5.2. Viewing Ignition configuration files

To see the Ignition config file used to deploy the bootstrap machine, run the following command: 

$ openshift-install create ignition-configs --dir $HOME/testconfig

After you answer a few questions, the bootstrap.ign, master.ign, and worker.ign files appear in the directory you entered.

To see the contents of the bootstrap.ign file, pipe it through the jq filter. Here’s a snippet from that file: 

$ cat $HOME/testconfig/bootstrap.ign | jq
\\{
  "ignition": \\{
        "config": \\{},
  "storage": \\{
        "files": [
          \\{
            "filesystem": "root",
            "path": "/etc/motd",
            "user": \\{
              "name": "root"
            },
            "append": true,
            "contents": \\{
              "source": "data:text/plain;charset=utf-8;base64,VGhpcyBpcyB0aGUgYm9vdHN0cmFwIG5vZGU7IGl0IHdpbGwgYmUgZGVzdHJveWVkIHdoZW4gdGhlIG1hc3RlciBpcyBmdWxseSB1cC4KClRoZSBwcmltYXJ5IHNlcnZpY2UgaXMgImJvb3RrdWJlLnNlcnZpY2UiLiBUbyB3YXRjaCBpdHMgc3RhdHVzLCBydW4gZS5nLgoKICBqb3VybmFsY3RsIC1iIC1mIC11IGJvb3RrdWJlLnNlcnZpY2UK",

To decode the contents of a file listed in the bootstrap.ign file, pipe the base64-encoded data string representing the contents of that file to the base64 -d command. Here’s an example using the contents of the /etc/motd file added to the bootstrap machine from the output shown above: 

$ echo VGhpcyBpcyB0aGUgYm9vdHN0cmFwIG5vZGU7IGl0IHdpbGwgYmUgZGVzdHJveWVkIHdoZW4gdGhlIG1hc3RlciBpcyBmdWxseSB1cC4KClRoZSBwcmltYXJ5IHNlcnZpY2UgaXMgImJvb3RrdWJlLnNlcnZpY2UiLiBUbyB3YXRjaCBpdHMgc3RhdHVzLCBydW4gZS5nLgoKICBqb3VybmFsY3RsIC1iIC1mIC11IGJvb3RrdWJlLnNlcnZpY2UK | base64 --decode

Example output

This is the bootstrap machine; it will be destroyed when the master is fully up.

The primary service is "bootkube.service". To watch its status, run, e.g.:

journalctl -b -f -u bootkube.service

Repeat those commands on the master.ign and worker.ign files to see the source of Ignition config files for each of those machine types.  You should see a line like the following for the worker.ign, identifying how it gets its Ignition config from the bootstrap machine: 

"source": "https://api.myign.develcluster.example.com:22623/config/worker",

Here are a few things you can learn from the bootstrap.ign file:

  • Format: The format of the file is defined in the Ignition config spec. Files of the same format are used later by the MCO to merge changes into a machine’s configuration.
  • Contents: Because the bootstrap machine serves the Ignition configs for other machines, both master and worker machine Ignition config information is stored in the bootstrap.ign, along with the bootstrap machine’s configuration.
  • Size: The file is more than 1300 lines long, with path to various types of resources.
  • The content of each file that will be copied to the machine is actually encoded into data URLs, which tends to make the content a bit clumsy to read. (Use the jq and base64 commands shown previously to make the content more readable.)
  • Configuration: The different sections of the Ignition config file are generally meant to contain files that are just dropped into a machine’s file system, rather than commands to modify existing files. For example, instead of having a section on NFS that configures that service, you would just add an NFS configuration file, which would then be started by the init process when the system comes up.
  • users: A user named core is created, with your ssh key assigned to that user. This allows you to log in to the cluster with that user name and your credentials.
  • storage: The storage section identifies files that are added to each machine. A few notable files include /root/.docker/config.json (which provides credentials your cluster needs to pull from container image registries) and a bunch of manifest files in /opt/openshift/manifests that are used to configure your cluster.
  • systemd: The systemd section holds content used to create systemd unit files. Those files are used to start up services at boot time, as well as manage those services on running systems.
  • Primitives: Ignition also exposes low-level primitives that other tools can build on.