5.2. Viewing Ignition configuration files

To see the Ignition config file used to deploy the bootstrap machine, run the following command:

$ openshift-install create ignition-configs --dir $HOME/testconfig

After you answer a few questions, the bootstrap.ign, master.ign, and worker.ign files appear in the directory you entered.

To see the contents of the bootstrap.ign file, pipe it through the jq filter. Here’s a snippet from that file:

$ cat $HOME/testconfig/bootstrap.ign | jq
\\{
  "ignition": \\{
        "config": \\{},
  "storage": \\{
        "files": [
          \\{
            "filesystem": "root",
            "path": "/etc/motd",
            "user": \\{
              "name": "root"
            },
            "append": true,
            "contents": \\{
              "source": "data:text/plain;charset=utf-8;base64,VGhpcyBpcyB0aGUgYm9vdHN0cmFwIG5vZGU7IGl0IHdpbGwgYmUgZGVzdHJveWVkIHdoZW4gdGhlIG1hc3RlciBpcyBmdWxseSB1cC4KClRoZSBwcmltYXJ5IHNlcnZpY2UgaXMgImJvb3RrdWJlLnNlcnZpY2UiLiBUbyB3YXRjaCBpdHMgc3RhdHVzLCBydW4gZS5nLgoKICBqb3VybmFsY3RsIC1iIC1mIC11IGJvb3RrdWJlLnNlcnZpY2UK",

To decode the contents of a file listed in the bootstrap.ign file, pipe the base64-encoded data string representing the contents of that file to the base64 -d command. Here’s an example using the contents of the /etc/motd file added to the bootstrap machine from the output shown above:

$ echo VGhpcyBpcyB0aGUgYm9vdHN0cmFwIG5vZGU7IGl0IHdpbGwgYmUgZGVzdHJveWVkIHdoZW4gdGhlIG1hc3RlciBpcyBmdWxseSB1cC4KClRoZSBwcmltYXJ5IHNlcnZpY2UgaXMgImJvb3RrdWJlLnNlcnZpY2UiLiBUbyB3YXRjaCBpdHMgc3RhdHVzLCBydW4gZS5nLgoKICBqb3VybmFsY3RsIC1iIC1mIC11IGJvb3RrdWJlLnNlcnZpY2UK | base64 --decode

This is the bootstrap machine; it will be destroyed when the master is fully up.

The primary service is "bootkube.service". To watch its status, run, e.g.:

journalctl -b -f -u bootkube.service

Repeat those commands on the master.ign and worker.ign files to see the source of Ignition config files for each of those machine types.  You should see a line like the following for the worker.ign, identifying how it gets its Ignition config from the bootstrap machine:

"source": "https://api.myign.develcluster.example.com:22623/config/worker",

Here are a few things you can learn from the bootstrap.ign file: