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Setting up the environment for an OpenShift installation

Installing Fedora on the provisioner node

With the configuration of the prerequisites complete, the next step is to install Fedora 35 on the provisioner node. The installer uses the provisioner node as the orchestrator while installing the OKD cluster. For the purposes of this document, installing Fedora on the provisioner node is out of scope. However, options include but are not limited to using a RHEL Satellite server, PXE, or installation media.

Preparing the provisioner node for OKD installation

Perform the following steps to prepare the environment.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the provisioner node via ssh.

  2. Create a non-root user (kni) and provide that user with sudo privileges:

    # useradd kni
    # passwd kni
    # echo "kni ALL=(root) NOPASSWD:ALL" | tee -a /etc/sudoers.d/kni
    # chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/kni

  3. Create an ssh key for the new user:

    # su - kni -c "ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f /home/kni/.ssh/id_rsa -N ''"

  4. Log in as the new user on the provisioner node:

    # su - kni

  5. Install the following packages:

    $ sudo dnf install -y libvirt qemu-kvm mkisofs python3-devel jq ipmitool

  6. Modify the user to add the libvirt group to the newly created user:

    $ sudo usermod --append --groups libvirt <user>

  7. Restart firewalld and enable the http service:

    $ sudo systemctl start firewalld
    $ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-service=http --permanent
    $ sudo firewall-cmd --reload

  8. Start and enable the libvirtd service:

    $ sudo systemctl enable libvirtd --now

  9. Create the default storage pool and start it:

    $ sudo virsh pool-define-as --name default --type dir --target /var/lib/libvirt/images
    $ sudo virsh pool-start default
    $ sudo virsh pool-autostart default

  10. Create a pull-secret.txt file:

    $ vim pull-secret.txt

    In a web browser, navigate to Install OpenShift on Bare Metal with installer-provisioned infrastructure. Click Copy pull secret. Paste the contents into the pull-secret.txt file and save the contents in the kni user’s home directory.

Configuring networking

Before installation, you must configure the networking on the provisioner node. Installer-provisioned clusters deploy with a baremetal bridge and network, and an optional provisioning bridge and network.

Configure networking

You can also configure networking from the web console.
Procedure

  1. Export the baremetal network NIC name:

    $ export PUB_CONN=<baremetal_nic_name>

  2. Configure the baremetal network:

    $ sudo nohup bash -c "
    nmcli con down \"$PUB_CONN\"
    nmcli con delete \"$PUB_CONN\"
    # RHEL 8.1 appends the word \"System\" in front of the connection, delete in case it exists
    nmcli con down \"System $PUB_CONN\"
    nmcli con delete \"System $PUB_CONN\"
    nmcli connection add ifname baremetal type bridge con-name baremetal
    nmcli con add type bridge-slave ifname \"$PUB_CONN\" master baremetal
    pkill dhclient;dhclient baremetal
"

    The ssh connection might disconnect after executing these steps.

  3. Optional: If you are deploying with a provisioning network, export the provisioning network NIC name:

    $ export PROV_CONN=<prov_nic_name>

  4. Optional: If you are deploying with a provisioning network, configure the provisioning network:

    $ sudo nohup bash -c "
    nmcli con down \"$PROV_CONN\"
    nmcli con delete \"$PROV_CONN\"
    nmcli connection add ifname provisioning type bridge con-name provisioning
    nmcli con add type bridge-slave ifname \"$PROV_CONN\" master provisioning
    nmcli connection modify provisioning ipv6.addresses fd00:1101::1/64 ipv6.method manual
    nmcli con down provisioning
    nmcli con up provisioning
"

    The ssh connection might disconnect after executing these steps.

    The IPv6 address can be any address as long as it is not routable via the baremetal network.

    Ensure that UEFI is enabled and UEFI PXE settings are set to the IPv6 protocol when using IPv6 addressing.

  5. Optional: If you are deploying with a provisioning network, configure the IPv4 address on the provisioning network connection:

    $ nmcli connection modify provisioning ipv4.addresses 172.22.0.254/24 ipv4.method manual

  6. ssh back into the provisioner node (if required):

    # ssh kni@provisioner.<cluster-name>.<domain>

  7. Verify the connection bridges have been properly created:

    $ sudo nmcli con show
    NAME               UUID                                  TYPE      DEVICE
baremetal          4d5133a5-8351-4bb9-bfd4-3af264801530  bridge    baremetal
provisioning       43942805-017f-4d7d-a2c2-7cb3324482ed  bridge    provisioning
virbr0             d9bca40f-eee1-410b-8879-a2d4bb0465e7  bridge    virbr0
bridge-slave-eno1  76a8ed50-c7e5-4999-b4f6-6d9014dd0812  ethernet  eno1
bridge-slave-eno2  f31c3353-54b7-48de-893a-02d2b34c4736  ethernet  eno2

Retrieving the OKD installer

Use the stable-4.x version of the installation program and your selected architecture to deploy the generally available stable version of OKD:

$ export VERSION=stable-4.12
$ export RELEASE_ARCH=<architecture>
$ export RELEASE_IMAGE=$(curl -s https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/$RELEASE_ARCH/clients/ocp/$VERSION/release.txt | grep 'Pull From: quay.io' | awk -F ' ' '{print $3}')

Extracting the OKD installer

After retrieving the installer, the next step is to extract it.

Procedure

  1. Set the environment variables:

    $ export cmd=openshift-baremetal-install
    $ export pullsecret_file=~/pull-secret.txt
    $ export extract_dir=$(pwd)

  2. Get the oc binary:

    $ curl -s https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/ocp/$VERSION/openshift-client-linux.tar.gz | tar zxvf - oc

  3. Extract the installer:

    $ sudo cp oc /usr/local/bin
    $ oc adm release extract --registry-config "${pullsecret_file}" --command=$cmd --to "${extract_dir}" ${RELEASE_IMAGE}
    $ sudo cp openshift-baremetal-install /usr/local/bin

Optional: Creating an FCOS images cache

To employ image caching, you must download the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) image used by the bootstrap VM to provision the cluster nodes. Image caching is optional, but it is especially useful when running the installation program on a network with limited bandwidth.

The installation program no longer needs the clusterOSImage FCOS image because the correct image is in the release payload.

If you are running the installation program on a network with limited bandwidth and the FCOS images download takes more than 15 to 20 minutes, the installation program will timeout. Caching images on a web server will help in such scenarios.

If you enable TLS for the HTTPD server, you must confirm the root certificate is signed by an authority trusted by the client and verify the trusted certificate chain between your OKD hub and spoke clusters and the HTTPD server. Using a server configured with an untrusted certificate prevents the images from being downloaded to the image creation service. Using untrusted HTTPS servers is not supported.

Install a container that contains the images.

Procedure

  1. Install podman:

    $ sudo dnf install -y podman

  2. Open firewall port 8080 to be used for FCOS image caching:

    $ sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=8080/tcp --zone=public --permanent
    $ sudo firewall-cmd --reload

  3. Create a directory to store the bootstraposimage:

    $ mkdir /home/kni/rhcos_image_cache

  4. Set the appropriate SELinux context for the newly created directory:

    $ sudo semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_content_t "/home/kni/rhcos_image_cache(/.*)?"
    $ sudo restorecon -Rv /home/kni/rhcos_image_cache/

  5. Get the URI for the FCOS image that the installation program will deploy on the bootstrap VM:

    $ export RHCOS_QEMU_URI=$(/usr/local/bin/openshift-baremetal-install coreos print-stream-json | jq -r --arg ARCH "$(arch)" '.architectures[$ARCH].artifacts.qemu.formats["qcow2.gz"].disk.location')

  6. Get the name of the image that the installation program will deploy on the bootstrap VM:

    $ export RHCOS_QEMU_NAME=${RHCOS_QEMU_URI##*/}

  7. Get the SHA hash for the FCOS image that will be deployed on the bootstrap VM:

    $ export RHCOS_QEMU_UNCOMPRESSED_SHA256=$(/usr/local/bin/openshift-baremetal-install coreos print-stream-json | jq -r --arg ARCH "$(arch)" '.architectures[$ARCH].artifacts.qemu.formats["qcow2.gz"].disk["uncompressed-sha256"]')

  8. Download the image and place it in the /home/kni/rhcos_image_cache directory:

    $ curl -L ${RHCOS_QEMU_URI} -o /home/kni/rhcos_image_cache/${RHCOS_QEMU_NAME}

  9. Confirm SELinux type is of httpd_sys_content_t for the new file:

    $ ls -Z /home/kni/rhcos_image_cache

  10. Create the pod:

    $ podman run -d --name rhcos_image_cache \ (1)
-v /home/kni/rhcos_image_cache:/var/www/html \
-p 8080:8080/tcp \
quay.io/centos7/httpd-24-centos7:latest
    1 Creates a caching webserver with the name rhcos_image_cache. This pod serves the bootstrapOSImage image in the install-config.yaml file for deployment.

  11. Generate the bootstrapOSImage configuration:

    $ export BAREMETAL_IP=$(ip addr show dev baremetal | awk '/inet /{print $2}' | cut -d"/" -f1)
    $ export BOOTSTRAP_OS_IMAGE="http://${BAREMETAL_IP}:8080/${RHCOS_QEMU_NAME}?sha256=${RHCOS_QEMU_UNCOMPRESSED_SHA256}"
    $ echo "    bootstrapOSImage=${BOOTSTRAP_OS_IMAGE}"

  12. Add the required configuration to the install-config.yaml file under platform.baremetal:

    platform:
  baremetal:
    bootstrapOSImage: <bootstrap_os_image>  (1)
    1 Replace <bootstrap_os_image> with the value of $BOOTSTRAP_OS_IMAGE.

    See the "Configuring the install-config.yaml file" section for additional details.

Configuring the install-config.yaml file