.12. Download and install the new version of oc.

Installing the OpenShift CLI on Linux

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the architecture from the Product Variant drop-down list.
  3. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
  4. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 Linux Client entry and save the file.

  5. Unpack the archive: 

    $ tar xvf <file>

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

    To check your PATH, execute the following command: 

    $ echo $PATH

Verification

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

    $ oc <command>
Installing the OpenShift CLI on Windows

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 Windows Client entry and save the file.
  4. Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.

  5. Move the oc binary to a directory that is on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, open the command prompt and execute the following command: 

    C:\> path

Verification

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

    C:\> oc <command>
Installing the OpenShift CLI on macOS

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

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.

  3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.12 macOS Client entry and save the file.

    Note

    For macOS arm64, choose the OpenShift v4.12 macOS arm64 Client entry.

  4. Unpack and unzip the archive.

  5. Move the oc binary to a directory on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, open a terminal and execute the following command: 

    $ echo $PATH

Verification

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

    $ oc <command>

10.7.13. Logging in to the cluster by using the CLI

You can log in to your cluster as a default system user by exporting the cluster kubeconfig file. The kubeconfig file contains information about the cluster that is used by the CLI to connect a client to the correct cluster and API server. The file is specific to a cluster and is created during OpenShift Container Platform installation.

Prerequisites

  • You deployed an OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
  • You installed the oc CLI.

Procedure

  1. Export the kubeadmin credentials: 

    $ export KUBECONFIG=<installation_directory>/auth/kubeconfig 1
    1
    For <installation_directory>, specify the path to the directory that you stored the installation files in.

  2. Verify you can run oc commands successfully using the exported configuration: 

    $ oc whoami

    Example output

    system:admin

Additional resources

10.7.14. Telemetry access for OpenShift Container Platform

In OpenShift Container Platform 4.12, the Telemetry service, which runs by default to provide metrics about cluster health and the success of updates, requires internet access. If your cluster is connected to the internet, Telemetry runs automatically, and your cluster is registered to OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console.

After you confirm that your OpenShift Cluster Manager Hybrid Cloud Console inventory is correct, either maintained automatically by Telemetry or manually by using OpenShift Cluster Manager, use subscription watch to track your OpenShift Container Platform subscriptions at the account or multi-cluster level.

Additional resources

10.7.15. Next steps

10.8. Uninstalling a cluster on IBM Cloud VPC

You can remove a cluster that you deployed to IBM Cloud VPC.

10.8.1. Removing a cluster that uses installer-provisioned infrastructure

You can remove a cluster that uses installer-provisioned infrastructure from your cloud.

Note

After uninstallation, check your cloud provider for any resources not removed properly, especially with user-provisioned infrastructure clusters. There might be resources that the installation program did not create or that the installation program is unable to access.

Prerequisites

  • You have a copy of the installation program that you used to deploy the cluster.
  • You have the files that the installation program generated when you created your cluster.
  • You have configured the ccoctl binary.
  • You have installed the IBM Cloud CLI and installed or updated the VPC infrastructure service plugin. For more information see "Prerequisites" in the IBM Cloud VPC CLI documentation.

Procedure

  1. If the following conditions are met, this step is required:

    • The installation program created a resource group as part of the installation process.
    • You or one of your applications created persistent volume claims (PVCs) after the cluster was deployed.

    In which case, the PVCs are not removed when uninstalling the cluster, which might prevent the resource group from being successfully removed. To prevent a failure:

    1. Log in to the IBM Cloud using the CLI.

    2. To list the PVCs, run the following command: 

      $ ibmcloud is volumes --resource-group-name <infrastructure_id>

      For more information about listing volumes, see the IBM Cloud VPC CLI documentation.

    3. To delete the PVCs, run the following command: 

      $ ibmcloud is volume-delete --force <volume_id>

      For more information about deleting volumes, see the IBM Cloud VPC CLI documentation.

  2. Export the IBM Cloud API key that was created as part of the installation process. 

    $ export IC_API_KEY=<api_key>
    Note

    You must set the variable name exactly as specified. The installation program expects the variable name to be present to remove the service IDs that were created when the cluster was installed.

  3. On the computer that you used to install the cluster, go to the directory that contains the installation program, and run the following command: 

    $ ./openshift-install destroy cluster \
--dir <installation_directory> --log-level info 1 2
    1
    For <installation_directory>, specify the path to the directory that you stored the installation files in.
    2
    To view different details, specify warn, debug, or error instead of info.
    Note

    You must specify the directory that contains the cluster definition files for your cluster. The installation program requires the metadata.json file in this directory to delete the cluster.

  4. Remove the manual CCO credentials that were created for the cluster: 

    $ ccoctl ibmcloud delete-service-id \
    --credentials-requests-dir <path_to_credential_requests_directory> \
    --name <cluster_name>
    Note

    If your cluster uses Technology Preview features that are enabled by the TechPreviewNoUpgrade feature set, you must include the --enable-tech-preview parameter.

  5. Optional: Delete the <installation_directory> directory and the OpenShift Container Platform installation program.