Chapter 2. Driver Toolkit
Learn about the Driver Toolkit and how you can use it as a base image for driver containers for enabling special software and hardware devices on OpenShift Container Platform deployments.
2.1. About the Driver Toolkit
Background
The Driver Toolkit is a container image in the OpenShift Container Platform payload used as a base image on which you can build driver containers. The Driver Toolkit image includes the kernel packages commonly required as dependencies to build or install kernel modules, as well as a few tools needed in driver containers. The version of these packages will match the kernel version running on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) nodes in the corresponding OpenShift Container Platform release.
Driver containers are container images used for building and deploying out-of-tree kernel modules and drivers on container operating systems like RHCOS. Kernel modules and drivers are software libraries running with a high level of privilege in the operating system kernel. They extend the kernel functionalities or provide the hardware-specific code required to control new devices. Examples include hardware devices like Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) or GPUs, and software-defined storage (SDS) solutions, such as Lustre parallel file systems, which require kernel modules on client machines. Driver containers are the first layer of the software stack used to enable these technologies on Kubernetes.
The list of kernel packages in the Driver Toolkit includes the following and their dependencies:
-
kernel-core
-
kernel-devel
-
kernel-headers
-
kernel-modules
-
kernel-modules-extra
In addition, the Driver Toolkit also includes the corresponding real-time kernel packages:
-
kernel-rt-core
-
kernel-rt-devel
-
kernel-rt-modules
-
kernel-rt-modules-extra
The Driver Toolkit also has several tools that are commonly needed to build and install kernel modules, including:
-
elfutils-libelf-devel
-
kmod
-
binutilskabi-dw
-
kernel-abi-whitelists
- dependencies for the above
Purpose
Prior to the Driver Toolkit’s existence, users would install kernel packages in a pod or build config on OpenShift Container Platform using entitled builds or by installing from the kernel RPMs in the hosts machine-os-content
. The Driver Toolkit simplifies the process by removing the entitlement step, and avoids the privileged operation of accessing the machine-os-content in a pod. The Driver Toolkit can also be used by partners who have access to pre-released OpenShift Container Platform versions to prebuild driver-containers for their hardware devices for future OpenShift Container Platform releases.
The Driver Toolkit is also used by the Kernel Module Management (KMM), which is currently available as a community Operator on OperatorHub. KMM supports out-of-tree and third-party kernel drivers and the support software for the underlying operating system. Users can create modules for KMM to build and deploy a driver container, as well as support software like a device plugin, or metrics. Modules can include a build config to build a driver container-based on the Driver Toolkit, or KMM can deploy a prebuilt driver container.
2.2. Pulling the Driver Toolkit container image
The driver-toolkit
image is available from the Container images section of the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog and in the OpenShift Container Platform release payload. The image corresponding to the most recent minor release of OpenShift Container Platform will be tagged with the version number in the catalog. The image URL for a specific release can be found using the oc adm
CLI command.
2.2.1. Pulling the Driver Toolkit container image from registry.redhat.io
Instructions for pulling the driver-toolkit
image from registry.redhat.io
with podman
or in OpenShift Container Platform can be found on the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog. The driver-toolkit image for the latest minor release are tagged with the minor release version on registry.redhat.io
, for example: registry.redhat.io/openshift4/driver-toolkit-rhel8:v4.17
.
2.2.2. Finding the Driver Toolkit image URL in the payload
Prerequisites
- You obtained the image pull secret from Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager.
-
You installed the OpenShift CLI (
oc
).
Procedure
Use the
oc adm
command to extract the image URL of thedriver-toolkit
corresponding to a certain release:For an x86 image, the command is as follows:
$ oc adm release info quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-release:4.17.z-x86_64 --image-for=driver-toolkit
For an ARM image, the command is as follows:
$ oc adm release info quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-release:4.17.z-aarch64 --image-for=driver-toolkit
Example output
quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-v4.0-art-dev@sha256:b53883ca2bac5925857148c4a1abc300ced96c222498e3bc134fe7ce3a1dd404
Obtain this image using a valid pull secret, such as the pull secret required to install OpenShift Container Platform:
$ podman pull --authfile=path/to/pullsecret.json quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-v4.0-art-dev@sha256:<SHA>
2.3. Using the Driver Toolkit
As an example, the Driver Toolkit can be used as the base image for building a very simple kernel module called simple-kmod
.
The Driver Toolkit includes the necessary dependencies, openssl
, mokutil
, and keyutils
, needed to sign a kernel module. However, in this example, the simple-kmod
kernel module is not signed and therefore cannot be loaded on systems with Secure Boot
enabled.
2.3.1. Build and run the simple-kmod driver container on a cluster
Prerequisites
- You have a running OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
-
You set the Image Registry Operator state to
Managed
for your cluster. -
You installed the OpenShift CLI (
oc
). -
You are logged into the OpenShift CLI as a user with
cluster-admin
privileges.
Procedure
Create a namespace. For example:
$ oc new-project simple-kmod-demo
The YAML defines an
ImageStream
for storing thesimple-kmod
driver container image, and aBuildConfig
for building the container. Save this YAML as0000-buildconfig.yaml.template
.apiVersion: image.openshift.io/v1 kind: ImageStream metadata: labels: app: simple-kmod-driver-container name: simple-kmod-driver-container namespace: simple-kmod-demo spec: {} --- apiVersion: build.openshift.io/v1 kind: BuildConfig metadata: labels: app: simple-kmod-driver-build name: simple-kmod-driver-build namespace: simple-kmod-demo spec: nodeSelector: node-role.kubernetes.io/worker: "" runPolicy: "Serial" triggers: - type: "ConfigChange" - type: "ImageChange" source: dockerfile: | ARG DTK FROM ${DTK} as builder ARG KVER WORKDIR /build/ RUN git clone https://github.com/openshift-psap/simple-kmod.git WORKDIR /build/simple-kmod RUN make all install KVER=${KVER} FROM registry.redhat.io/ubi8/ubi-minimal ARG KVER # Required for installing `modprobe` RUN microdnf install kmod COPY --from=builder /lib/modules/${KVER}/simple-kmod.ko /lib/modules/${KVER}/ COPY --from=builder /lib/modules/${KVER}/simple-procfs-kmod.ko /lib/modules/${KVER}/ RUN depmod ${KVER} strategy: dockerStrategy: buildArgs: - name: KMODVER value: DEMO # $ oc adm release info quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-release:<cluster version>-x86_64 --image-for=driver-toolkit - name: DTK value: quay.io/openshift-release-dev/ocp-v4.0-art-dev@sha256:34864ccd2f4b6e385705a730864c04a40908e57acede44457a783d739e377cae - name: KVER value: 4.18.0-372.26.1.el8_6.x86_64 output: to: kind: ImageStreamTag name: simple-kmod-driver-container:demo
Substitute the correct driver toolkit image for the OpenShift Container Platform version you are running in place of “DRIVER_TOOLKIT_IMAGE” with the following commands.
$ OCP_VERSION=$(oc get clusterversion/version -ojsonpath={.status.desired.version})
$ DRIVER_TOOLKIT_IMAGE=$(oc adm release info $OCP_VERSION --image-for=driver-toolkit)
$ sed "s#DRIVER_TOOLKIT_IMAGE#${DRIVER_TOOLKIT_IMAGE}#" 0000-buildconfig.yaml.template > 0000-buildconfig.yaml
Create the image stream and build config with
$ oc create -f 0000-buildconfig.yaml
After the builder pod completes successfully, deploy the driver container image as a
DaemonSet
.The driver container must run with the privileged security context in order to load the kernel modules on the host. The following YAML file contains the RBAC rules and the
DaemonSet
for running the driver container. Save this YAML as1000-drivercontainer.yaml
.apiVersion: v1 kind: ServiceAccount metadata: name: simple-kmod-driver-container --- apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1 kind: Role metadata: name: simple-kmod-driver-container rules: - apiGroups: - security.openshift.io resources: - securitycontextconstraints verbs: - use resourceNames: - privileged --- apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1 kind: RoleBinding metadata: name: simple-kmod-driver-container roleRef: apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io kind: Role name: simple-kmod-driver-container subjects: - kind: ServiceAccount name: simple-kmod-driver-container userNames: - system:serviceaccount:simple-kmod-demo:simple-kmod-driver-container --- apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: DaemonSet metadata: name: simple-kmod-driver-container spec: selector: matchLabels: app: simple-kmod-driver-container template: metadata: labels: app: simple-kmod-driver-container spec: serviceAccount: simple-kmod-driver-container serviceAccountName: simple-kmod-driver-container containers: - image: image-registry.openshift-image-registry.svc:5000/simple-kmod-demo/simple-kmod-driver-container:demo name: simple-kmod-driver-container imagePullPolicy: Always command: [sleep, infinity] lifecycle: postStart: exec: command: ["modprobe", "-v", "-a" , "simple-kmod", "simple-procfs-kmod"] preStop: exec: command: ["modprobe", "-r", "-a" , "simple-kmod", "simple-procfs-kmod"] securityContext: privileged: true nodeSelector: node-role.kubernetes.io/worker: ""
Create the RBAC rules and daemon set:
$ oc create -f 1000-drivercontainer.yaml
After the pods are running on the worker nodes, verify that the
simple_kmod
kernel module is loaded successfully on the host machines withlsmod
.Verify that the pods are running:
$ oc get pod -n simple-kmod-demo
Example output
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE simple-kmod-driver-build-1-build 0/1 Completed 0 6m simple-kmod-driver-container-b22fd 1/1 Running 0 40s simple-kmod-driver-container-jz9vn 1/1 Running 0 40s simple-kmod-driver-container-p45cc 1/1 Running 0 40s
Execute the
lsmod
command in the driver container pod:$ oc exec -it pod/simple-kmod-driver-container-p45cc -- lsmod | grep simple
Example output
simple_procfs_kmod 16384 0 simple_kmod 16384 0
2.4. Additional resources
- For more information about configuring registry storage for your cluster, see Image Registry Operator in OpenShift Container Platform.