Chapter 9. Configuring the vSphere connection settings after an installation

Procedure

1. In the Administrator perspective, navigate to Home Overview.
2. Under Status, click vSphere connection to open the vSphere connection configuration wizard.
3. In the vCenter field, enter the network address of the vSphere vCenter server. This can be either a domain name or an IP address. It appears in the vSphere web client URL; for example https://[your_vCenter_address]/ui.

4. In the vCenter cluster field, enter the name of the vSphere vCenter cluster where OpenShift Container Platform is installed.

   Important

   This step is mandatory if you installed OpenShift Container Platform 4.13 or later.

5. In the Username field, enter your vSphere vCenter username.

6. In the Password field, enter your vSphere vCenter password.

   Warning

   The system stores the username and password in the vsphere-creds secret in the kube-system namespace of the cluster. An incorrect vCenter username or password makes the cluster nodes unschedulable.

7. In the Datacenter field, enter the name of the vSphere data center that contains the virtual machines used to host the cluster; for example, SDDC-Datacenter.

8. In the Default data store field, enter the path and name of the vSphere data store that stores the persistent data volumes; for example, /SDDC-Datacenter/datastore/datastorename.

   Warning

   Updating the vSphere data center or default data store after the configuration has been saved detaches any active vSphere PersistentVolumes.

9. In the Virtual Machine Folder field, enter the data center folder that contains the virtual machine of the cluster; for example, /SDDC-Datacenter/vm/ci-ln-hjg4vg2-c61657-t2gzr. For the OpenShift Container Platform installation to succeed, all virtual machines comprising the cluster must be located in a single data center folder.
10. Click Save Configuration. This updates the cloud-provider-config ConfigMap resource in the openshift-config namespace, and starts the configuration process.
11. Reopen the vSphere connection configuration wizard and expand the Monitored operators panel. Check that the status of the operators is either Progressing or Healthy.

Procedure

1. Check that the configuration process completed successfully:

   1. In the OpenShift Container Platform Administrator perspective, navigate to Home Overview.
   2. Under Status click Operators. Wait for all operator statuses to change from Progressing to All succeeded. A Failed status indicates that the configuration failed.
   3. Under Status, click Control Plane. Wait for the response rate of all Control Pane components to return to 100%. A Failed control plane component indicates that the configuration failed.

   A failure indicates that at least one of the connection settings is incorrect. Change the settings in the vSphere connection configuration wizard and save the configuration again.

2. Check that you are able to bind PersistentVolumeClaims objects by performing the following steps:

   1. Create a StorageClass object using the following YAML:

      kind: StorageClass
      apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
      metadata:
       name: vsphere-sc
      provisioner: kubernetes.io/vsphere-volume
      parameters:
       datastore: YOURVCENTERDATASTORE
       diskformat: thin
      reclaimPolicy: Delete
      volumeBindingMode: Immediate

   2. Create a PersistentVolumeClaims object using the following YAML:

      kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
      apiVersion: v1
      metadata:
       name: test-pvc
       namespace: openshift-config
       annotations:
         volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-provisioner: kubernetes.io/vsphere-volume
       finalizers:
         - kubernetes.io/pvc-protection
      spec:
       accessModes:
         - ReadWriteOnce
       resources:
         requests:
          storage: 10Gi
       storageClassName: vsphere-sc
       volumeMode: Filesystem

      If you are unable to create a PersistentVolumeClaims object, you can troubleshoot by navigating to Storage PersistentVolumeClaims in the Administrator perspective of the OpenShift Container Platform web console.