Installing with RHEL image mode

Procedure

1. Create a Containerfile that includes the following instructions:

   Example Containerfile for RHEL image mode

   FROM registry.redhat.io/rhel9/rhel-bootc:9.4
   
   ARG USHIFT_VER=4.17
   RUN dnf config-manager \
           --set-enabled rhocp-${USHIFT_VER}-for-rhel-9-$(uname -m)-rpms \
           --set-enabled fast-datapath-for-rhel-9-$(uname -m)-rpms
   RUN dnf install -y firewalld microshift && \
       systemctl enable microshift && \
       dnf clean all
   
   # Create a default 'redhat' user with the specified password.
   # Add it to the 'wheel' group to allow for running sudo commands.
   ARG USER_PASSWD
   RUN if [ -z "${USER_PASSWD}" ] ; then \
           echo USER_PASSWD is a mandatory build argument && exit 1 ; \
       fi
   RUN useradd -m -d /var/home/redhat -G wheel redhat && \
       echo "redhat:${USER_PASSWD}" | chpasswd
   
   # Mandatory firewall configuration
   RUN firewall-offline-cmd --zone=public --add-port=22/tcp && \
       firewall-offline-cmd --zone=trusted --add-source=10.42.0.0/16 && \
       firewall-offline-cmd --zone=trusted --add-source=169.254.169.1
   
   # Create a systemd unit to recursively make the root filesystem subtree
   # shared as required by OVN images
   RUN cat > /etc/systemd/system/microshift-make-rshared.service <<'EOF'
   [Unit]
   Description=Make root filesystem shared
   Before=microshift.service
   ConditionVirtualization=container
   [Service]
   Type=oneshot
   ExecStart=/usr/bin/mount --make-rshared /
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   EOF
   RUN systemctl enable microshift-make-rshared.service

   Important

   Podman uses the host subscription information and repositories inside the container when building the container image. If the rhocp and fast-datapath repositories are not available on the host, the build fails.

2. Create a local bootc image by running the following image build command:

   PULL_SECRET=~/.pull-secret.json
   USER_PASSWD=<your_redhat_user_password> 1
   IMAGE_NAME=microshift-4.17-bootc
   
   $ sudo podman build --authfile "${PULL_SECRET}" -t "${IMAGE_NAME}" \
       --build-arg USER_PASSWD="${USER_PASSWD}" \
       -f Containerfile

   1

   Replace <your_redhat_user_password> with your password.

   Note

   How secrets are used during the image build:

   • The podman --authfile argument is required to pull the base rhel-bootc:9.4 image from the registry.redhat.io registry.
   • The build USER_PASSWD argument is used to set a password for the redhat user.

Verification

1. Verify that the local bootc image was created by running the following command:

   $ sudo podman images "${IMAGE_NAME}"

   Example output

   REPOSITORY                       TAG         IMAGE ID      CREATED        SIZE
   localhost/microshift-4.17-bootc  latest      193425283c00  2 minutes ago  2.31 GB

Procedure

1. Log in to your remote registry by running the following command:

   REGISTRY_URL=quay.io
   
   $ sudo podman login "${REGISTRY_URL}" 1

   1

   Replace REGISTRY_URL with the URL for your registry.

2. Publish the image by running the following command:

   REGISTRY_IMG=<myorg/mypath>/"${IMAGE_NAME}" 1 2
   IMAGE_NAME=<microshift-4.17-bootc> 3
   
   $ sudo podman push localhost/"${IMAGE_NAME}" "${REGISTRY_URL}/${REGISTRY_IMG}"

   1

   Replace <myorg/mypath> with your remote registry organization name and path.

   2

   Replace <microshift-4.17-bootc> with the name of the image you want to publish.

Verification

1. Run the container using the image you pushed to your registry as described in the "Running the MicroShift bootc container" section.

Procedure

1. Run the container for the MicroShift service by entering the following command:

   PULL_SECRET=~/.pull-secret.json
   IMAGE_NAME=microshift-4.17-bootc
   
   $ sudo podman run --rm -it --privileged \
       -v "${PULL_SECRET}":/etc/crio/openshift-pull-secret:ro \
       -v /var/lib/containers/storage:/var/lib/containers/storage \
       --name "${IMAGE_NAME}" \
       "${IMAGE_NAME}"

   Note

   The systemd-modules-load service fails to start in the container if the host kernel version is different from the bootc image kernel version. This failure can be safely ignored as all the necessary kernel modules have been loaded by the host.

2. A login prompt is presented in the terminal after MicroShift has started.
3. Log into the running container using the your user credentials.

4. Verify that all the MicroShift pods are up and running without errors by running the following command:

   $ watch sudo oc get pods -A \
       --kubeconfig /var/lib/microshift/resources/kubeadmin/kubeconfig

   Example output

   NAMESPACE                  NAME                                       READY   STATUS    RESTARTS      AGE
   kube-system                csi-snapshot-controller-7cfb9df49c-kc9dx   1/1     Running   0             31s
   kube-system                csi-snapshot-webhook-5c6b978878-jzk5r      1/1     Running   0             28s
   openshift-dns              dns-default-rpnlt                          2/2     Running   0             14s
   openshift-dns              node-resolver-rxvdk                        1/1     Running   0             31s
   openshift-ingress          router-default-69cd7b5545-7zcw7            1/1     Running   0             29s
   openshift-ovn-kubernetes   ovnkube-master-c7hlh                       4/4     Running   1 (16s ago)   31s
   openshift-ovn-kubernetes   ovnkube-node-mkpht                         1/1     Running   1 (17s ago)   31s
   openshift-service-ca       service-ca-5d5d96459d-5pd5s                1/1     Running   0             28s
   openshift-storage          topolvm-controller-677cbfcdb9-28dqr        5/5     Running   0             31s
   openshift-storage          topolvm-node-6fzbl                         3/3     Running   0             14s

5. Now you can use your MicroShift running in the container the same way you can use any other MicroShift cluster.

Procedure

1. Clean up the loop device and additional volume group by using the following commands:

   1. Detach the loop device by entering the following command:

      $ sudo losetup -d "${VGLOOP}"

   2. Delete the LVM volume group file by entering the following command:

      $ sudo rm -f "${VGFILE}"