Chapter 9. Installing a private cluster on GCP
In OpenShift Container Platform version 4.17, you can install a private cluster into an existing VPC on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). 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.
9.1. Prerequisites
- You reviewed details about the OpenShift Container Platform installation and update processes.
- You read the documentation on selecting a cluster installation method and preparing it for users.
- You configured a GCP project to host the cluster.
- If you use a firewall, you configured it to allow the sites that your cluster requires access to.
9.2. 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.
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.
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.
9.2.1. Private clusters in GCP
To create a private cluster on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), 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 GCP 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.
Because it is not possible to limit access to external load balancers based on source tags, the private cluster uses only internal load balancers to allow access to internal instances.
The internal load balancer relies on instance groups rather than the target pools that the network load balancers use. The installation program creates instance groups for each zone, even if there is no instance in that group.
- The cluster IP address is internal only.
- One forwarding rule manages both the Kubernetes API and machine config server ports.
- The backend service is comprised of each zone’s instance group and, while it exists, the bootstrap instance group.
- The firewall uses a single rule that is based on only internal source ranges.
9.2.1.1. Limitations
No health check for the Machine config server, /healthz
, runs because of a difference in load balancer functionality. Two internal load balancers cannot share a single IP address, but two network load balancers can share a single external IP address. Instead, the health of an instance is determined entirely by the /readyz
check on port 6443.
9.3. About using a custom VPC
In OpenShift Container Platform 4.17, you can deploy a cluster into an existing VPC in Google Cloud Platform (GCP). If you do, you must also use existing subnets within the VPC and routing rules.
By deploying OpenShift Container Platform into an existing GCP VPC, you might be able to avoid limit constraints in new accounts or more easily abide by the operational constraints that your company’s guidelines set. This is a good option to use if you cannot obtain the infrastructure creation permissions that are required to create the VPC yourself.
9.3.1. Requirements for using your VPC
The installation program will no longer create the following components:
- VPC
- Subnets
- Cloud router
- Cloud NAT
- NAT IP addresses
If you use a custom VPC, you must correctly configure it and its subnets for the installation program and the cluster to use. The installation program cannot subdivide network ranges for the cluster to use, set route tables for the subnets, or set VPC options like DHCP, so you must do so before you install the cluster.
Your VPC and subnets must meet the following characteristics:
- The VPC must be in the same GCP project that you deploy the OpenShift Container Platform cluster to.
- To allow access to the internet from the control plane and compute machines, you must configure cloud NAT on the subnets to allow egress to it. These machines do not have a public address. Even if you do not require access to the internet, you must allow egress to the VPC network to obtain the installation program and images. Because multiple cloud NATs cannot be configured on the shared subnets, the installation program cannot configure it.
To ensure that the subnets that you provide are suitable, the installation program confirms the following data:
- All the subnets that you specify exist and belong to the VPC that you specified.
- The subnet CIDRs belong to the machine CIDR.
- You must provide a subnet to deploy the cluster control plane and compute machines to. You can use the same subnet for both machine types.
If you destroy a cluster that uses an existing VPC, the VPC is not deleted.
9.3.2. Division of permissions
Starting with OpenShift Container Platform 4.3, you do not need all of the permissions that are required for an installation program-provisioned infrastructure cluster to deploy a cluster. This change mimics the division of permissions that you might have at your company: some individuals can create different resources in your clouds than others. For example, you might be able to create application-specific items, like instances, buckets, and load balancers, but not networking-related components such as VPCs, subnets, or Ingress rules.
The GCP credentials that you use when you create your cluster do not need the networking permissions that are required to make VPCs and core networking components within the VPC, such as subnets, routing tables, internet gateways, NAT, and VPN. You still need permission to make the application resources that the machines within the cluster require, such as load balancers, security groups, storage, and nodes.
9.3.3. Isolation between clusters
If you deploy OpenShift Container Platform to an existing network, the isolation of cluster services is preserved by firewall rules that reference the machines in your cluster by the cluster’s infrastructure ID. Only traffic within the cluster is allowed.
If you deploy multiple clusters to the same VPC, the following components might share access between clusters:
- The API, which is globally available with an external publishing strategy or available throughout the network in an internal publishing strategy
- Debugging tools, such as ports on VM instances that are open to the machine CIDR for SSH and ICMP access
9.4. Internet access for OpenShift Container Platform
In OpenShift Container Platform 4.17, you require access to the internet to install your cluster.
You must have internet access to:
- Access OpenShift Cluster Manager 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.
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.
9.5. 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.
Do not skip this procedure in production environments, where disaster recovery and debugging is required.
You must use a local key, not one that you configured with platform-specific approaches such as AWS key pairs.
Procedure
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.
NoteIf you plan to install an OpenShift Container Platform cluster that uses the RHEL cryptographic libraries that have been submitted to NIST for FIPS 140-2/140-3 Validation on only the
x86_64
,ppc64le
, ands390x
architectures, do not create a key that uses theed25519
algorithm. Instead, create a key that uses thersa
orecdsa
algorithm.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
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.NoteOn some distributions, default SSH private key identities such as
~/.ssh/id_rsa
and~/.ssh/id_dsa
are managed automatically.If the
ssh-agent
process is not already running for your local user, start it as a background task:$ eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
Example output
Agent pid 31874
NoteIf your cluster is in FIPS mode, only use FIPS-compliant algorithms to generate the SSH key. The key must be either RSA or ECDSA.
Add your SSH private key to the
ssh-agent
:$ 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.
9.6. 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 at least 1.2 GB of local disk space.
Procedure
- Go to the Cluster Type page on the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console. If you have a Red Hat account, log in with your credentials. If you do not, create an account.
- Select your infrastructure provider from the Run it yourself section of the page.
- Select your host operating system and architecture from the dropdown menus under OpenShift Installer and click Download Installer.
Place the downloaded file in the directory where you want to 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 of the files are required to delete the cluster.
- 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.
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
- Download your installation pull secret from 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.
Alternatively, you can retrieve the installation program from the Red Hat Customer Portal, where you can specify a version of the installation program to download. However, you must have an active subscription to access this page.
9.7. 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
Create an installation directory to store your required installation assets in:
$ mkdir <installation_directory>
ImportantYou 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.
Customize the sample
install-config.yaml
file template that is provided and save it in the<installation_directory>
.NoteYou must name this configuration file
install-config.yaml
.Back up the
install-config.yaml
file so that you can use it to install multiple clusters.ImportantThe
install-config.yaml
file is consumed during the next step of the installation process. You must back it up now.
Additional resources
9.7.1. Minimum resource requirements for cluster installation
Each cluster machine must meet the following minimum requirements:
Machine | Operating System | vCPU [1] | Virtual RAM | Storage | Input/Output Per Second (IOPS)[2] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bootstrap | RHCOS | 4 | 16 GB | 100 GB | 300 |
Control plane | RHCOS | 4 | 16 GB | 100 GB | 300 |
Compute | RHCOS, RHEL 8.6 and later [3] | 2 | 8 GB | 100 GB | 300 |
- One vCPU is equivalent to one physical core when simultaneous multithreading (SMT), or Hyper-Threading, is not enabled. When enabled, use the following formula to calculate the corresponding ratio: (threads per core × cores) × sockets = vCPUs.
- OpenShift Container Platform and Kubernetes are sensitive to disk performance, and faster storage is recommended, particularly for etcd on the control plane nodes which require a 10 ms p99 fsync duration. Note that on many cloud platforms, storage size and IOPS scale together, so you might need to over-allocate storage volume to obtain sufficient performance.
- As with all user-provisioned installations, if you choose to use RHEL compute machines in your cluster, you take responsibility for all operating system life cycle management and maintenance, including performing system updates, applying patches, and completing all other required tasks. Use of RHEL 7 compute machines is deprecated and has been removed in OpenShift Container Platform 4.10 and later.
As of OpenShift Container Platform version 4.13, RHCOS is based on RHEL version 9.2, which updates the micro-architecture requirements. The following list contains the minimum instruction set architectures (ISA) that each architecture requires:
- x86-64 architecture requires x86-64-v2 ISA
- ARM64 architecture requires ARMv8.0-A ISA
- IBM Power architecture requires Power 9 ISA
- s390x architecture requires z14 ISA
For more information, see RHEL Architectures.
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
9.7.2. Tested instance types for GCP
The following Google Cloud Platform instance types have been tested with OpenShift Container Platform.
Example 9.1. Machine series
-
A2
-
A3
-
C2
-
C2D
-
C3
-
C3D
-
C4
-
E2
-
M1
-
N1
-
N2
-
N2D
-
N4
-
Tau T2D
9.7.3. Tested instance types for GCP on 64-bit ARM infrastructures
The following Google Cloud Platform (GCP) 64-bit ARM instance types have been tested with OpenShift Container Platform.
Example 9.2. Machine series for 64-bit ARM machines
-
C4A
-
Tau T2A
9.7.4. Using custom machine types
Using a custom machine type to install a OpenShift Container Platform cluster is supported.
Consider the following when using a custom machine type:
- Similar to predefined instance types, custom machine types must meet the minimum resource requirements for control plane and compute machines. For more information, see "Minimum resource requirements for cluster installation".
The name of the custom machine type must adhere to the following syntax:
custom-<number_of_cpus>-<amount_of_memory_in_mb>
For example,
custom-6-20480
.
As part of the installation process, you specify the custom machine type in the install-config.yaml
file.
Sample install-config.yaml
file with a custom machine type
compute: - architecture: amd64 hyperthreading: Enabled name: worker platform: gcp: type: custom-6-20480 replicas: 2 controlPlane: architecture: amd64 hyperthreading: Enabled name: master platform: gcp: type: custom-6-20480 replicas: 3
9.7.5. Enabling Shielded VMs
You can use Shielded VMs when installing your cluster. Shielded VMs have extra security features including secure boot, firmware and integrity monitoring, and rootkit detection. For more information, see Google’s documentation on Shielded VMs.
Shielded VMs are currently not supported on clusters with 64-bit ARM infrastructures.
Prerequisites
-
You have created an
install-config.yaml
file.
Procedure
Use a text editor to edit the
install-config.yaml
file prior to deploying your cluster and add one of the following stanzas:To use shielded VMs for only control plane machines:
controlPlane: platform: gcp: secureBoot: Enabled
To use shielded VMs for only compute machines:
compute: - platform: gcp: secureBoot: Enabled
To use shielded VMs for all machines:
platform: gcp: defaultMachinePlatform: secureBoot: Enabled
9.7.6. Enabling Confidential VMs
You can use Confidential VMs when installing your cluster. Confidential VMs encrypt data while it is being processed. For more information, see Google’s documentation on Confidential Computing. You can enable Confidential VMs and Shielded VMs at the same time, although they are not dependent on each other.
Confidential VMs are currently not supported on 64-bit ARM architectures.
Prerequisites
-
You have created an
install-config.yaml
file.
Procedure
Use a text editor to edit the
install-config.yaml
file prior to deploying your cluster and add one of the following stanzas:To use confidential VMs for only control plane machines:
controlPlane: platform: gcp: confidentialCompute: Enabled 1 type: n2d-standard-8 2 onHostMaintenance: Terminate 3
- 1
- Enable confidential VMs.
- 2
- Specify a machine type that supports Confidential VMs. Confidential VMs require the N2D or C2D series of machine types. For more information on supported machine types, see Supported operating systems and machine types.
- 3
- Specify the behavior of the VM during a host maintenance event, such as a hardware or software update. For a machine that uses Confidential VM, this value must be set to
Terminate
, which stops the VM. Confidential VMs do not support live VM migration.
To use confidential VMs for only compute machines:
compute: - platform: gcp: confidentialCompute: Enabled type: n2d-standard-8 onHostMaintenance: Terminate
To use confidential VMs for all machines:
platform: gcp: defaultMachinePlatform: confidentialCompute: Enabled type: n2d-standard-8 onHostMaintenance: Terminate
9.7.7. Sample customized install-config.yaml file for GCP
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.
This sample YAML file is provided for reference only. You must obtain your install-config.yaml
file by using the installation program and modify it.
apiVersion: v1 baseDomain: example.com 1 credentialsMode: Mint 2 controlPlane: 3 4 hyperthreading: Enabled 5 name: master platform: gcp: type: n2-standard-4 zones: - us-central1-a - us-central1-c osDisk: diskType: pd-ssd diskSizeGB: 1024 encryptionKey: 6 kmsKey: name: worker-key keyRing: test-machine-keys location: global projectID: project-id tags: 7 - control-plane-tag1 - control-plane-tag2 osImage: 8 project: example-project-name name: example-image-name replicas: 3 compute: 9 10 - hyperthreading: Enabled 11 name: worker platform: gcp: type: n2-standard-4 zones: - us-central1-a - us-central1-c osDisk: diskType: pd-standard diskSizeGB: 128 encryptionKey: 12 kmsKey: name: worker-key keyRing: test-machine-keys location: global projectID: project-id tags: 13 - compute-tag1 - compute-tag2 osImage: 14 project: example-project-name name: example-image-name replicas: 3 metadata: name: test-cluster 15 networking: clusterNetwork: - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14 hostPrefix: 23 machineNetwork: - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16 networkType: OVNKubernetes 16 serviceNetwork: - 172.30.0.0/16 platform: gcp: projectID: openshift-production 17 region: us-central1 18 defaultMachinePlatform: tags: 19 - global-tag1 - global-tag2 osImage: 20 project: example-project-name name: example-image-name network: existing_vpc 21 controlPlaneSubnet: control_plane_subnet 22 computeSubnet: compute_subnet 23 pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}' 24 fips: false 25 sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA... 26 publish: Internal 27
- 1 15 17 18 24
- Required. The installation program prompts you for this value.
- 2
- Optional: Add this parameter to force the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) to use the specified mode. By default, the CCO uses the root credentials in the
kube-system
namespace to dynamically try to determine the capabilities of the credentials. For details about CCO modes, see the "About the Cloud Credential Operator" section in the Authentication and authorization guide. - 3 9
- If you do not provide these parameters and values, the installation program provides the default value.
- 4 10
- The
controlPlane
section is a single mapping, but thecompute
section is a sequence of mappings. To meet the requirements of the different data structures, the first line of thecompute
section must begin with a hyphen,-
, and the first line of thecontrolPlane
section must not. Only one control plane pool is used. - 5 11
- Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or
hyperthreading
. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores. You can disable it by setting the parameter value toDisabled
. If you disable simultaneous multithreading in some cluster machines, you must disable it in all cluster machines.ImportantIf 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. - 6 12
- Optional: The custom encryption key section to encrypt both virtual machines and persistent volumes. Your default compute service account must have the permissions granted to use your KMS key and have the correct IAM role assigned. The default service account name follows the
service-<project_number>@compute-system.iam.gserviceaccount.com
pattern. For more information about granting the correct permissions for your service account, see "Machine management""Creating compute machine sets" "Creating a compute machine set on GCP". - 7 13 19
- Optional: A set of network tags to apply to the control plane or compute machine sets. The
platform.gcp.defaultMachinePlatform.tags
parameter will apply to both control plane and compute machines. If thecompute.platform.gcp.tags
orcontrolPlane.platform.gcp.tags
parameters are set, they override theplatform.gcp.defaultMachinePlatform.tags
parameter. - 8 14 20
- Optional: A custom Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) that should be used to boot control plane and compute machines. The
project
andname
parameters underplatform.gcp.defaultMachinePlatform.osImage
apply to both control plane and compute machines. If theproject
andname
parameters undercontrolPlane.platform.gcp.osImage
orcompute.platform.gcp.osImage
are set, they override theplatform.gcp.defaultMachinePlatform.osImage
parameters. - 16
- The cluster network plugin to install. The default value
OVNKubernetes
is the only supported value. - 21
- Specify the name of an existing VPC.
- 22
- Specify the name of the existing subnet to deploy the control plane machines to. The subnet must belong to the VPC that you specified.
- 23
- Specify the name of the existing subnet to deploy the compute machines to. The subnet must belong to the VPC that you specified.
- 25
- Whether to enable or disable 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.
When running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) booted in FIPS mode, OpenShift Container Platform core components use the RHEL cryptographic libraries that have been submitted to NIST for FIPS 140-2/140-3 Validation on only the x86_64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures.
- 26
- You can optionally provide the
sshKey
value that you use to access the machines in your cluster.NoteFor 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. - 27
- How to publish the user-facing endpoints of your cluster. Set
publish
toInternal
to deploy a private cluster, which cannot be accessed from the internet. The default value isExternal
.
Additional resources
9.7.8. Create an Ingress Controller with global access on GCP
You can create an Ingress Controller that has global access to a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) cluster. Global access is only available to Ingress Controllers using internal load balancers.
Prerequisites
-
You created the
install-config.yaml
and complete any modifications to it.
Procedure
Create an Ingress Controller with global access on a new GCP cluster.
Change to the directory that contains the installation program and create a manifest file:
$ ./openshift-install create manifests --dir <installation_directory> 1
- 1
- For
<installation_directory>
, specify the name of the directory that contains theinstall-config.yaml
file for your cluster.
Create a file that is named
cluster-ingress-default-ingresscontroller.yaml
in the<installation_directory>/manifests/
directory:$ touch <installation_directory>/manifests/cluster-ingress-default-ingresscontroller.yaml 1
- 1
- For
<installation_directory>
, specify the directory name that contains themanifests/
directory for your cluster.
After creating the file, several network configuration files are in the
manifests/
directory, as shown:$ ls <installation_directory>/manifests/cluster-ingress-default-ingresscontroller.yaml
Example output
cluster-ingress-default-ingresscontroller.yaml
Open the
cluster-ingress-default-ingresscontroller.yaml
file in an editor and enter a custom resource (CR) that describes the Operator configuration you want:Sample
clientAccess
configuration toGlobal
apiVersion: operator.openshift.io/v1 kind: IngressController metadata: name: default namespace: openshift-ingress-operator spec: endpointPublishingStrategy: loadBalancer: providerParameters: gcp: clientAccess: Global 1 type: GCP scope: Internal 2 type: LoadBalancerService
9.7.9. 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’sspec.noProxy
field to bypass the proxy if necessary.NoteThe
Proxy
objectstatus.noProxy
field is populated with the values of thenetworking.machineNetwork[].cidr
,networking.clusterNetwork[].cidr
, andnetworking.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
objectstatus.noProxy
field is also populated with the instance metadata endpoint (169.254.169.254
).
Procedure
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
matchesx.y.com
, but noty.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 theopenshift-config
namespace that contains one or more additional CA certificates that are required for proxying HTTPS connections. The Cluster Network Operator then creates atrusted-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 thetrustedCA
field of theProxy
object. TheadditionalTrustBundle
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 theuser-ca-bundle
config map in thetrustedCA
field. The allowed values areProxyonly
andAlways
. UseProxyonly
to reference theuser-ca-bundle
config map only whenhttp/https
proxy is configured. UseAlways
to always reference theuser-ca-bundle
config map. The default value isProxyonly
.
NoteThe installation program does not support the proxy
readinessEndpoints
field.NoteIf 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
- 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
.
Only the Proxy
object named cluster
is supported, and no additional proxies can be created.
9.8. Installing the OpenShift CLI
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.
If you installed an earlier version of oc
, you cannot use it to complete all of the commands in OpenShift Container Platform 4.17. 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
- Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
- Select the architecture from the Product Variant drop-down list.
- Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
- Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.17 Linux Client entry and save the file.
Unpack the archive:
$ tar xvf <file>
Place the
oc
binary in a directory that is on yourPATH
.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
- Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
- Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
- Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.17 Windows Client entry and save the file.
- Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.
Move the
oc
binary to a directory that is on yourPATH
.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
- Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
- Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.17 macOS Client entry and save the file.
NoteFor macOS arm64, choose the OpenShift v4.17 macOS arm64 Client entry.
- Unpack and unzip the archive.
Move the
oc
binary to a directory on your PATH.To check your
PATH
, open a terminal and execute the following command:$ echo $PATH
Verification
Verify your installation by using an
oc
command:$ oc <command>
9.9. Alternatives to storing administrator-level secrets in the kube-system project
By default, administrator secrets are stored in the kube-system
project. If you configured the credentialsMode
parameter in the install-config.yaml
file to Manual
, you must use one of the following alternatives:
- To manage long-term cloud credentials manually, follow the procedure in Manually creating long-term credentials.
- To implement short-term credentials that are managed outside the cluster for individual components, follow the procedures in Configuring a GCP cluster to use short-term credentials.
9.9.1. Manually creating long-term credentials
The Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) can be put into manual mode prior to installation in environments where the cloud identity and access management (IAM) APIs are not reachable, or the administrator prefers not to store an administrator-level credential secret in the cluster kube-system
namespace.
Procedure
Add the following granular permissions to the GCP account that the installation program uses:
Example 9.3. Required GCP permissions
- compute.machineTypes.list
- compute.regions.list
- compute.zones.list
- dns.changes.create
- dns.changes.get
- dns.managedZones.create
- dns.managedZones.delete
- dns.managedZones.get
- dns.managedZones.list
- dns.networks.bindPrivateDNSZone
- dns.resourceRecordSets.create
- dns.resourceRecordSets.delete
- dns.resourceRecordSets.list
If you did not set the
credentialsMode
parameter in theinstall-config.yaml
configuration file toManual
, modify the value as shown:Sample configuration file snippet
apiVersion: v1 baseDomain: example.com credentialsMode: Manual # ...
If you have not previously created installation manifest files, do so by running the following command:
$ openshift-install create manifests --dir <installation_directory>
where
<installation_directory>
is the directory in which the installation program creates files.Set a
$RELEASE_IMAGE
variable with the release image from your installation file by running the following command:$ RELEASE_IMAGE=$(./openshift-install version | awk '/release image/ {print $3}')
Extract the list of
CredentialsRequest
custom resources (CRs) from the OpenShift Container Platform release image by running the following command:$ oc adm release extract \ --from=$RELEASE_IMAGE \ --credentials-requests \ --included \1 --install-config=<path_to_directory_with_installation_configuration>/install-config.yaml \2 --to=<path_to_directory_for_credentials_requests> 3
- 1
- The
--included
parameter includes only the manifests that your specific cluster configuration requires. - 2
- Specify the location of the
install-config.yaml
file. - 3
- Specify the path to the directory where you want to store the
CredentialsRequest
objects. If the specified directory does not exist, this command creates it.
This command creates a YAML file for each
CredentialsRequest
object.Sample
CredentialsRequest
objectapiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1 kind: CredentialsRequest metadata: name: <component_credentials_request> namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator ... spec: providerSpec: apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1 kind: GCPProviderSpec predefinedRoles: - roles/storage.admin - roles/iam.serviceAccountUser skipServiceCheck: true ...
Create YAML files for secrets in the
openshift-install
manifests directory that you generated previously. The secrets must be stored using the namespace and secret name defined in thespec.secretRef
for eachCredentialsRequest
object.Sample
CredentialsRequest
object with secretsapiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1 kind: CredentialsRequest metadata: name: <component_credentials_request> namespace: openshift-cloud-credential-operator ... spec: providerSpec: apiVersion: cloudcredential.openshift.io/v1 ... secretRef: name: <component_secret> namespace: <component_namespace> ...
Sample
Secret
objectapiVersion: v1 kind: Secret metadata: name: <component_secret> namespace: <component_namespace> data: service_account.json: <base64_encoded_gcp_service_account_file>
Before upgrading a cluster that uses manually maintained credentials, you must ensure that the CCO is in an upgradeable state.
9.9.2. Configuring a GCP cluster to use short-term credentials
To install a cluster that is configured to use GCP Workload Identity, you must configure the CCO utility and create the required GCP resources for your cluster.
9.9.2.1. 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.
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
).
You have added one of the following authentication options to the GCP account that the installation program uses:
- The IAM Workload Identity Pool Admin role.
The following granular permissions:
Example 9.4. Required GCP permissions
- compute.projects.get
- iam.googleapis.com/workloadIdentityPoolProviders.create
- iam.googleapis.com/workloadIdentityPoolProviders.get
- iam.googleapis.com/workloadIdentityPools.create
- iam.googleapis.com/workloadIdentityPools.delete
- iam.googleapis.com/workloadIdentityPools.get
- iam.googleapis.com/workloadIdentityPools.undelete
- iam.roles.create
- iam.roles.delete
- iam.roles.list
- iam.roles.undelete
- iam.roles.update
- iam.serviceAccounts.create
- iam.serviceAccounts.delete
- iam.serviceAccounts.getIamPolicy
- iam.serviceAccounts.list
- iam.serviceAccounts.setIamPolicy
- iam.workloadIdentityPoolProviders.get
- iam.workloadIdentityPools.delete
- resourcemanager.projects.get
- resourcemanager.projects.getIamPolicy
- resourcemanager.projects.setIamPolicy
- storage.buckets.create
- storage.buckets.delete
- storage.buckets.get
- storage.buckets.getIamPolicy
- storage.buckets.setIamPolicy
- storage.objects.create
- storage.objects.delete
- storage.objects.list
Procedure
Set a variable for the OpenShift Container Platform release image by running the following command:
$ RELEASE_IMAGE=$(./openshift-install version | awk '/release image/ {print $3}')
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)
NoteEnsure that the architecture of the
$RELEASE_IMAGE
matches the architecture of the environment in which you will use theccoctl
tool.Extract the
ccoctl
binary from the CCO container image within the OpenShift Container Platform release image by running the following command:$ oc image extract $CCO_IMAGE \ --file="/usr/bin/ccoctl.<rhel_version>" \1 -a ~/.pull-secret
- 1
- For
<rhel_version>
, specify the value that corresponds to the version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that the host uses. If no value is specified,ccoctl.rhel8
is used by default. The following values are valid:-
rhel8
: Specify this value for hosts that use RHEL 8. -
rhel9
: Specify this value for hosts that use RHEL 9.
-
Change the permissions to make
ccoctl
executable by running the following command:$ chmod 775 ccoctl.<rhel_version>
Verification
To verify that
ccoctl
is ready to use, display the help file. Use a relative file name when you run the command, for example:$ ./ccoctl.rhel9
Example output
OpenShift credentials provisioning tool Usage: ccoctl [command] Available Commands: aws Manage credentials objects for AWS cloud azure Manage credentials objects for Azure gcp Manage credentials objects for Google cloud help Help about any command ibmcloud Manage credentials objects for {ibm-cloud-title} nutanix Manage credentials objects for Nutanix Flags: -h, --help help for ccoctl Use "ccoctl [command] --help" for more information about a command.
9.9.2.2. Creating GCP resources with the Cloud Credential Operator utility
You can use the ccoctl gcp create-all
command to automate the creation of GCP resources.
By default, ccoctl
creates objects in the directory in which the commands are run. To create the objects in a different directory, use the --output-dir
flag. This procedure uses <path_to_ccoctl_output_dir>
to refer to this directory.
Prerequisites
You must have:
-
Extracted and prepared the
ccoctl
binary.
Procedure
Set a
$RELEASE_IMAGE
variable with the release image from your installation file by running the following command:$ RELEASE_IMAGE=$(./openshift-install version | awk '/release image/ {print $3}')
Extract the list of
CredentialsRequest
objects from the OpenShift Container Platform release image by running the following command:$ oc adm release extract \ --from=$RELEASE_IMAGE \ --credentials-requests \ --included \1 --install-config=<path_to_directory_with_installation_configuration>/install-config.yaml \2 --to=<path_to_directory_for_credentials_requests> 3
- 1
- The
--included
parameter includes only the manifests that your specific cluster configuration requires. - 2
- Specify the location of the
install-config.yaml
file. - 3
- Specify the path to the directory where you want to store the
CredentialsRequest
objects. If the specified directory does not exist, this command creates it.
NoteThis command might take a few moments to run.
Use the
ccoctl
tool to process allCredentialsRequest
objects by running the following command:$ ccoctl gcp create-all \ --name=<name> \1 --region=<gcp_region> \2 --project=<gcp_project_id> \3 --credentials-requests-dir=<path_to_credentials_requests_directory> 4
- 1
- Specify the user-defined name for all created GCP resources used for tracking.
- 2
- Specify the GCP region in which cloud resources will be created.
- 3
- Specify the GCP project ID in which cloud resources will be created.
- 4
- Specify the directory containing the files of
CredentialsRequest
manifests to create GCP service accounts.
NoteIf your cluster uses Technology Preview features that are enabled by the
TechPreviewNoUpgrade
feature set, you must include the--enable-tech-preview
parameter.
Verification
To verify that the OpenShift Container Platform secrets are created, list the files in the
<path_to_ccoctl_output_dir>/manifests
directory:$ ls <path_to_ccoctl_output_dir>/manifests
Example output
cluster-authentication-02-config.yaml openshift-cloud-controller-manager-gcp-ccm-cloud-credentials-credentials.yaml openshift-cloud-credential-operator-cloud-credential-operator-gcp-ro-creds-credentials.yaml openshift-cloud-network-config-controller-cloud-credentials-credentials.yaml openshift-cluster-api-capg-manager-bootstrap-credentials-credentials.yaml openshift-cluster-csi-drivers-gcp-pd-cloud-credentials-credentials.yaml openshift-image-registry-installer-cloud-credentials-credentials.yaml openshift-ingress-operator-cloud-credentials-credentials.yaml openshift-machine-api-gcp-cloud-credentials-credentials.yaml
You can verify that the IAM service accounts are created by querying GCP. For more information, refer to GCP documentation on listing IAM service accounts.
9.9.2.3. Incorporating the Cloud Credential Operator utility manifests
To implement short-term security credentials managed outside the cluster for individual components, you must move the manifest files that the Cloud Credential Operator utility (ccoctl
) created to the correct directories for the installation program.
Prerequisites
- You have configured an account with the cloud platform that hosts your cluster.
-
You have configured the Cloud Credential Operator utility (
ccoctl
). -
You have created the cloud provider resources that are required for your cluster with the
ccoctl
utility.
Procedure
Add the following granular permissions to the GCP account that the installation program uses:
Example 9.5. Required GCP permissions
- compute.machineTypes.list
- compute.regions.list
- compute.zones.list
- dns.changes.create
- dns.changes.get
- dns.managedZones.create
- dns.managedZones.delete
- dns.managedZones.get
- dns.managedZones.list
- dns.networks.bindPrivateDNSZone
- dns.resourceRecordSets.create
- dns.resourceRecordSets.delete
- dns.resourceRecordSets.list
If you did not set the
credentialsMode
parameter in theinstall-config.yaml
configuration file toManual
, modify the value as shown:Sample configuration file snippet
apiVersion: v1 baseDomain: example.com credentialsMode: Manual # ...
If you have not previously created installation manifest files, do so by running the following command:
$ openshift-install create manifests --dir <installation_directory>
where
<installation_directory>
is the directory in which the installation program creates files.Copy the manifests that the
ccoctl
utility generated to themanifests
directory that the installation program created by running the following command:$ cp /<path_to_ccoctl_output_dir>/manifests/* ./manifests/
Copy the
tls
directory that contains the private key to the installation directory:$ cp -a /<path_to_ccoctl_output_dir>/tls .
9.10. Deploying the cluster
You can install OpenShift Container Platform on a compatible cloud platform.
You can run the create cluster
command of the installation program only once, during initial installation.
Prerequisites
- You have configured an account with the cloud platform that hosts your cluster.
- You have the OpenShift Container Platform installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
- You have verified that 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
Remove any existing GCP credentials that do not use the service account key for the GCP account that you configured for your cluster and that are stored in the following locations:
-
The
GOOGLE_CREDENTIALS
,GOOGLE_CLOUD_KEYFILE_JSON
, orGCLOUD_KEYFILE_JSON
environment variables -
The
~/.gcp/osServiceAccount.json
file -
The
gcloud cli
default credentials
-
The
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
Optional: You can reduce the number of permissions for the service account that you used to install the cluster.
-
If you assigned the
Owner
role to your service account, you can remove that role and replace it with theViewer
role. -
If you included the
Service Account Key Admin
role, you can remove it.
-
If you assigned the
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
.
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
-
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.
9.11. 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
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.
Verify you can run
oc
commands successfully using the exported configuration:$ oc whoami
Example output
system:admin
Additional resources
- See Accessing the web console for more details about accessing and understanding the OpenShift Container Platform web console.
9.12. Telemetry access for OpenShift Container Platform
In OpenShift Container Platform 4.17, 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.
After you confirm that your OpenShift Cluster Manager 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
- See About remote health monitoring for more information about the Telemetry service
9.13. Next steps
- Customize your cluster.
- If necessary, you can opt out of remote health reporting.