Chapter 2. Installing

OpenShift infrastructure components can be installed across multiple hosts. The following sections outline the system requirements and instructions for preparing your environment and hosts before installing OpenShift.

You must have an active OpenShift Enterprise subscription on your Red Hat account to proceed. If you do not, contact your sales representative for more information.

The system requirements vary per host type:

# export GOMAXPROCS=1

The following must be set up in your environment before OpenShift can be installed.

*.cloudapps.example.com. 300 IN  A 192.168.133.2

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#     enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#     permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#     disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=enforcing
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these three values:
#     targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
#     minimum - Modification of targeted policy. Only selected processes are protected.
#     mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

# ansible-playbook playbooks/byo/openshift_facts.yml

Before installing OpenShift, you must first prepare each host per the following.

OPTIONS='--insecure-registry=172.30.0.0/16 --selinux-enabled --log-opt max-size=1M --log-opt max-file=3'

# systemctl restart docker

# ls -lh /var/lib/docker/containers/f088349cceac173305d3e2c2e4790051799efe363842fdab5732f51f5b001fd8/
total 2.6M
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 5.6K Nov 24 00:12 config.json
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 649K Nov 24 00:15 f088349cceac173305d3e2c2e4790051799efe363842fdab5732f51f5b001fd8-json.log
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 977K Nov 24 00:15 f088349cceac173305d3e2c2e4790051799efe363842fdab5732f51f5b001fd8-json.log.1
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 977K Nov 24 00:15 f088349cceac173305d3e2c2e4790051799efe363842fdab5732f51f5b001fd8-json.log.2
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1.3K Nov 24 00:12 hostconfig.json
drwx------. 2 root root    6 Nov 24 00:12 secrets

The quick and advanced installation methods require a user that has access to all hosts. If you want to run the installer as a non-root user, passwordless sudo rights must be configured on each destination host.

For example, you can generate an SSH key on the host where you will invoke the installation process:

# ssh-keygen

Do not use a password.

An easy way to distribute your SSH keys is by using a bash loop:

# for host in master.example.com \
    node1.example.com \
    node2.example.com; \
    do ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub $host; \
    done

Modify the host names in the above command according to your configuration.

The OpenShift Enterprise installer uses the proxy settings in the _/etc/environment _ file.

Ensure the following domain suffixes and IP addresses are in the /etc/environment file in the no_proxy parameter:

The following example assumes http_proxy and https_proxy values are set:

no_proxy=.internal.example.com,10.0.0.1,10.0.0.2,10.0.0.3,.cluster.local,.svc,localhost,127.0.0.1,172.30.0.1

If you are interested in installing OpenShift using the containerized method (optional for RHEL but required for RHEL Atomic Host), see RPM vs Containerized to ensure that you understand the differences between these methods.

When you are ready to proceed, you can install OpenShift Enterprise using the quick installation or advanced installation method.

The default method for installing OpenShift on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) uses RPMs. Alternatively, you can use the containerized method, which deploys containerized OpenShift master and node components. When targeting a RHEL Atomic Host system, the containerized method is the only available option, and is automatically selected for you based on the detection of the /run/ostree-booted file.

You can easily deploy environments mixing containerized and RPM based installations. For the advanced installation method, you can set the Ansible variable containerized=true in an inventory file on a cluster-wide or per host basis. For the quick installation method, you can choose between the RPM or containerized method on a per host basis during the interactive installation, or set the values manually in an installation configuration file.

The following sections detail the differences between the RPM and containerized methods.

Containerized installations make use of the following images:

By default, all of the above images are pulled from the Red Hat Registry at registry.access.redhat.com.

If you need to use a private registry to pull these images during the installation, you can specify the registry information ahead of time. For the advanced installation method, you can set the following Ansible variables in your inventory file, as required:

cli_docker_additional_registries=<registry_hostname>
cli_docker_insecure_registries=<registry_hostname>
cli_docker_blocked_registries=<registry_hostname>

For the quick installation method, you can export the following environment variables on each target host:

# export OO_INSTALL_ADDITIONAL_REGISTRIES=<registry_hostname>
# export OO_INSTALL_INSECURE_REGISTRIES=<registry_hostname>

Blocked Docker registries cannot currently be specified using the quick installation method.

The configuration of additional, insecure, and blocked Docker registries occurs at the beginning of the installation process to ensure that these settings are applied before attempting to pull any of the required images.

When using containerized installations, a CLI wrapper script is deployed on each master at /usr/local/bin/openshift. The following set of symbolic links are also provided to ease administrative tasks:

The wrapper spawns a new container on each invocation, so you may notice it run slightly slower than native CLI operations.

The wrapper scripts mount a limited subset of paths:

Be mindful of this when passing in files to be processed by the oc or oadm commands. You may find it easier to redirect the input, for example:

# oc create -f - < my-file.json

The installation process creates relevant systemd units which can be used to start, stop, and poll services using normal systemctl commands. For containerized installations, these unit names match those of an RPM installation, with the exception of the etcd service which is named etcd_container.

This change is necessary as currently RHEL Atomic Host ships with the etcd package installed as part of the operating system, so a containerized version is used for the OpenShift installation instead. The installation process disables the default etcd service. The etcd package is slated to be removed from RHEL Atomic Host in the future.

All OpenShift configuration files are placed in the same locations during containerized installation as RPM based installations and will survive os-tree upgrades.

However, the default image stream and template files are installed at /etc/origin/examples/ for containerized installations rather than the standard /usr/share/openshift/examples/, because that directory is read-only on RHEL Atomic Host.

RHEL Atomic Host installations normally have a very small root file system. However, the etcd, master, and node containers persist data in the /var/lib/ directory. Ensure that you have enough space on the root file system before installing OpenShift; see the System Requirements section for details.

OpenShift SDN initialization requires that the Docker bridge be reconfigured and that Docker is restarted. This complicates the situation when the node is running within a container. When using the Open vSwitch (OVS) SDN, you will see the node start, reconfigure Docker, restart Docker (which restarts all containers), and finally start successfully.

In this case, the node service may fail to start and be restarted a few times because the master services are also restarted along with Docker. The current implementation uses a workaround which relies on setting the Restart=always parameter in the Docker based systemd units.

The quick installation method allows you to use an interactive CLI utility, the atomic-openshift-installer command, to install OpenShift across a set of hosts. This installer can deploy OpenShift components on targeted hosts by either installing RPMs or running containerized services.

This installation method is provided to make the installation experience easier by interactively gathering the data needed to run on each host. The installer is a self-contained wrapper intended for usage on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 system. While RHEL Atomic Host is supported for running containerized OpenShift services, the installer is provided by an RPM not available by default in RHEL Atomic Host, and must therefore be run from a RHEL 7 system. The host initiating the installation does not need to be intended for inclusion in the OpenShift cluster, but it can be.

In addition to running interactive installations from scratch, the atomic-openshift-installer command can also be run or re-run using a predefined installation configuration file. This file can be used with the installer to:

Alternatively, you can use the advanced installation method for more complex environments.

The installer allows you to install OpenShift master and node components on a defined set of hosts.

Before installing OpenShift, you must first satisfy the prerequisites on your hosts, which includes verifying system and environment requirements and properly installing and configuring Docker. You must also be prepared to provide or validate the following information for each of your targeted hosts during the course of the installation:

If you are interested in installing OpenShift using the containerized method (optional for RHEL but required for RHEL Atomic Host), see RPM vs Containerized to ensure that you understand the differences between these methods, then return to this topic to continue.

After following the instructions in the Prerequisites topic and deciding between the RPM and containerized methods, you can continue to running an interactive or unattended installation.

You can start the interactive installation by running:

$ atomic-openshift-installer install

Then follow the on-screen instructions to install a new OpenShift Enterprise cluster.

After it has finished, ensure that you back up the ~/.config/openshift/installer.cfg.ymlinstallation configuration file that is created, as it is required if you later want to re-run the installation, add hosts to the cluster, or upgrade your cluster. Then, verify the installation.

The installer can use a predefined installation configuration file, which contains information about your installation, individual hosts, and cluster. When running an interactive installation, an installation configuration file based on your answers is created for you in ~/.config/openshift/installer.cfg.yml. The file is created if you are instructed to exit the installation to manually modify the configuration or when the installation completes. You can also create the configuration file manually from scratch to perform an unattended installation.

version: v1 1
variant: openshift-enterprise 2
variant_version: 3.1 3
ansible_ssh_user: root 4
ansible_log_path: /tmp/ansible.log 5
hosts: 6
- ip: 10.0.0.1 7
  hostname: master-private.example.com 8
  public_ip: 24.222.0.1 9
  public_hostname: master.example.com 10
  master: true 11
  node: true 12
  containerized: true 13
  connect_to: 24.222.0.1 14
- ip: 10.0.0.2
  hostname: node1-private.example.com
  public_ip: 24.222.0.2
  public_hostname: node1.example.com
  node: true
  connect_to: 10.0.0.2
- ip: 10.0.0.3
  hostname: node2-private.example.com
  public_ip: 24.222.0.3
  public_hostname: node2.example.com
  node: true
  connect_to: 10.0.0.3

Unattended installations allow you to define your hosts and cluster configuration in an installation configuration file before running the installer so that you do not have to go through all of the interactive installation questions and answers. It also allows you to resume an interactive installation you may have left unfinished, and quickly get back to where you left off.

To run an unattended installation, first define an installation configuration file at ~/.config/openshift/installer.cfg.yml. Then, run the installer with the -u flag:

$ atomic-openshift-installer -u install

By default in interactive or unattended mode, the installer uses the configuration file located at ~/.config/openshift/installer.cfg.yml if the file exists. If it does not exist, attempting to start an unattended installation fails.

Alternatively, you can specify a different location for the configuration file using the -c option, but doing so will require you to specify the file location every time you run the installation:

$ atomic-openshift-installer -u -c </path/to/file> install

After the unattended installation finishes, ensure that you back up the ~/.config/openshift/installer.cfg.yml file that was used, as it is required if you later want to re-run the installation, add hosts to the cluster, or upgrade your cluster. Then, verify the installation.

After the installation completes:

Then, see What’s Next for the next steps on configuring your OpenShift cluster.

You can use the installer to add nodes to your existing cluster, or to reinstall the cluster entirely.

If you installed OpenShift using the installer in either interactive or unattended mode, you can re-run the installation as long as you have an installation configuration file at ~/.config/openshift/installer.cfg.yml (or specify a different location with the -c option).

If you installed using the advanced installation method and therefore do not have an installation configuration file, you can either try creating your own based on your cluster’s current configuration, or see the advanced installation method on how to run the playbook for adding new nodes directly.

To add nodes or reinstall the cluster:

You can uninstall OpenShift Enterprise on all hosts in your cluster using the installer by running:

$ atomic-openshift-installer uninstall

See the advanced installation method for more options.

Now that you have a working OpenShift Enterprise instance, you can:

For production environments, a reference configuration implemented using Ansible playbooks is available as the advanced installation method for installing OpenShift hosts. Familiarity with Ansible is assumed, however you can use this configuration as a reference to create your own implementation using the configuration management tool of your choosing.

While RHEL Atomic Host is supported for running containerized OpenShift services, the advanced installation method utilizes Ansible, which is not available in RHEL Atomic Host, and must therefore be run from a RHEL 7 system. The host initiating the installation does not need to be intended for inclusion in the OpenShift cluster, but it can be.

Alternatively, you can use the quick installation method if you prefer an interactive installation experience.

Before installing OpenShift, you must first see the Prerequisites topic to prepare your hosts, which includes verifying system and environment requirements per component type and properly installing and configuring Docker. It also includes installing Ansible version 1.8.4 or later, as the advanced installation method is based on Ansible playbooks and as such requires directly invoking Ansible.

If you are interested in installing OpenShift using the containerized method (optional for RHEL but required for RHEL Atomic Host), see RPM vs Containerized to ensure that you understand the differences between these methods, then return to this topic to continue.

After following the instructions in the Prerequisites topic and deciding between the RPM and containerized methods, you can continue in this topic to Configuring Ansible.

The /etc/ansible/hosts file is Ansible’s inventory file for the playbook to use during the installation. The inventory file describes the configuration for your OpenShift cluster. You must replace the default contents of the file with your desired configuration.

The following sections describe commonly-used variables to set in your inventory file during an advanced installation, followed by example inventory files you can use as a starting point for your installation. The examples describe various environment topographies, including using multiple masters for high availability. You can choose an example that matches your requirements, modify it to match your own environment, and use it as your inventory file when running the advanced installation.

[masters]
ec2-52-6-179-239.compute-1.amazonaws.com openshift_public_hostname=ose3-master.public.example.com

[OSEv3:vars]

openshift_master_identity_providers=[{'name': 'htpasswd_auth', 'login': 'true', 'challenge': 'true', 'kind': 'HTPasswdPasswordIdentityProvider', 'filename': '/etc/origin/master/htpasswd'}]

osm_default_subdomain=apps.test.example.com

[nodes]
node1.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'primary', 'zone': 'east'}"

# default selectors for router and registry services
# openshift_router_selector='region=infra'
# openshift_registry_selector='region=infra'

[nodes]
node1.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region':'infra','zone':'default'}"

[nodes]
master.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region':'infra','zone':'default'}" openshift_schedulable=false

openshift_master_session_name=ssn
openshift_master_session_max_seconds=3600

openshift_master_session_auth_secrets=['DONT+USE+THIS+SECRET+b4NV+pmZNSO']

openshift_master_session_encryption_secrets=['DONT+USE+THIS+SECRET+b4NV+pmZNSO']

openshift_master_named_certificates=[{"certfile": "/path/to/custom1.crt", "keyfile": "/path/to/custom1.key"}]

openshift_master_named_certificates=[{"certfile": "/path/to/custom1.crt", "keyfile": "/path/to/custom1.key", "names": ["public-master-host.com"]}]

openshift_master_overwrite_named_certificates=true

openshift_master_cluster_method=native
openshift_master_cluster_hostname=lb.openshift.com
openshift_master_cluster_public_hostname=custom.openshift.com

openshift_master_named_certificates=[{"certfile": "/root/STAR.openshift.com.crt", "keyfile": "/root/STAR.openshift.com.key"}, "names": ["custom.openshift.com"]}]
openshift_master_overwrite_named_certificates=true

You can configure an environment with a single master and multiple nodes, and either a single embedded etcd or multiple external etcd hosts.

Single Master and Multiple Nodes

The following table describes an example environment for a single master (with embedded etcd) and two nodes:

You can see these example hosts present in the [masters] and [nodes] sections of the following example inventory file:

# Create an OSEv3 group that contains the masters and nodes groups
[OSEv3:children]
masters
nodes

# Set variables common for all OSEv3 hosts
[OSEv3:vars]
# SSH user, this user should allow ssh based auth without requiring a password
ansible_ssh_user=root

# If ansible_ssh_user is not root, ansible_sudo must be set to true
#ansible_sudo=true

deployment_type=openshift-enterprise

# uncomment the following to enable htpasswd authentication; defaults to DenyAllPasswordIdentityProvider
#openshift_master_identity_providers=[{'name': 'htpasswd_auth', 'login': 'true', 'challenge': 'true', 'kind': 'HTPasswdPasswordIdentityProvider', 'filename': '/etc/origin/master/htpasswd'}]

# host group for masters
[masters]
master.example.com

# host group for nodes, includes region info
[nodes]
master.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'infra', 'zone': 'default'}"
node1.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'primary', 'zone': 'east'}"
node2.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'primary', 'zone': 'west'}"

To use this example, modify the file to match your environment and specifications, and save it as /etc/ansible/hosts.

Single Master, Multiple etcd, and Multiple Nodes

The following table describes an example environment for a single master, three etcd hosts, and two nodes:

You can see these example hosts present in the [masters], [nodes], and [etcd] sections of the following example inventory file:

# Create an OSEv3 group that contains the masters, nodes, and etcd groups
[OSEv3:children]
masters
nodes
etcd

# Set variables common for all OSEv3 hosts
[OSEv3:vars]
ansible_ssh_user=root
deployment_type=openshift-enterprise

# uncomment the following to enable htpasswd authentication; defaults to DenyAllPasswordIdentityProvider
#openshift_master_identity_providers=[{'name': 'htpasswd_auth', 'login': 'true', 'challenge': 'true', 'kind': 'HTPasswdPasswordIdentityProvider', 'filename': '/etc/origin/master/htpasswd'}]

# host group for masters
[masters]
master.example.com

# host group for etcd
[etcd]
etcd1.example.com
etcd2.example.com
etcd3.example.com

# host group for nodes, includes region info
[nodes]
master.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'infra', 'zone': 'default'}"
node1.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'primary', 'zone': 'east'}"
node2.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'primary', 'zone': 'west'}"

To use this example, modify the file to match your environment and specifications, and save it as /etc/ansible/hosts.

You can configure an environment with multiple masters, multiple etcd hosts, and multiple nodes. Configuring multiple masters for high availability (HA) ensures that the cluster has no single point of failure.

When configuring multiple masters, the advanced installation supports two high availability (HA) methods:

To configure multiple masters, choose one of the above HA methods, and refer to the relevant example section that follows.

Multiple Masters Using Native HA

The following describes an example environment for three masters, one HAProxy load balancer, three etcd hosts, and two nodes using the native HA method:

You can see these example hosts present in the [masters], [etcd], [lb], and [nodes] sections of the following example inventory file:

# Create an OSEv3 group that contains the master, nodes, etcd, and lb groups.
# The lb group lets Ansible configure HAProxy as the load balancing solution.
# Comment lb out if your load balancer is pre-configured.
[OSEv3:children]
masters
nodes
etcd
lb

# Set variables common for all OSEv3 hosts
[OSEv3:vars]
ansible_ssh_user=root
deployment_type=openshift-enterprise

# Uncomment the following to enable htpasswd authentication; defaults to
# DenyAllPasswordIdentityProvider.
#openshift_master_identity_providers=[{'name': 'htpasswd_auth', 'login': 'true', 'challenge': 'true', 'kind': 'HTPasswdPasswordIdentityProvider', 'filename': '/etc/origin/master/htpasswd'}]

# Native high availbility cluster method with optional load balancer.
# If no lb group is defined installer assumes that a load balancer has
# been preconfigured. For installation the value of
# openshift_master_cluster_hostname must resolve to the load balancer
# or to one or all of the masters defined in the inventory if no load
# balancer is present.
openshift_master_cluster_method=native
openshift_master_cluster_hostname=openshift-cluster.example.com
openshift_master_cluster_public_hostname=openshift-cluster.example.com

# override the default controller lease ttl
#osm_controller_lease_ttl=30

# enable ntp on masters to ensure proper failover
openshift_clock_enabled=true

# host group for masters
[masters]
master1.example.com
master2.example.com
master3.example.com

# host group for etcd
[etcd]
etcd1.example.com
etcd2.example.com
etcd3.example.com

# Specify load balancer host
[lb]
lb.example.com

# host group for nodes, includes region info
[nodes]
master[1:3].example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'infra', 'zone': 'default'}"
node1.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'primary', 'zone': 'east'}"
node2.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'primary', 'zone': 'west'}"

To use this example, modify the file to match your environment and specifications, and save it as /etc/ansible/hosts.

Note the following when using the native HA method:

Multiple Masters Using Pacemaker

The following describes an example environment for three masters, three etcd hosts, and two nodes using the pacemaker HA method:

You can see these example hosts present in the [masters], [nodes], and [etcd] sections of the following example inventory file:

# Create an OSEv3 group that contains the masters, nodes, and etcd groups
[OSEv3:children]
masters
nodes
etcd

# Set variables common for all OSEv3 hosts
[OSEv3:vars]
ansible_ssh_user=root
deployment_type=openshift-enterprise

# Uncomment the following to enable htpasswd authentication; defaults to
# DenyAllPasswordIdentityProvider.
#openshift_master_identity_providers=[{'name': 'htpasswd_auth', 'login': 'true', 'challenge': 'true', 'kind': 'HTPasswdPasswordIdentityProvider', 'filename': '/etc/origin/master/htpasswd'}]

# Pacemaker high availability cluster method.
# Pacemaker HA environment must be able to self provision the
# configured VIP. For installation openshift_master_cluster_hostname
# must resolve to the configured VIP.
openshift_master_cluster_method=pacemaker
openshift_master_cluster_password=openshift_cluster
openshift_master_cluster_vip=192.168.133.25
openshift_master_cluster_public_vip=192.168.133.25
openshift_master_cluster_hostname=openshift-cluster.example.com
openshift_master_cluster_public_hostname=openshift-cluster.example.com

# override the default controller lease ttl
#osm_controller_lease_ttl=30

# host group for masters
[masters]
master1.example.com
master2.example.com
master3.example.com

# host group for etcd
[etcd]
etcd1.example.com
etcd2.example.com
etcd3.example.com

# host group for nodes, includes region info
[nodes]
master[1:3].example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'infra', 'zone': 'default'}"
node1.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'primary', 'zone': 'east'}"
node2.example.com openshift_node_labels="{'region': 'primary', 'zone': 'west'}"

To use this example, modify the file to match your environment and specifications, and save it as /etc/ansible/hosts.

Note the following when using this configuration:

After you have configured Ansible by defining an inventory file in /etc/ansible/hosts, you can run the advanced installation using the following playbook:

# ansible-playbook /usr/share/ansible/openshift-ansible/playbooks/byo/config.yml

If for any reason the installation fails, before re-running the installer, see Known Issues to check for any specific instructions or workarounds.

If you installed OpenShift using a configuration for multiple masters with Pacemaker as a load balancer, you must configure a fencing device. See Fencing: Configuring STONITH in the High Availability Add-on for Red Hat Enterprise Linux documentation for instructions, then continue to Verifying the Installation.

After the installation completes:

Multiple etcd Hosts

If you installed multiple etcd hosts:

Multiple Masters Using Pacemaker

If you installed multiple masters using Pacemaker as a load balancer:

Red Hat recommends that you also verify your installation by consulting the High Availability Add-on for Red Hat Enterprise Linux documentation.

Multiple Masters Using HAProxy

If you installed multiple masters using HAProxy as a load balancer, browse to the following URL according to your [lb] section definition and check HAProxy’s status:

http://<lb_hostname>:9000

You can verify your installation by consulting the HAProxy Configuration documentation.

After your cluster is installed, you can install additional nodes (including masters) and add them to your cluster by running the scaleup.yml playbook. This playbook queries the master, generates and distributes new certificates for the new nodes, then runs the configuration playbooks on the new nodes only.

This process is similar to re-running the installer in the quick installation method to add nodes, however you have more configuration options available when using the advanced method and running the playbooks directly.

You must have an existing inventory file (for example, /etc/ansible/hosts) that is representative of your current cluster configuration in order to run the scaleup.yml playbook. If you previously used the atomic-openshift-installer command to run your installation, you can check ~/.config/openshift/.ansible/hosts for the last inventory file that the installer generated and use or modify that as needed as your inventory file. You must then specify the file location with -i when calling ansible-playbook later.

To add nodes to an existing cluster:

You can uninstall OpenShift Enterprise hosts in your cluster by running the uninstall.yml playbook. This playbook deletes OpenShift Enterprise content installed by Ansible, including:

The playbook will delete content for any hosts defined in the inventory file that you specify when running the playbook. If you want to uninstall OpenShift Enterprise across all hosts in your cluster, run the playbook using the inventory file you used when installing OpenShift Enterprise initially or ran most recently:

# ansible-playbook [-i /path/to/file] \
    /usr/share/ansible/openshift-ansible/playbooks/adhoc/uninstall.yml

The following are known issues for specified installation configurations.

Multiple Masters

Now that you have a working OpenShift instance, you can:

Frequently, portions of a datacenter may not have access to the Internet, even via proxy servers. Installing OpenShift Enterprise in these environments is considered a disconnected installation.

An OpenShift Enterprise disconnected installation differs from a regular installation in two primary ways:

A disconnected installation ensures the OpenShift Enterprise software is made available to the relevant servers, then follows the same installation process as a standard connected installation. This topic additionally details how to manually download the Docker images and transport them onto the relevant servers.

Once installed, in order to use OpenShift Enterprise, you will need source code in a source control repository (for example, Git). This topic assumes that an internal Git repository is available that can host source code and this repository is accessible from the OpenShift Enterprise nodes. Installing the source control repository is outside the scope of this document.

Also, when building applications in OpenShift Enterprise, your build may have some external dependencies, such as a Maven Repository or Gem files for Ruby applications. For this reason, and because they might require certain tags, many of the Quickstart templates offered by OpenShift Enterprise may not work on a disconnected environment. However, while Red Hat Docker images try to reach out to external repositories by default, you can configure OpenShift Enterprise to use your own internal repositories. For the purposes of this document, we assume that such internal repositories already exist and are accessible from the OpenShift Enterprise nodes hosts. Installing such repositories is outside the scope of this document.

This document assumes that you understand OpenShift’s overall architecture and that you have already planned out what the topology of your environment will look like.

In order to pull down the required software repositories and Docker images, you will need a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 server with access to the Internet and at least 100GB of additional free space. All steps in this section should be performed on the Internet-connected server as the root system user.

# rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release

During the installation (and for later updates, should you so choose), you will need a webserver to host the repositories. RHEL 7 can provide the Apache webserver.

Option 1: Re-configuring as a Web server

If you can re-connect the server where you synchronized the software and images to your LAN, then you can simply install Apache on the server:

# yum install httpd

Skip to Placing the Software.

Option 2: Building a Repository Server

If you need to build a separate server to act as the repository server, install a new RHEL 7 system with at least 110GB of space. On this repository server during the installation, make sure you select the Basic Web Server option.

In one of the previous steps, the S2I images were imported into the Docker daemon running on one of the OpenShift Enterprise master hosts. In a connected installation, these images would be pulled from Red Hat’s registry on demand. Since the Internet is not available to do this, the images must be made available in another Docker registry.

OpenShift Enterprise provides an internal registry for storing the images that are built as a result of the S2I process, but it can also be used to hold the S2I builder images. The following steps assume you did not customize the service IP subnet (172.30.0.0/16) or the Docker registry port (5000).

At this point, the OpenShift Enterprise environment is almost ready for use. It is likely that you will want to install and configure a router.

OpenShift can build Docker images from your source code, deploy them, and manage their lifecycle. To enable this, OpenShift provides an internal, integrated Docker registry that can be deployed in your OpenShift environment to locally manage images.

To deploy the integrated Docker registry, use the oadm registry command as a user with cluster administrator privileges. For example:

$ oadm registry --config=/etc/origin/master/admin.kubeconfig \1
    --credentials=/etc/origin/master/openshift-registry.kubeconfig \2
    --images='registry.access.redhat.com/openshift3/ose-${component}:${version}' 3

This creates a service and a deployment configuration, both called docker-registry. Once deployed successfully, a pod is created with a name similar to docker-registry-1-cpty9.

Use --selector to deploy the registry to any node(s) that match a specified node label:

$ oadm registry <registry_name> --replicas=<number> --selector=<label> \
    --service-account=registry

For example, if you want to create a registry named registry and have it placed on a node labeled with region=infra:

$ oadm registry registry --replicas=1 --selector='region=infra' \
  --service-account=registry

To see a full list of options that you can specify when creating the registry:

$ oadm registry --help

$ oc volume deploymentconfigs/docker-registry --add --name=registry-storage -t pvc \
     --claim-name=<pvc_name> --overwrite

$ oc volume deploymentconfigs/docker-registry \
     --add --overwrite --name=registry-storage --mount-path=/registry \
     --source='{"nfs": { "server": "<fqdn>", "path": "/path/to/export"}}'

$ oadm registry --service-account=registry \
    --config=/etc/origin/master/admin.kubeconfig \
    --credentials=/etc/origin/master/openshift-registry.kubeconfig \
    --images='registry.access.redhat.com/openshift3/ose-${component}:${version}' \
    --mount-host=<path>

$ sudo chown 1001:root <path>

To view the logs for the Docker registry, run the oc logs indicating the desired pod:

$ oc logs docker-registry-1-da73t
2015-05-01T19:48:36.300593110Z time="2015-05-01T19:48:36Z" level=info msg="version=v2.0.0+unknown"
2015-05-01T19:48:36.303294724Z time="2015-05-01T19:48:36Z" level=info msg="redis not configured" instance.id=9ed6c43d-23ee-453f-9a4b-031fea646002
2015-05-01T19:48:36.303422845Z time="2015-05-01T19:48:36Z" level=info msg="using inmemory layerinfo cache" instance.id=9ed6c43d-23ee-453f-9a4b-031fea646002
2015-05-01T19:48:36.303433991Z time="2015-05-01T19:48:36Z" level=info msg="Using OpenShift Auth handler"
2015-05-01T19:48:36.303439084Z time="2015-05-01T19:48:36Z" level=info msg="listening on :5000" instance.id=9ed6c43d-23ee-453f-9a4b-031fea646002

Tag and image metadata is stored in OpenShift, but the registry stores layer and signature data in a volume that is mounted into the registry container at /registry. As oc exec does not work on privileged containers, to view a registry’s contents you must manually SSH into the node housing the registry pod’s container, then run docker exec on the container itself:

For advanced usage, you can access the registry directly to invoke docker commands. This allows you to push images to or pull them from the integrated registry directly using operations like docker push or docker pull. To do so, you must be logged in to the registry using the docker login command. The operations you can perform depend on your user permissions, as described in the following sections.

Optionally, you can secure the registry so that it serves traffic via TLS:

You can override the integrated registry’s default configuration, found by default at /config.yml in a running registry’s container, with your own custom configuration. See the upstream registry documentation’s Registry Configuration Reference for the full list of available options.

To enable managing the registry configuration file directly, it is recommended that the configuration file be mounted as a secret volume:

This may be performed as an iterative process to achieve the desired configuration. For example, during troubleshooting, the configuration may be temporarily updated to put it in debug mode.

To update an existing configuration:

You can specify a whitelist of docker registries, allowing you to curate a set of images and templates that are available for download by OpenShift users. This curated set can be placed in one or more docker registries, and then added to the whitelist. When using a whitelist, only the specified registries are accessible within OpenShift, and all other registries are denied access by default.

To configure a whitelist:

Once the whitelist is configured, if a user tries to pull from a docker registry that is not on the whitelist, they will receive an error message stating that this registry is not allowed.

To expose your internal registry externally, it is recommended that you run a secure registry. To expose the registry you must first have deployed a router.

The following are the known issues when deploying or using the integrated registry.

Image Push Errors with Scaled Registry Using Shared NFS Volume

When using a scaled registry with a shared NFS volume, you may see one of the following errors during the push of an image:

These errors are returned by an internal registry service when Docker attempts to push the image. Its cause originates in the synchronization of file attributes across nodes. Factors such as NFS client side caching, network latency, and layer size can all contribute to potential errors that might occur when pushing an image using the default round-robin load balancing configuration.

You can perform the following steps to minimize the probability of such a failure:

After you have a registry deployed, you can:

The OpenShift router is the ingress point for all external traffic destined for services in your OpenShift installation. OpenShift provides and supports the following two router plug-ins:

Before deploying an OpenShift cluster, you must have a service account for the router. Starting in OpenShift Enterprise 3.1, a router service account is automatically created during a quick or advanced installation (previously, this required manual creation). This service account has permissions to a security context constraint (SCC) that allows it to specify host ports.

The oadm router command is provided with the administrator CLI to simplify the tasks of setting up routers in a new installation. Just about every form of communication between OpenShift components is secured by TLS and uses various certificates and authentication methods. Use the --credentials option to specify what credentials the router should use to contact the master.

$ oadm router --dry-run --service-account=router \
    --credentials='/etc/origin/master/openshift-router.kubeconfig' 1

The default router service account, named router, is automatically created during quick and advanced installations. To verify that this account already exists:

$ oadm router --dry-run \
    --credentials='/etc/origin/master/openshift-router.kubeconfig' \
    --service-account=router

To see what the default router would look like if created:

$ oadm router -o yaml \
    --credentials='/etc/origin/master/openshift-router.kubeconfig' \
    --service-account=router

To create a router if it does not exist:

$ oadm router <router_name> --replicas=<number> \
    --credentials='/etc/origin/master/openshift-router.kubeconfig' \
    --service-account=router

Multiple instances are created on different hosts according to the scheduler policy.

To use a different router image and view the router configuration that would be used:

$ oadm router <router_name> -o <format> --images=<image> \
    --credentials='/etc/origin/master/openshift-router.kubeconfig' \
    --service-account=router

For example:

$ oadm router region-west -o yaml --images=myrepo/somerouter:mytag \
    --credentials='/etc/origin/master/openshift-router.kubeconfig' \
    --service-account=router

To deploy the router to any node(s) that match a specified node label:

$ oadm router <router_name> --replicas=<number> --selector=<label> \
    --service-account=router

For example, if you want to create a router named router and have it placed on a node labeled with region=infra:

$ oadm router router --replicas=1 --selector='region=infra' \
  --service-account=router

routingConfig:
  subdomain: v3.openshift.test

myroute-mynamespace.v3.openshift.test

$ CA=/etc/origin/master
$ oadm ca create-server-cert --signer-cert=$CA/ca.crt \
      --signer-key=$CA/ca.key --signer-serial=$CA/ca.serial.txt \
      --hostnames='*.cloudapps.example.com' \
      --cert=cloudapps.crt --key=cloudapps.key

$ cat cloudapps.crt cloudapps.key $CA/ca.crt > cloudapps.router.pem

$ oadm router --default-cert=cloudapps.router.pem --service-account=router \
    --credentials=${ROUTER_KUBECONFIG:-"$KUBECONFIG"}

# openssl rsa -in <passwordProtectedKey.key> -out <new.key>

# oadm router --replicas=1 --service-account=router  \
    --credentials=${ROUTER_KUBECONFIG:-"$KUBECONFIG"}

# sudo openssl genrsa -out example-test.key 2048
#
# sudo openssl req -new -key example-test.key -out example-test.csr  \
  -subj "/C=US/ST=CA/L=Mountain View/O=OS3/OU=Eng/CN=www.example.test"
#
# sudo openssl x509 -req -days 366 -in example-test.csr  \
      -signkey example-test.key -out example-test.crt

# servicename="my-service"
# echo "
apiVersion: v1
kind: Route
metadata:
  name:  secured-edge-route
spec:
  host: www.example.test
  to:
    kind: Service
    name: $servicename
  tls:
    termination: edge
    key: |
$(openssl rsa -in example-test.key | sed 's/^/      /')
    certificate: |
$(openssl x509 -in example-test.crt | sed 's/^/      /')

" > example-test-route.yaml

# oc create -f example-test-route.yaml

# routerip="4.1.1.1"  #  replace with IP address of one of your router instances.
# curl -k --resolve www.example.test:443:$routerip https://www.example.test/

$ oadm router \
    --credentials='/etc/origin/master/openshift-router.kubeconfig' \
    --service-account=router \
    --host-network=false

The HAProxy router is based on a golang template that generates the HAProxy configuration file from a list of routes. If you want a customized template router to meet your needs, you can customize the template file, build a new Docker image, and run a customized router.

One common case for this might be implementing new features within the application back ends. For example, it might be desirable in a highly-available setup to use stick-tables that synchronizes between peers. The router plug-in provides all the facilities necessary to make this customization.

You can obtain a new haproxy-config.template file from the latest router image by running:

# docker run --rm --interactive=true --tty --entrypoint=cat \
    registry.access.redhat.com/openshift3/ose-haproxy-router:v3.0.2.0 haproxy-config.template

Save this content to a file for use as the basis of your customized template.

{{ if (len .PeerEndpoints) gt 0 }}
peers openshift_peers
  {{ range $endpointID, $endpoint := .PeerEndpoints }}
    peer {{$endpoint.TargetName}} {{$endpoint.IP}}:1937
  {{ end }}
{{ end }}

peer_name=$HOSTNAME 1

if [ -n "$old_pid" ]; then
  /usr/sbin/haproxy -f $config_file -p $pid_file -L $peer_name -sf $old_pid
else
  /usr/sbin/haproxy -f $config_file -p $pid_file -L $peer_name
fi

            {{ if eq $cfg.TLSTermination "passthrough" }}
backend be_tcp_{{$cfgIdx}}
  balance leastconn
  timeout check 5000ms
  stick-table type ip size 1m expire 5m{{ if (len $.PeerEndpoints) gt 0 }} peers openshift_peers {{ end }}
  stick on src
                {{ range $endpointID, $endpoint := $serviceUnit.EndpointTable }}
  server {{$endpointID}} {{$endpoint.IP}}:{{$endpoint.Port}} check inter 5000ms
                {{ end }}
            {{ end }}

The F5 router plug-in is provided as a Docker image and run as a pod, just like the default HAProxy router. Deploying the F5 router is done similarly as well, using the oadm router command but providing additional flags (or environment variables) to specify the following parameters for the F5 BIG-IP® host:

As with the HAProxy router, the oadm router command creates the service and deployment configuration objects, and thus the replication controllers and pod(s) in which the F5 router itself runs. The replication controller restarts the F5 router in case of crashes. Because the F5 router is only watching routes and endpoints and configuring F5 BIG-IP® accordingly, running the F5 router in this way along with an appropriately configured F5 BIG-IP® deployment should satisfy high-availability requirements.

To deploy the F5 router:

If you deployed an HAProxy router, you can learn more about monitoring the router.

If you have not yet done so, you can: