Chapter 4. Installing on vSphere

Procedure

1. Configure DHCP.
2. Provision the required load balancers.
3. Configure the ports for your machines.
4. Configure DNS.
5. Ensure network connectivity.

Procedure

1. If you do not have an SSH key that is configured for password-less authentication on your computer, create one. For example, on a computer that uses a Linux operating system, run the following command:

   $ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -N '' \
       -f <path>/<file_name> 1

   1

   Specify the path and file name, such as ~/.ssh/id_rsa, of the SSH key.

   Running this command generates an SSH key that does not require a password in the location that you specified.

2. Start the ssh-agent process as a background task:

   $ eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
   
   Agent pid 31874

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

   $ ssh-add <path>/<file_name> 1
   
   Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)

   1

   Specify the path and file name for your SSH private key, such as ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Procedure

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

2. Navigate to the page for your installation type, download the installation program for your operating system, 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 both the installation program and the files that the installation program creates after you finish installing the cluster.

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

   $ tar xvf <installation_program>.tar.gz

4. From the Pull Secret page on the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager site, download your installation pull secret as a .txt file or copy it to your clipboard. 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.

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 following install-config.yaml file template 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.

Procedure

1. Obtain the Ignition config files:

   $ ./openshift-install create ignition-configs --dir=<installation_directory> 1

   1

   For <installation_directory>, specify the directory name to store the files that the installation program creates.

   Important

   If you created an install-config.yaml file, specify the directory that contains it. Otherwise, specify an empty directory. Some installation assets, like bootstrap X.509 certificates have short expiration intervals, so you must not reuse an installation directory. If you want to reuse individual files from another cluster installation, you can copy them into your directory. However, the file names for the installation assets might change between releases. Use caution when copying installation files from an earlier OpenShift Container Platform version.

   The following files are generated in the directory:

   .
   ├── auth
   │   ├── kubeadmin-password
   │   └── kubeconfig
   ├── bootstrap.ign
   ├── master.ign
   ├── metadata.json
   └── worker.ign

Procedure

1. Upload the bootstrap Ignition config file, which is named <installation_directory>/bootstrap.ign, that the installation program created to your HTTP server. Note the URL of this file.

   You must host the bootstrap Ignition config file because it is too large to fit in a vApp property.

2. Save the following secondary Ignition config file for your bootstrap node to your computer as <installation_directory>/append-bootstrap.ign.

   {
     "ignition": {
       "config": {
         "append": [
           {
             "source": "<bootstrap_ignition_config_url>", 1
             "verification": {}
           }
         ]
       },
       "timeouts": {},
       "version": "2.1.0"
     },
     "networkd": {},
     "passwd": {},
     "storage": {},
     "systemd": {}
   }

   1

   Specify the URL of the bootstrap Ignition config file that you hosted.

   When you create the Virtual Machine (VM) for the bootstrap machine, you use this Ignition config file.

3. Convert the master, worker, and secondary bootstrap Ignition config files to Base64 encoding.

   For example, if you use a Linux operating system, you can use the base64 command to encode the files.

   $ base64 -w0 <installation_directory>/master.ign > <installation_directory>/master.64
   $ base64 -w0 <installation_directory>/worker.ign > <installation_directory>/worker.64
   $ base64 -w0 <installation_directory>/append-bootstrap.ign > <installation_directory>/append-bootstrap.64

4. Obtain the RHCOS OVA image from the Product Downloads page on the Red Hat customer portal or the RHCOS image mirror page.

   Important

   The RHCOS images might not change with every release of OpenShift Container Platform. You must download an image with the highest version that is less than or equal to the OpenShift Container Platform version that you install. Use the image version that matches your OpenShift Container Platform version if it is available.

   The file name contains the OpenShift Container Platform version number in the format rhcos-<version>-<architecture>-vmware.ova.

5. In the vSphere Client, create a folder in your datacenter to store your VMs.

   1. Click the VMs and Templates view.
   2. Right-click the name of your datacenter.
   3. Click New Folder New VM and Template Folder.
   4. In the window that is displayed, enter the folder name. The folder name must match the cluster name that you specified in the install-config.yaml file.

6. In the vSphere Client, create a template for the OVA image.

   Note

   In the following steps, you use the same template for all of your cluster machines and provide the location for the Ignition config file for that machine type when you provision the VMs.

   1. From the Hosts and Clusters tab, right-click your cluster’s name and click Deploy OVF Template.
   2. On the Select an OVF tab, specify the name of the RHCOS OVA file that you downloaded.
   3. On the Select a name and folder tab, set a Virtual machine name, such as RHCOS, click the name of your vSphere cluster, and select the folder you created in the previous step.
   4. On the Select a compute resource tab, click the name of your vSphere cluster.

   5. On the Select storage tab, configure the storage options for your VM.

      • Select Thin Provision.
      • Select the datastore that you specified in your install-config.yaml file.
   6. On the Select network tab, specify the network that you configured for the cluster, if available.
   7. If you plan to use the same template for all cluster machine types, do not specify values on the Customize template tab.

7. After the template deploys, deploy a VM for a machine in the cluster.

   1. Right-click the template’s name and click Clone Clone to Virtual Machine.
   2. On the Select a name and folder tab, specify a name for the VM. You might include the machine type in the name, such as control-plane-0 or compute-1.
   3. On the Select a name and folder tab, select the name of the folder that you created for the cluster.
   4. On the Select a compute resource tab, select the name of a host in your datacenter.
   5. Optional: On the Select storage tab, customize the storage options.
   6. On the Select clone options, select Customize this virtual machine’s hardware.

   7. On the Customize hardware tab, click VM Options Advanced.

      • Optional: In the event of cluster performance issues, from the Latency Sensitivity list, select High.

      • Click Edit Configuration, and on the Configuration Parameters window, click Add Configuration Params. Define the following parameter names and values:

        • guestinfo.ignition.config.data: Paste the contents of the base64-encoded Ignition config file for this machine type.
        • guestinfo.ignition.config.data.encoding: Specify base64.
        • disk.EnableUUID: Specify TRUE.

      • Alternatively, prior to powering on the virtual machine add via vApp properties:

        • Navigate to a virtual machine from the vCenter Server inventory.
        • On the Configure tab, expand Settings and select vApp options.
        • Scroll down and under Properties apply the configurations from above.
   8. In the Virtual Hardware panel of the Customize hardware tab, modify the specified values as required. Ensure that the amount of RAM, CPU, and disk storage meets the minimum requirements for the machine type.
   9. Complete the configuration and power on the VM.

8. Create the rest of the machines for your cluster by following the preceding steps for each machine.

   Important

   You must create the bootstrap and control plane machines at this time. Because some pods are deployed on compute machines by default, also create at least two compute machine before you install the cluster.

Procedure

1. From the Infrastructure Provider page on the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager site, navigate to the page for your installation type and click Download Command-line Tools.

2. From the site that is displayed, download the compressed file for your operating system.

   Note

   You can install oc on Linux, Windows, or macOS.

3. Extract the compressed file and place it in a directory that is on your PATH.

Procedure

1. Monitor the bootstrap process:

   $ ./openshift-install --dir=<installation_directory> wait-for bootstrap-complete \ 1
       --log-level info 2
   
   INFO Waiting up to 30m0s for the Kubernetes API at https://api.test.example.com:6443...
   INFO API v1.13.4+b626c2fe1 up
   INFO Waiting up to 30m0s for the bootstrap-complete event...

   1

   For <installation_directory>, specify the path to the directory that you stored the installation files in.

   2

   To view different installation details, specify warn, debug, or error instead of info.

   The command succeeds when the Kubernetes API server signals that it has been bootstrapped on the control plane machines.

2. After bootstrap process is complete, remove the bootstrap machine from the load balancer.

   Important

   You must remove the bootstrap machine from the load balancer at this point. You can also remove or reformat the machine itself.

Procedure

1. Export the kubeadmin credentials:

   $ export KUBECONFIG=<installation_directory>/auth/kubeconfig 1
   
   $ oc whoami
   system:admin

   1

   For <installation_directory>, specify the path to the directory that you stored the installation files in.

Procedure

1. Confirm that the cluster recognizes the machines:

   $ oc get nodes
   
   NAME      STATUS    ROLES   AGE  VERSION
   master-0  Ready     master  63m  v1.13.4+b626c2fe1
   master-1  Ready     master  63m  v1.13.4+b626c2fe1
   master-2  Ready     master  64m  v1.13.4+b626c2fe1
   worker-0  NotReady  worker  76s  v1.13.4+b626c2fe1
   worker-1  NotReady  worker  70s  v1.13.4+b626c2fe1

   The output lists all of the machines that you created.

2. Review the pending certificate signing requests (CSRs) and ensure that the you see a client and server request with Pending or Approved status for each machine that you added to the cluster:

   $ oc get csr
   
   NAME        AGE     REQUESTOR                                                                   CONDITION
   csr-8b2br   15m     system:serviceaccount:openshift-machine-config-operator:node-bootstrapper   Pending 1
   csr-8vnps   15m     system:serviceaccount:openshift-machine-config-operator:node-bootstrapper   Pending
   csr-bfd72   5m26s   system:node:ip-10-0-50-126.us-east-2.compute.internal                       Pending 2
   csr-c57lv   5m26s   system:node:ip-10-0-95-157.us-east-2.compute.internal                       Pending
   ...

   1

   A client request CSR.

   2

   A server request CSR.

   In this example, two machines are joining the cluster. You might see more approved CSRs in the list.

3. If the CSRs were not approved, after all of the pending CSRs for the machines you added are in Pending status, approve the CSRs for your cluster machines:

   Note

   Because the CSRs rotate automatically, approve your CSRs within an hour of adding the machines to the cluster. If you do not approve them within an hour, the certificates will rotate, and more than two certificates will be present for each node. You must approve all of these certificates. After you approve the initial CSRs, the subsequent node client CSRs are automatically approved by the cluster kube-controller-manager. You must implement a method of automatically approving the kubelet serving certificate requests.

   • To approve them individually, run the following command for each valid CSR:

     $ oc adm certificate approve <csr_name> 1

     1

     <csr_name> is the name of a CSR from the list of current CSRs.

   • If all the CSRs are valid, approve them all by running the following command:

     $ oc get csr -ojson | jq -r '.items[] | select(.status == {} ) | .metadata.name' | xargs oc adm certificate approve

Procedure

1. Watch the cluster components come online:

   $ watch -n5 oc get clusteroperators
   
   NAME                                 VERSION   AVAILABLE   PROGRESSING   DEGRADED   SINCE
   authentication                       4.1.0     True        False         False      69s
   cloud-credential                     4.1.0     True        False         False      12m
   cluster-autoscaler                   4.1.0     True        False         False      11m
   console                              4.1.0     True        False         False      46s
   dns                                  4.1.0     True        False         False      11m
   image-registry                       4.1.0     False       True          False      5m26s
   ingress                              4.1.0     True        False         False      5m36s
   kube-apiserver                       4.1.0     True        False         False      8m53s
   kube-controller-manager              4.1.0     True        False         False      7m24s
   kube-scheduler                       4.1.0     True        False         False      12m
   machine-api                          4.1.0     True        False         False      12m
   machine-config                       4.1.0     True        False         False      7m36s
   marketplace                          4.1.0     True        False         False      7m54m
   monitoring                           4.1.0     True        False         False      7h54s
   network                              4.1.0     True        False         False      5m9s
   node-tuning                          4.1.0     True        False         False      11m
   openshift-apiserver                  4.1.0     True        False         False      11m
   openshift-controller-manager         4.1.0     True        False         False      5m943s
   openshift-samples                    4.1.0     True        False         False      3m55s
   operator-lifecycle-manager           4.1.0     True        False         False      11m
   operator-lifecycle-manager-catalog   4.1.0     True        False         False      11m
   service-ca                           4.1.0     True        False         False      11m
   service-catalog-apiserver            4.1.0     True        False         False      5m26s
   service-catalog-controller-manager   4.1.0     True        False         False      5m25s
   storage                              4.1.0     True        False         False      5m30s

2. Configure the Operators that are not available.

Procedure

1. Confirm that all the cluster components are online:

   $ watch -n5 oc get clusteroperators
   
   NAME                                 VERSION   AVAILABLE   PROGRESSING   DEGRADED   SINCE
   authentication                       4.1.0     True        False         False      10m
   cloud-credential                     4.1.0     True        False         False      22m
   cluster-autoscaler                   4.1.0     True        False         False      21m
   console                              4.1.0     True        False         False      10m
   dns                                  4.1.0     True        False         False      21m
   image-registry                       4.1.0     True        False         False      16m
   ingress                              4.1.0     True        False         False      16m
   kube-apiserver                       4.1.0     True        False         False      19m
   kube-controller-manager              4.1.0     True        False         False      18m
   kube-scheduler                       4.1.0     True        False         False      22m
   machine-api                          4.1.0     True        False         False      22m
   machine-config                       4.1.0     True        False         False      18m
   marketplace                          4.1.0     True        False         False      18m
   monitoring                           4.1.0     True        False         False      18m
   network                              4.1.0     True        False         False      16m
   node-tuning                          4.1.0     True        False         False      21m
   openshift-apiserver                  4.1.0     True        False         False      21m
   openshift-controller-manager         4.1.0     True        False         False      17m
   openshift-samples                    4.1.0     True        False         False      14m
   operator-lifecycle-manager           4.1.0     True        False         False      21m
   operator-lifecycle-manager-catalog   4.1.0     True        False         False      21m
   service-ca                           4.1.0     True        False         False      21m
   service-catalog-apiserver            4.1.0     True        False         False      16m
   service-catalog-controller-manager   4.1.0     True        False         False      16m
   storage                              4.1.0     True        False         False      16m

   When all of the cluster Operators are AVAILABLE, you can complete the installation.

2. Monitor for cluster completion:

   $ ./openshift-install --dir=<installation_directory> wait-for install-complete 1
   INFO Waiting up to 30m0s for the cluster to initialize...

   1

   For <installation_directory>, specify the path to the directory that you stored the installation files in.

   The command succeeds when the Cluster Version Operator finishes deploying the OpenShift Container Platform cluster from Kubernetes API server.

   Important

   The Ignition config files that the installation program generates contain certificates that expire after 24 hours. You must keep the cluster running for 24 hours in a non-degraded state to ensure that the first certificate rotation has finished.

3. Confirm that the Kubernetes API server is communicating with the Pods.

   1. To view a list of all Pods, use the following command:

      $ oc get pods --all-namespaces
      
      NAMESPACE                         NAME                                            READY   STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
      openshift-apiserver-operator      openshift-apiserver-operator-85cb746d55-zqhs8   1/1     Running     1          9m
      openshift-apiserver               apiserver-67b9g                                 1/1     Running     0          3m
      openshift-apiserver               apiserver-ljcmx                                 1/1     Running     0          1m
      openshift-apiserver               apiserver-z25h4                                 1/1     Running     0          2m
      openshift-authentication-operator authentication-operator-69d5d8bf84-vh2n8        1/1     Running     0          5m
      ...

   2. View the logs for a Pod that is listed in the output of the previous command by using the following command:

      $ oc logs <pod_name> -n <namespace> 1

      1

      Specify the Pod name and namespace, as shown in the output of the previous command.

      If the Pod logs display, the Kubernetes API server can communicate with the cluster machines.