Chapter 15. Installing a cluster on AWS with remote workers on AWS Outposts

Procedure

1. 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.

   Note

   If 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, and s390x architectures, do not create a key that uses the ed25519 algorithm. Instead, create a key that uses the rsa or ecdsa algorithm.

2. 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

3. 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.

   Note

   On some distributions, default SSH private key identities such as ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_dsa are managed automatically.

   1. 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

      Note

      If your cluster is in FIPS mode, only use FIPS-compliant algorithms to generate the SSH key. The key must be either RSA or ECDSA.

4. 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>)

Procedure

1. 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.
2. Select your infrastructure provider from the Run it yourself section of the page.
3. Select your host operating system and architecture from the dropdown menus under OpenShift Installer and click Download Installer.

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Procedure

1. Create the install-config.yaml file.

   1. Change to the directory that contains the installation program and run the following command:

      $ ./openshift-install create install-config --dir <installation_directory> 1

      1

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

      When specifying the directory:

      • Verify that the directory has the execute permission. This permission is required to run Terraform binaries under the installation directory.

      • Use an empty directory. Some installation assets, such as bootstrap X.509 certificates, have short expiration intervals, therefore 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.

        Note

        Always delete the ~/.powervs directory to avoid reusing a stale configuration. Run the following command:

        $ rm -rf ~/.powervs

   2. At the prompts, provide the configuration details for your cloud:

      1. Optional: Select an SSH key to use to access your cluster machines.

         Note

         For 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.

      2. Select AWS as the platform to target.
      3. If you do not have an Amazon Web Services (AWS) profile stored on your computer, enter the AWS access key ID and secret access key for the user that you configured to run the installation program.
      4. Select the AWS region to deploy the cluster to.
      5. Select the base domain for the Route 53 service that you configured for your cluster.
      6. Enter a descriptive name for your cluster.

2. Modify the install-config.yaml file. The AWS Outposts installation has the following limitations which require manual modification of the install-config.yaml file:

   • Unlike AWS Regions, which offer near-infinite scale, AWS Outposts are limited by their provisioned capacity, EC2 family and generations, configured instance sizes, and availability of compute capacity that is not already consumed by other workloads. Therefore, when creating new OpenShift Container Platform cluster, you need to provide the supported instance type in the compute.platform.aws.type section in the configuration file.
   • When deploying OpenShift Container Platform cluster with remote workers running in AWS Outposts, only one Availability Zone can be used for the compute instances - the Availability Zone in which the Outpost instance was created in. Therefore, when creating new OpenShift Container Platform cluster, it recommended to provide the relevant Availability Zone in the compute.platform.aws.zones section in the configuration file, in order to limit the compute instances to this Availability Zone.
   • Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) gp3 volumes aren’t supported by the AWS Outposts service. This volume type is the default type used by the OpenShift Container Platform cluster. Therefore, when creating new OpenShift Container Platform cluster, you must change the volume type in the compute.platform.aws.rootVolume.type section to gp2. You will find more information about how to change these values below.

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 installation process. If you want to reuse the file, you must back it up now.

Procedure

1. Optional: Create a backup copy of the install-config.yaml file:

   $ cp install-config.yaml install-config.yaml.backup

2. Generate a set of manifests in your assets directory:

   $ openshift-install create manifests --dir <installation_-_directory>

   This command displays the following messages.

   Example output

   INFO Consuming Install Config from target directory
   INFO Manifests created in: <installation_directory>/manifests and <installation_directory>/openshift

   The command generates the following manifest files:

   Example output

   $ tree
   .
   ├── manifests
   │   ├── cluster-config.yaml
   │   ├── cluster-dns-02-config.yml
   │   ├── cluster-infrastructure-02-config.yml
   │   ├── cluster-ingress-02-config.yml
   │   ├── cluster-network-01-crd.yml
   │   ├── cluster-network-02-config.yml
   │   ├── cluster-proxy-01-config.yaml
   │   ├── cluster-scheduler-02-config.yml
   │   ├── cvo-overrides.yaml
   │   ├── kube-cloud-config.yaml
   │   ├── kube-system-configmap-root-ca.yaml
   │   ├── machine-config-server-tls-secret.yaml
   │   └── openshift-config-secret-pull-secret.yaml
   └── openshift
       ├── 99_cloud-creds-secret.yaml
       ├── 99_kubeadmin-password-secret.yaml
       ├── 99_openshift-cluster-api_master-machines-0.yaml
       ├── 99_openshift-cluster-api_master-machines-1.yaml
       ├── 99_openshift-cluster-api_master-machines-2.yaml
       ├── 99_openshift-cluster-api_master-user-data-secret.yaml
       ├── 99_openshift-cluster-api_worker-machineset-0.yaml
       ├── 99_openshift-cluster-api_worker-user-data-secret.yaml
       ├── 99_openshift-machineconfig_99-master-ssh.yaml
       ├── 99_openshift-machineconfig_99-worker-ssh.yaml
       ├── 99_role-cloud-creds-secret-reader.yaml
       └── openshift-install-manifests.yaml

Procedure

1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
2. Select the architecture from the Product Variant drop-down list.
3. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
4. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.14 Linux Client entry and save the file.

5. Unpack the archive:

   $ tar xvf <file>

6. Place the oc binary in a directory that is on your PATH.

   To check your PATH, execute the following command:

   $ echo $PATH

Procedure

1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.
3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.14 Windows Client entry and save the file.
4. Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.

5. Move the oc binary to a directory that is on your PATH.

   To check your PATH, open the command prompt and execute the following command:

   C:\> path

Procedure

1. Navigate to the OpenShift Container Platform downloads page on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
2. Select the appropriate version from the Version drop-down list.

3. Click Download Now next to the OpenShift v4.14 macOS Client entry and save the file.

   Note

   For macOS arm64, choose the OpenShift v4.14 macOS arm64 Client entry.

4. Unpack and unzip the archive.

5. Move the oc binary to a directory on your PATH.

   To check your PATH, open a terminal and execute the following command:

   $ echo $PATH

Procedure

1. 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

   1

   For <installation_directory>, specify the location of your customized ./install-config.yaml file.

   2

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

2. Optional: Remove or disable the AdministratorAccess policy from the IAM account that you used to install the cluster.

   Note

   The elevated permissions provided by the AdministratorAccess policy are required only during installation.

Procedure

1. 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.

2. Verify you can run oc commands successfully using the exported configuration:

   $ oc whoami

   Example output

   system:admin

Procedure

1. Obtain the password for the kubeadmin user from the kubeadmin-password file on the installation host:

   $ cat <installation_directory>/auth/kubeadmin-password

   Note

   Alternatively, you can obtain the kubeadmin password from the <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log log file on the installation host.

2. List the OpenShift Container Platform web console route:

   $ oc get routes -n openshift-console | grep 'console-openshift'

   Note

   Alternatively, you can obtain the OpenShift Container Platform route from the <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log log file on the installation host.

   Example output

   console     console-openshift-console.apps.<cluster_name>.<base_domain>            console     https   reencrypt/Redirect   None

3. Navigate to the route detailed in the output of the preceding command in a web browser and log in as the kubeadmin user.