Chapter 2. Install Red Hat Developer Hub on OpenShift Container Platform with the Operator

Procedure

1. In the OpenShift Container Platform web console, find and install the Red Hat Developer Hub Operator from the software catalog.

   For the detailed console steps, see Installing from the software catalog by using the web console in the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform documentation.

2. On the Install Operator page, configure the following options:

   1. From the Update channel drop-down menu, select fast or fast-1.10.

      Important

      The fast channel includes all of the updates available for a particular version. Any update might introduce unexpected changes in your Red Hat Developer Hub deployment. Check the release notes for details about any potentially breaking changes.

      The fast-1.10 channel only provides z-stream updates, for example, updating from version 1.10.1 to 1.10.2. If you want to update the Red Hat Developer Hub y-version in the future, for example, updating from 1.10 to 2.1, you must switch to the fast-2.1 channel manually.

   2. From the Version drop-down menu, select the version of the Red Hat Developer Hub Operator that you want to install.

   3. For Installation mode, keep the default All namespaces on the cluster option.

      Note

      The Specific namespace on the cluster option is not currently supported.

   4. For Installed Namespace, select Operator recommended Namespace to use the default rhdh-operator namespace.

      Important

      For enhanced security, better control over the Operator lifecycle, and preventing potential privilege escalation, install the Red Hat Developer Hub Operator in a dedicated default rhdh-operator namespace. You can restrict other users' access to the Operator resources through role bindings or cluster role bindings.

      You can also install the Operator in another namespace by creating the necessary resources, such as an Operator group. For more information, see Installing global Operators in custom namespaces.

      However, if the Red Hat Developer Hub Operator shares a namespace with other Operators, then it shares the same update policy as well, preventing the customization of the update policy. For example, if one Operator is set to manual updates, the Red Hat Developer Hub Operator update policy is also set to manual. For more information, see Colocation of Operators in a namespace.

   5. Select the Update approval method and click Install.

Procedure

1. For security, store your secrets as environment variables values in an OpenShift Container Platform secret, rather than in plain text in your configuration files. Collect all your secrets in the secrets.txt file, with one secret per line in KEY=value form.

   Enter your authentication secrets.

2. Author your custom app-config.yaml file. This is the main Developer Hub configuration file. You need a custom app-config.yaml file to avoid the Developer Hub installer to revert user edits during upgrades. When your custom app-config.yaml file is empty, Developer Hub is using default values.

   • To prepare a deployment with the Red Hat Developer Hub Operator on OpenShift Container Platform, you can start with an empty file.

   • To prepare a deployment with the Red Hat Developer Hub Helm chart, or on Kubernetes, enter the Developer Hub base URL in the relevant fields in your app-config.yaml file to ensure proper functionality of Developer Hub. The base URL is what a Developer Hub user sees in their browser when accessing Developer Hub. The relevant fields are baseUrl in the app and backend sections, and origin in the backend.cors subsection:

     Configuring the baseUrl in app-config.yaml:

     app:
       title: Red Hat Developer Hub
       baseUrl: https://<my_developer_hub_domain>
     
     backend:
       auth:
         externalAccess:
           - type: legacy
             options:
               subject: legacy-default-config
               secret: "${BACKEND_SECRET}"
       baseUrl: https://<my_developer_hub_domain>
       cors:
         origin: https://<my_developer_hub_domain>

   • Optionally, enter your configuration such as:

     • Authentication in Red Hat Developer Hub.
     • Authorization in Red Hat Developer Hub.
     • Customization.
     • Configure your OpenShift Container Platform integration.

3. Author your custom dynamic-plugins.yaml file to enable plugins. By default, Developer Hub enables a minimal plugin set, and disables plugins that require configuration or secrets, such as the GitHub repository discovery plugin and the Role-based access control (RBAC) plugin.

   Enable the GitHub repository discovery and the RBAC features:

   dynamic.plugins.yaml

   includes:
     - dynamic-plugins.default.yaml
   plugins:
     - package: ./dynamic-plugins/dist/backstage-plugin-catalog-backend-module-github
       disabled: false
     - package: ./dynamic-plugins/dist/backstage-community-plugin-rbac
       disabled: false

4. Provision your custom configuration files to your OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

   1. Create the <my-rhdh-project> project aimed at containing your Developer Hub instance.

      $ oc create namespace my-rhdh-project

   2. Create config maps for your app-config.yaml and dynamic-plugins.yaml files in the <my-rhdh-project> project.

      $ oc create configmap my-rhdh-app-config --from-file=app-config.yaml --namespace=my-rhdh-project
      $ oc create configmap dynamic-plugins-rhdh --from-file=dynamic-plugins.yaml --namespace=my-rhdh-project

      You can also create the config maps by using the web console.

   3. Provision your secrets.txt file to the my-rhdh-secrets secret in the <my-rhdh-project> project.

      $ oc create secret generic my-rhdh-secrets --from-file=secrets.txt --namespace=my-rhdh-project

      You can also create the secret by using the web console.

Procedure

1. Author your Backstage CR in a my-rhdh-custom-resource.yaml file to use your custom config maps and secrets.

   Minimal my-rhdh-custom-resource.yaml custom resource example:

   apiVersion: rhdh.redhat.com/v1alpha5
   kind: Backstage
   metadata:
     name: my-rhdh-custom-resource
   spec:
     application:
       appConfig:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         configMaps:
            - name: my-rhdh-app-config
       extraEnvs:
         secrets:
            - name: <my_product_secrets>
       extraFiles:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
       route:
         enabled: true
     database:
       enableLocalDb: true

   my-rhdh-custom-resource.yaml custom resource example with dynamic plugins and RBAC policies config maps, and external PostgreSQL database secrets:

   apiVersion: rhdh.redhat.com/v1alpha5
   kind: Backstage
   metadata:
     name: <my-rhdh-custom-resource>
   spec:
     application:
       appConfig:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         configMaps:
            - name: my-rhdh-app-config
            - name: rbac-policies
       dynamicPluginsConfigMapName: dynamic-plugins-rhdh
       extraEnvs:
         secrets:
            - name: <my_product_secrets>
            - name: my-rhdh-database-secrets
       extraFiles:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         secrets:
           - name: my-rhdh-database-certificates-secrets
             key: postgres-crt.pem, postgres-ca.pem, postgres-key.key
       route:
         enabled: true
     database:
       enableLocalDb: false

   Mandatory fields

   No fields are mandatory. You can create an empty Backstage CR and run Developer Hub with the default configuration.

   Optional fields

   spec.application.appConfig.configMaps

   Enter your config map name list.

   Mount files in the my-rhdh-app-config config map:

   spec:
     application:
       appConfig:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         configMaps:
            - name: my-rhdh-app-config

   Mount files in the my-rhdh-app-config and rbac-policies config maps:

   spec:
     application:
       appConfig:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         configMaps:
            - name: my-rhdh-app-config
            - name: rbac-policies

   Warning

   Each app-config config map must contain only one data entry. If a config map contains multiple app-config.yaml files, their keys are sorted alphabetically, which might not match your intended merge order. To control the merge order, split multi-entry config maps into separate single-entry config maps and reference each one in the spec.application.appConfig.configMaps field of your Backstage custom resource in the intended order.

   spec.application.extraEnvs.envs

   Optionally, enter your additional environment variables that are not secrets, such as your proxy environment variables.

   Inject your HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY and NO_PROXY environment variables:

   spec:
     application:
       extraEnvs:
         envs:
           - name: HTTP_PROXY
             value: 'http://10.10.10.105:3128'
           - name: HTTPS_PROXY
             value: 'http://10.10.10.106:3128'
           - name: NO_PROXY
             value: 'localhost,example.org'

   spec.application.extraEnvs.secrets

   Enter your environment variables secret name list.

   Inject the environment variables in your Red Hat Developer Hub secret:

   spec:
     application:
       extraEnvs:
         secrets:
            - name: <my_product_secrets>

   Inject the environment variables in the Red Hat Developer Hub and my-rhdh-database-secrets secrets:

   spec:
     application:
       extraEnvs:
         secrets:
            - name: <my_product_secrets>
            - name: my-rhdh-database-secrets

   Note

   <my_product_secrets> is your preferred Developer Hub secret name, specifying the identifier for your secret configuration within Developer Hub.

   spec.application.extraFiles.secrets

   Enter your certificates files secret name and files list.

   Mount the postgres-crt.pem, postgres-ca.pem, and postgres-key.key files contained in the my-rhdh-database-certificates-secrets secret:

   spec:
     application:
       extraFiles:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         secrets:
           - name: my-rhdh-database-certificates-secrets
             key: postgres-crt.pem, postgres-ca.pem, postgres-key.key

   spec.database.enableLocalDb

   Enable or disable the local PostgreSQL database.

   Disable the local PostgreSQL database generation to use an external postgreSQL database:

   spec:
     database:
       enableLocalDb: false

   On a development environment, use the local PostgreSQL database:

   spec:
     database:
       enableLocalDb: true

   spec.deployment

   Optionally, enter your deployment configuration.

2. Apply your Backstage CR to start or update your Developer Hub instance:

   $ oc apply --filename=my-rhdh-custom-resource.yaml --namespace=my-rhdh-project