Installing a cluster on AWS with customizations - Installing on AWS | Installing

Prerequisites
Generating a key pair for cluster node SSH access
Obtaining an AWS Marketplace image
Obtaining the installation program
Creating the installation configuration file
Deploying the cluster
Installing the OpenShift CLI by downloading the binary
Logging in to the cluster by using the CLI
Logging in to the cluster by using the web console
Next steps

In OKD version 4.13, you can install a customized cluster on infrastructure that the installation program provisions on Amazon Web Services (AWS). To customize the installation, you modify parameters in the install-config.yaml file before you install the cluster.

The scope of the OKD installation configurations is intentionally narrow. It is designed for simplicity and ensured success. You can complete many more OKD configuration tasks after an installation completes.

Prerequisites

You reviewed details about the OKD installation and update processes.
You read the documentation on selecting a cluster installation method and preparing it for users.

You configured an AWS account to host the cluster.

If you have an AWS profile stored on your computer, it must not use a temporary session token that you generated while using a multi-factor authentication device. The cluster continues to use your current AWS credentials to create AWS resources for the entire life of the cluster, so you must use long-lived credentials. To generate appropriate keys, see Managing Access Keys for IAM Users in the AWS documentation. You can supply the keys when you run the installation program.

If you use a firewall, you configured it to allow the sites that your cluster requires access to.
If the cloud identity and access management (IAM) APIs are not accessible in your environment, or if you do not want to store an administrator-level credential secret in the kube-system namespace, you can manually create and maintain IAM credentials.

Generating a key pair for cluster node SSH access

During an OKD installation, you can provide an SSH public key to the installation program. The key is passed to the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) nodes through their Ignition config files and is used to authenticate SSH access to the nodes. The key is added to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys list for the core user on each node, which enables password-less authentication.

After the key is passed to the nodes, you can use the key pair to SSH in to the FCOS nodes as the user core. To access the nodes through SSH, the private key identity must be managed by SSH for your local user.

If you want to SSH in to your cluster nodes to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, you must provide the SSH public key during the installation process. The ./openshift-install gather command also requires the SSH public key to be in place on the cluster nodes.

Do not skip this procedure in production environments, where disaster recovery and debugging is required.

You must use a local key, not one that you configured with platform-specific approaches such as AWS key pairs.

On clusters running Fedora CoreOS (FCOS), the SSH keys specified in the Ignition config files are written to the /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys.d/core file. However, the Machine Config Operator manages SSH keys in the /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys file and configures sshd to ignore the /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys.d/core file. As a result, newly provisioned OKD nodes are not accessible using SSH until the Machine Config Operator reconciles the machine configs with the authorized_keys file. After you can access the nodes using SSH, you can delete the /home/core/.ssh/authorized_keys.d/core file.

Procedure

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.
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
```
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.

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
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>)
```

Next steps

When you install OKD, provide the SSH public key to the installation program.

Obtaining an AWS Marketplace image

If you are deploying an OKD cluster using an AWS Marketplace image, you must first subscribe through AWS. Subscribing to the offer provides you with the AMI ID that the installation program uses to deploy worker nodes.

Prerequisites

You have an AWS account to purchase the offer. This account does not have to be the same account that is used to install the cluster.

Procedure

Complete the OKD subscription from the AWS Marketplace.
Record the AMI ID for your specific region. As part of the installation process, you must update the install-config.yaml file with this value before deploying the cluster.

Sample install-config.yaml file with AWS Marketplace worker nodes

apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: example.com
compute:
- hyperthreading: Enabled
  name: worker
  platform:
    aws:
      amiID: ami-06c4d345f7c207239 (1)
      type: m5.4xlarge
  replicas: 3
metadata:
  name: test-cluster
platform:
  aws:
    region: us-east-2 (2)
sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA...
pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}'

1	The AMI ID from your AWS Marketplace subscription.
2	Your AMI ID is associated with a specific AWS region. When creating the installation configuration file, ensure that you select the same AWS region that you specified when configuring your subscription.

Obtaining the installation program

Before you install OKD, download the installation file on the host you are using for installation.

Prerequisites

You have a computer that runs Linux or macOS, with 500 MB of local disk space.

Procedure

Download installer from https://github.com/openshift/okd/releases

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 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 OKD uninstallation procedures for your specific cloud provider.

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
```
Download your installation pull secret from the 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 OKD components.

Using a pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager is not required. You can use a pull secret for another private registry. Or, if you do not need the cluster to pull images from a private registry, you can use {"auths":{"fake":{"auth":"aWQ6cGFzcwo="}}} as the pull secret when prompted during the installation.

If you do not use the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager:
- Red Hat Operators are not available.
- The Telemetry and Insights operators do not send data to Red Hat.
- Content from the Red Hat Container Catalog registry, such as image streams and Operators, are not available.

Creating the installation configuration file

You can customize the OKD cluster you install on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Prerequisites

Obtain the OKD installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
Obtain service principal permissions at the subscription level.

Procedure

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 OKD version.
    
    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.
    
    For production OKD 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.
  7. Paste the pull secret from the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster Manager. This field is optional.

Modify the install-config.yaml file. You can find more information about the available parameters in the "Installation configuration parameters" section.

If you are installing a three-node cluster, be sure to set the compute.replicas parameter to 0. This ensures that cluster’s control planes are schedulable. For more information, see "Installing a three-node cluster on AWS".

Back up the install-config.yaml file so that you can use it to install multiple clusters.

The install-config.yaml file is consumed during the installation process. If you want to reuse the file, you must back it up now.

Installation configuration parameters

Before you deploy an OKD cluster, you provide parameter values to describe your account on the cloud platform that hosts your cluster and optionally customize your cluster’s platform. When you create the install-config.yaml installation configuration file, you provide values for the required parameters through the command line. If you customize your cluster, you can modify the install-config.yaml file to provide more details about the platform.

After installation, you cannot modify these parameters in the install-config.yaml file.

Required configuration parameters

Required installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 1. Required parameters
Parameter	Description	Values
`apiVersion`	The API version for the `install-config.yaml` content. The current version is `v1`. The installation program may also support older API versions.	String
`baseDomain`	The base domain of your cloud provider. The base domain is used to create routes to your OKD cluster components. The full DNS name for your cluster is a combination of the `baseDomain` and `metadata.name` parameter values that uses the `<metadata.name>.<baseDomain>` format.	A fully-qualified domain or subdomain name, such as `example.com`.
`metadata`	Kubernetes resource `ObjectMeta`, from which only the `name` parameter is consumed.	Object
`metadata.name`	The name of the cluster. DNS records for the cluster are all subdomains of `{{.metadata.name}}.{{.baseDomain}}`.	String of lowercase letters, hyphens (`-`), and periods (`.`), such as `dev`.
`platform`	The configuration for the specific platform upon which to perform the installation: `alibabacloud`, `aws`, `baremetal`, `azure`, `gcp`, `ibmcloud`, `nutanix`, `openstack`, `ovirt`, `powervs`, `vsphere`, or `{}`. For additional information about `platform.<platform>` parameters, consult the table for your specific platform that follows.	Object

Network configuration parameters

You can customize your installation configuration based on the requirements of your existing network infrastructure. For example, you can expand the IP address block for the cluster network or provide different IP address blocks than the defaults.

Only IPv4 addresses are supported.

Globalnet is not supported with Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation disaster recovery solutions. For regional disaster recovery scenarios, ensure that you use a nonoverlapping range of private IP addresses for the cluster and service networks in each cluster.

Parameter Description Values

networking

The configuration for the cluster network.

Object

You cannot modify parameters specified by the networking object after installation.

networking.networkType

The Red Hat OpenShift Networking network plugin to install.

Either OpenShiftSDN or OVNKubernetes. The default value is OVNKubernetes.

networking.clusterNetwork

The IP address blocks for pods.

The default value is 10.128.0.0/14 with a host prefix of /23.

If you specify multiple IP address blocks, the blocks must not overlap.

An array of objects. For example:

networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23

networking.clusterNetwork.cidr

Required if you use networking.clusterNetwork. An IP address block.

An IPv4 network.

An IP address block in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation. The prefix length for an IPv4 block is between 0 and 32.

networking.clusterNetwork.hostPrefix

The subnet prefix length to assign to each individual node. For example, if hostPrefix is set to 23 then each node is assigned a /23 subnet out of the given cidr. A hostPrefix value of 23 provides 510 (2^(32 - 23) - 2) pod IP addresses.

A subnet prefix.

The default value is 23.

networking.serviceNetwork

The IP address block for services. The default value is 172.30.0.0/16.

The OpenShift SDN and OVN-Kubernetes network plugins support only a single IP address block for the service network.

An array with an IP address block in CIDR format. For example:

networking:
  serviceNetwork:
   - 172.30.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork

The IP address blocks for machines.

If you specify multiple IP address blocks, the blocks must not overlap.

An array of objects. For example:

networking:
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork.cidr

Required if you use networking.machineNetwork. An IP address block. The default value is 10.0.0.0/16 for all platforms other than libvirt and IBM Power Virtual Server. For libvirt, the default value is 192.168.126.0/24. For IBM Power Virtual Server, the default value is 192.168.0.0/24.

An IP network block in CIDR notation.

For example, 10.0.0.0/16.

Set the networking.machineNetwork to match the CIDR that the preferred NIC resides in.

Optional configuration parameters

Optional installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Parameter Description Values

additionalTrustBundle

A PEM-encoded X.509 certificate bundle that is added to the nodes' trusted certificate store. This trust bundle may also be used when a proxy has been configured.

String

capabilities

Controls the installation of optional core cluster components. You can reduce the footprint of your OKD cluster by disabling optional components. For more information, see the "Cluster capabilities" page in Installing.

String array

capabilities.baselineCapabilitySet

Selects an initial set of optional capabilities to enable. Valid values are None, v4.11, v4.12 and vCurrent. The default value is vCurrent.

String

capabilities.additionalEnabledCapabilities

Extends the set of optional capabilities beyond what you specify in baselineCapabilitySet. You may specify multiple capabilities in this parameter.

String array

cpuPartitioningMode

Enables workload partitioning, which isolates OKD services, cluster management workloads, and infrastructure pods to run on a reserved set of CPUs. Workload partitioning can only be enabled during installation and cannot be disabled after installation. While this field enables workload partitioning, it does not configure workloads to use specific CPUs. For more information, see the Workload partitioning page in the Scalability and Performance section.

None or AllNodes. None is the default value.

compute

The configuration for the machines that comprise the compute nodes.

Array of MachinePool objects.

compute.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default). See Supported installation methods for different platforms in Installing documentation for information about instance availability.

String

compute: hyperthreading:

Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading, on compute machines. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores.

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance.

Enabled or Disabled

compute.name

Required if you use compute. The name of the machine pool.

worker

compute.platform

Required if you use compute. Use this parameter to specify the cloud provider to host the worker machines. This parameter value must match the controlPlane.platform parameter value.

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, powervs, vsphere, or {}

compute.replicas

The number of compute machines, which are also known as worker machines, to provision.

A positive integer greater than or equal to 2. The default value is 3.

featureSet

Enables the cluster for a feature set. A feature set is a collection of OKD features that are not enabled by default. For more information about enabling a feature set during installation, see "Enabling features using feature gates".

String. The name of the feature set to enable, such as TechPreviewNoUpgrade.

controlPlane

The configuration for the machines that comprise the control plane.

Array of MachinePool objects.

controlPlane.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64. See Supported installation methods for different platforms in Installing documentation for information about instance availability.

String

controlPlane: hyperthreading:

Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading, on control plane machines. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores.

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance.

Enabled or Disabled

controlPlane.name

Required if you use controlPlane. The name of the machine pool.

master

controlPlane.platform

Required if you use controlPlane. Use this parameter to specify the cloud provider that hosts the control plane machines. This parameter value must match the compute.platform parameter value.

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, ovirt, powervs, vsphere, or {}

controlPlane.replicas

The number of control plane machines to provision.

The only supported value is 3, which is the default value.

credentialsMode

The Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) mode. If no mode is specified, the CCO dynamically tries to determine the capabilities of the provided credentials, with a preference for mint mode on the platforms where multiple modes are supported.

Not all CCO modes are supported for all cloud providers. For more information about CCO modes, see the Cloud Credential Operator entry in the Cluster Operators reference content.

If your AWS account has service control policies (SCP) enabled, you must configure the credentialsMode parameter to Mint, Passthrough or Manual.

Mint, Passthrough, Manual or an empty string ("").

imageContentSources

Sources and repositories for the release-image content.

Array of objects. Includes a source and, optionally, mirrors, as described in the following rows of this table.

imageContentSources.source

Required if you use imageContentSources. Specify the repository that users refer to, for example, in image pull specifications.

String

imageContentSources.mirrors

Specify one or more repositories that may also contain the same images.

Array of strings

publish

How to publish or expose the user-facing endpoints of your cluster, such as the Kubernetes API, OpenShift routes.

Internal or External. To deploy a private cluster, which cannot be accessed from the internet, set publish to Internal. The default value is External.

sshKey

The SSH key to authenticate access to your cluster machines.

For production OKD clusters on which you want to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, specify an SSH key that your ssh-agent process uses.

For example, sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA...

Not all CCO modes are supported for all cloud providers. For more information about CCO modes, see the "Managing cloud provider credentials" entry in the Authentication and authorization content.

If your AWS account has service control policies (SCP) enabled, you must configure the credentialsMode parameter to Mint, Passthrough, or Manual.

Setting this parameter to Manual enables alternatives to storing administrator-level secrets in the kube-system project, which require additional configuration steps. For more information, see "Alternatives to storing administrator-level secrets in the kube-system project".

Optional AWS configuration parameters

Optional AWS configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Parameter Description Values

compute.platform.aws.amiID

The AWS AMI used to boot compute machines for the cluster. This is required for regions that require a custom FCOS AMI.

Any published or custom FCOS AMI that belongs to the set AWS region. See FCOS AMIs for AWS infrastructure for available AMI IDs.

compute.platform.aws.iamRole

A pre-existing AWS IAM role applied to the compute machine pool instance profiles. You can use these fields to match naming schemes and include predefined permissions boundaries for your IAM roles. If undefined, the installation program creates a new IAM role.

The name of a valid AWS IAM role.

compute.platform.aws.rootVolume.iops

The Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) that is reserved for the root volume.

Integer, for example 4000.

compute.platform.aws.rootVolume.size

The size in GiB of the root volume.

Integer, for example 500.

compute.platform.aws.rootVolume.type

The type of the root volume.

Valid AWS EBS volume type, such as io1.

compute.platform.aws.rootVolume.kmsKeyARN

The Amazon Resource Name (key ARN) of a KMS key. This is required to encrypt operating system volumes of worker nodes with a specific KMS key.

Valid key ID or the key ARN.

compute.platform.aws.type

The EC2 instance type for the compute machines.

Valid AWS instance type, such as m4.2xlarge. See the Supported AWS machine types table that follows.

compute.platform.aws.zones

The availability zones where the installation program creates machines for the compute machine pool. If you provide your own VPC, you must provide a subnet in that availability zone.

A list of valid AWS availability zones, such as us-east-1c, in a YAML sequence.

compute.aws.region

The AWS region that the installation program creates compute resources in.

Any valid AWS region, such as us-east-1. You can use the AWS CLI to access the regions available based on your selected instance type. For example:

aws ec2 describe-instance-type-offerings --filters Name=instance-type,Values=c7g.xlarge

controlPlane.platform.aws.amiID

The AWS AMI used to boot control plane machines for the cluster. This is required for regions that require a custom FCOS AMI.

Any published or custom FCOS AMI that belongs to the set AWS region. See FCOS AMIs for AWS infrastructure for available AMI IDs.

controlPlane.platform.aws.iamRole

A pre-existing AWS IAM role applied to the control plane machine pool instance profiles. You can use these fields to match naming schemes and include predefined permissions boundaries for your IAM roles. If undefined, the installation program creates a new IAM role.

The name of a valid AWS IAM role.

controlPlane.platform.aws.rootVolume.kmsKeyARN

The Amazon Resource Name (key ARN) of a KMS key. This is required to encrypt operating system volumes of control plane nodes with a specific KMS key.

Valid key ID and the key ARN.

controlPlane.platform.aws.type

The EC2 instance type for the control plane machines.

Valid AWS instance type, such as m6i.xlarge. See the Supported AWS machine types table that follows.

controlPlane.platform.aws.zones

The availability zones where the installation program creates machines for the control plane machine pool.

A list of valid AWS availability zones, such as us-east-1c, in a YAML sequence.

controlPlane.aws.region

The AWS region that the installation program creates control plane resources in.

Valid AWS region, such as us-east-1.

platform.aws.amiID

The AWS AMI used to boot all machines for the cluster. If set, the AMI must belong to the same region as the cluster. This is required for regions that require a custom FCOS AMI.

Any published or custom FCOS AMI that belongs to the set AWS region. See FCOS AMIs for AWS infrastructure for available AMI IDs.

platform.aws.hostedZone

An existing Route 53 private hosted zone for the cluster. You can only use a pre-existing hosted zone when also supplying your own VPC. The hosted zone must already be associated with the user-provided VPC before installation. Also, the domain of the hosted zone must be the cluster domain or a parent of the cluster domain. If undefined, the installation program creates a new hosted zone.

String, for example Z3URY6TWQ91KVV.

platform.aws.serviceEndpoints.name

The AWS service endpoint name. Custom endpoints are only required for cases where alternative AWS endpoints must be used. Custom API endpoints can be specified for EC2, S3, IAM, Elastic Load Balancing, Tagging, Route 53, and STS AWS services.

Valid AWS service endpoint name.

platform.aws.serviceEndpoints.url

The AWS service endpoint URL. The URL must use the https protocol and the host must trust the certificate.

Valid AWS service endpoint URL.

platform.aws.userTags

A map of keys and values that the installation program adds as tags to all resources that it creates.

Any valid YAML map, such as key value pairs in the <key>: <value> format. For more information about AWS tags, see Tagging Your Amazon EC2 Resources in the AWS documentation.

You can add up to 25 user defined tags during installation. The remaining 25 tags are reserved for OKD.

platform.aws.propagateUserTags

A flag that directs in-cluster Operators to include the specified user tags in the tags of the AWS resources that the Operators create.

Boolean values, for example true or false.

platform.aws.subnets

If you provide the VPC instead of allowing the installation program to create the VPC for you, specify the subnet for the cluster to use. The subnet must be part of the same machineNetwork[].cidr ranges that you specify.

For a standard cluster, specify a public and a private subnet for each availability zone.

For a private cluster, specify a private subnet for each availability zone.

For clusters that use AWS Local Zones, you must add AWS Local Zone subnets to this list to ensure edge machine pool creation.

Valid subnet IDs.

Minimum resource requirements for cluster installation

Each cluster machine must meet the following minimum requirements:

Table 5. Minimum resource requirements
Machine	Operating System	vCPU ^[1]	Virtual RAM	Storage	Input/Output Per Second (IOPS)^[2]
Bootstrap	FCOS	4	16 GB	100 GB	300
Control plane	FCOS	4	16 GB	100 GB	300
Compute	FCOS	2	8 GB	100 GB	300

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.
OKD 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.
As with all user-provisioned installations, if you choose to use Fedora 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 Fedora 7 compute machines is deprecated and has been removed in OKD 4.10 and later.

As of OKD version 4.13, RHCOS is based on RHEL version 9.2, which updates the micro-architecture requirements. The following list contains the minimum instruction set architectures (ISA) that each architecture requires:

x86-64 architecture requires x86-64-v2 ISA
ARM64 architecture requires ARMv8.0-A ISA
IBM Power architecture requires Power 9 ISA
s390x architecture requires z14 ISA

For more information, see RHEL Architectures.

If an instance type for your platform meets the minimum requirements for cluster machines, it is supported to use in OKD.

Additional resources

Optimizing storage

Tested instance types for AWS

The following Amazon Web Services (AWS) instance types have been tested with OKD.

Use the machine types included in the following charts for your AWS instances. If you use an instance type that is not listed in the chart, ensure that the instance size you use matches the minimum resource requirements that are listed in "Minimum resource requirements for cluster installation".

Machine types based on 64-bit x86 architecture

c4.*
c5.*
c5a.*
i3.*
m4.*
m5.*
m5a.*
m6a.*
m6i.*
r4.*
r5.*
r5a.*
r6i.*
t3.*
t3a.*

Tested instance types for AWS on 64-bit ARM infrastructures

The following Amazon Web Services (AWS) 64-bit ARM instance types have been tested with OKD.

Use the machine types included in the following charts for your AWS ARM instances. If you use an instance type that is not listed in the chart, ensure that the instance size you use matches the minimum resource requirements that are listed in "Minimum resource requirements for cluster installation".

Machine types based on 64-bit ARM architecture

c6g.*
c7g.*
m6g.*
m7g.*
r8g.*

Sample customized install-config.yaml file for AWS

You can customize the installation configuration file (install-config.yaml) to specify more details about your OKD cluster’s platform or modify the values of the required parameters.

This sample YAML file is provided for reference only. You must obtain your install-config.yaml file by using the installation program and modify it.

apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: example.com (1)
credentialsMode: Mint (2)
controlPlane:  (3) (4)
  hyperthreading: Enabled (5)
  name: master
  platform:
    aws:
      zones:
      - us-west-2a
      - us-west-2b
      rootVolume:
        iops: 4000
        size: 500
        type: io1 (6)
      metadataService:
        authentication: Optional (7)
      type: m6i.xlarge
  replicas: 3
compute: (3)
- hyperthreading: Enabled (5)
  name: worker
  platform:
    aws:
      rootVolume:
        iops: 2000
        size: 500
        type: io1 (6)
      metadataService:
        authentication: Optional (7)
      type: c5.4xlarge
      zones:
      - us-west-2c
  replicas: 3
metadata:
  name: test-cluster (1)
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16
  networkType: OVNKubernetes (8)
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  aws:
    region: us-west-2 (1)
    propagateUserTags: true (3)
    userTags:
      adminContact: jdoe
      costCenter: 7536
    amiID: ami-96c6f8f7 (9)
    serviceEndpoints: (10)
      - name: ec2
        url: https://vpce-id.ec2.us-west-2.vpce.amazonaws.com
sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA... (11)
pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}' (1)

1 Required. The installation program prompts you for this value.

2 Optional: Add this parameter to force the Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) to use the specified mode, instead of having the CCO dynamically try to determine the capabilities of the credentials. For details about CCO modes, see the Cloud Credential Operator entry in the Red Hat Operators reference content.

3 If you do not provide these parameters and values, the installation program provides the default value.

4 The controlPlane section is a single mapping, but the compute section is a sequence of mappings. To meet the requirements of the different data structures, the first line of the compute section must begin with a hyphen, -, and the first line of the controlPlane section must not. Only one control plane pool is used.

Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines' cores. You can disable it by setting the parameter value to Disabled. If you disable simultaneous multithreading in some cluster machines, you must disable it in all cluster machines.

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance. Use larger instance types, such as m4.2xlarge or m5.2xlarge, for your machines if you disable simultaneous multithreading.

6 To configure faster storage for etcd, especially for larger clusters, set the storage type as io1 and set iops to 2000.

Whether to require the Amazon EC2 Instance Metadata Service v2 (IMDSv2). To require IMDSv2, set the parameter value to Required. To allow the use of both IMDSv1 and IMDSv2, set the parameter value to Optional. If no value is specified, both IMDSv1 and IMDSv2 are allowed.

The IMDS configuration for control plane machines that is set during cluster installation can only be changed by using the AWS CLI. The IMDS configuration for compute machines can be changed by using compute machine sets.

8 The cluster network plugin to install. The supported values are OVNKubernetes and OpenShiftSDN. The default value is OVNKubernetes.

9 The ID of the AMI used to boot machines for the cluster. If set, the AMI must belong to the same region as the cluster.

10 The AWS service endpoints. Custom endpoints are required when installing to an unknown AWS region. The endpoint URL must use the https protocol and the host must trust the certificate.

You can optionally provide the sshKey value that you use to access the machines in your cluster.

For production OKD clusters on which you want to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, specify an SSH key that your ssh-agent process uses.

Configuring the cluster-wide proxy during installation

Production environments can deny direct access to the internet and instead have an HTTP or HTTPS proxy available. You can configure a new OKD cluster to use a proxy by configuring the proxy settings in the install-config.yaml file.

Prerequisites

You have an existing install-config.yaml file.

You reviewed the sites that your cluster requires access to and determined whether any of them need to bypass the proxy. By default, all cluster egress traffic is proxied, including calls to hosting cloud provider APIs. You added sites to the Proxy object’s spec.noProxy field to bypass the proxy if necessary.

The Proxy object status.noProxy field is populated with the values of the networking.machineNetwork[].cidr, networking.clusterNetwork[].cidr, and networking.serviceNetwork[] fields from your installation configuration.

For installations on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, and OpenStack, the Proxy object status.noProxy field is also populated with the instance metadata endpoint (169.254.169.254).

Procedure

Edit your install-config.yaml file and add the proxy settings. For example:

apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: my.domain.com
proxy:
  httpProxy: http://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> (1)
  httpsProxy: https://<username>:<pswd>@<ip>:<port> (2)
  noProxy: ec2.<aws_region>.amazonaws.com,elasticloadbalancing.<aws_region>.amazonaws.com,s3.<aws_region>.amazonaws.com (3)
additionalTrustBundle: | (4)
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    <MY_TRUSTED_CA_CERT>
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
additionalTrustBundlePolicy: <policy_to_add_additionalTrustBundle> (5)

1	A proxy URL to use for creating HTTP connections outside the cluster. The URL scheme must be `http`.
2	A proxy URL to use for creating HTTPS connections outside the cluster.
3	A comma-separated list of destination domain names, IP addresses, or other network CIDRs to exclude from proxying. Preface a domain with `.` to match subdomains only. For example, `.y.com` matches `x.y.com`, but not `y.com`. Use `*` to bypass the proxy for all destinations. If you have added the Amazon `EC2`,`Elastic Load Balancing`, and `S3` VPC endpoints to your VPC, you must add these endpoints to the `noProxy` field.
4	If provided, the installation program generates a config map that is named `user-ca-bundle` in the `openshift-config` namespace that contains one or more additional CA certificates that are required for proxying HTTPS connections. The Cluster Network Operator then creates a `trusted-ca-bundle` config map that merges these contents with the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) trust bundle, and this config map is referenced in the `trustedCA` field of the `Proxy` object. The `additionalTrustBundle` field is required unless the proxy’s identity certificate is signed by an authority from the FCOS trust bundle.
5	Optional: The policy to determine the configuration of the `Proxy` object to reference the `user-ca-bundle` config map in the `trustedCA` field. The allowed values are `Proxyonly` and `Always`. Use `Proxyonly` to reference the `user-ca-bundle` config map only when `http/https` proxy is configured. Use `Always` to always reference the `user-ca-bundle` config map. The default value is `Proxyonly`.

The installation program does not support the proxy readinessEndpoints field.

If the installer times out, restart and then complete the deployment by using the wait-for command of the installer. For example:

$ ./openshift-install wait-for install-complete --log-level debug

Save the file and reference it when installing OKD.

The installation program creates a cluster-wide proxy that is named cluster that uses the proxy settings in the provided install-config.yaml file. If no proxy settings are provided, a cluster Proxy object is still created, but it will have a nil spec.

Only the Proxy object named cluster is supported, and no additional proxies can be created.

Deploying the cluster

You can install OKD on a compatible cloud platform.

You can run the create cluster command of the installation program only once, during initial installation.

Prerequisites

Configure an account with the cloud platform that hosts your cluster.
Obtain the OKD installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.
Verify the cloud provider account on your host has the correct permissions to deploy the cluster. An account with incorrect permissions causes the installation process to fail with an error message that displays the missing permissions.

Procedure

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

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

Verification

When the cluster deployment completes successfully:

The terminal displays directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to the web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user.
Credential information also outputs to <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log.

Do not delete the installation program or the files that the installation program creates. Both are required to delete the cluster.

Example output

...
INFO Install complete!
INFO To access the cluster as the system:admin user when using 'oc', run 'export KUBECONFIG=/home/myuser/install_dir/auth/kubeconfig'
INFO Access the OpenShift web-console here: https://console-openshift-console.apps.mycluster.example.com
INFO Login to the console with user: "kubeadmin", and password: "password"
INFO Time elapsed: 36m22s

The Ignition config files that the installation program generates contain certificates that expire after 24 hours, which are then renewed at that time. If the cluster is shut down before renewing the certificates and the cluster is later restarted after the 24 hours have elapsed, the cluster automatically recovers the expired certificates. The exception is that you must manually approve the pending node-bootstrapper certificate signing requests (CSRs) to recover kubelet certificates. See the documentation for Recovering from expired control plane certificates for more information.
It is recommended that you use Ignition config files within 12 hours after they are generated because the 24-hour certificate rotates from 16 to 22 hours after the cluster is installed. By using the Ignition config files within 12 hours, you can avoid installation failure if the certificate update runs during installation.

Installing the OpenShift CLI by downloading the binary

You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) to interact with OKD from a command-line interface. You can install oc on Linux, Windows, or macOS.

If you installed an earlier version of oc, you cannot use it to complete all of the commands in OKD 4.13. Download and install the new version of oc.

Installing the OpenShift CLI on Linux

You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) binary on Linux by using the following procedure.

Procedure

Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.
Download oc.tar.gz.
Unpack the archive:
```
$ tar xvf <file>
```
Place the oc binary in a directory that is on your PATH.

To check your PATH, execute the following command:
```
$ echo $PATH
```

Verification

After you install the OpenShift CLI, it is available using the oc command:
```
$ oc <command>
```

Installing the OpenShift CLI on Windows

You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) binary on Windows by using the following procedure.

Procedure

Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.
Download oc.zip.
Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.
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
```

Verification

After you install the OpenShift CLI, it is available using the oc command:
```
C:\> oc <command>
```

Installing the OpenShift CLI on macOS

You can install the OpenShift CLI (oc) binary on macOS by using the following procedure.

Procedure

Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.
Download oc.tar.gz.
Unpack and unzip the archive.
Move the oc binary to a directory on your PATH.

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

Verification

After you install the OpenShift CLI, it is available using the oc command:
```
$ oc <command>
```

Logging in to the cluster by using the CLI

You can log in to your cluster as a default system user by exporting the cluster kubeconfig file. The kubeconfig file contains information about the cluster that is used by the CLI to connect a client to the correct cluster and API server. The file is specific to a cluster and is created during OKD installation.

Prerequisites

You deployed an OKD cluster.
You installed the oc CLI.

Procedure

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.
Verify you can run oc commands successfully using the exported configuration:
```
$ oc whoami
```
Example output
```
system:admin
```

Logging in to the cluster by using the web console

The kubeadmin user exists by default after an OKD installation. You can log in to your cluster as the kubeadmin user by using the OKD web console.

Prerequisites

You have access to the installation host.
You completed a cluster installation and all cluster Operators are available.

Procedure

Obtain the password for the kubeadmin user from the kubeadmin-password file on the installation host:
```
$ cat <installation_directory>/auth/kubeadmin-password
```
Alternatively, you can obtain the kubeadmin password from the <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log log file on the installation host.

List the OKD web console route:

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

Alternatively, you can obtain the OKD 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

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

Additional resources

See Accessing the web console for more details about accessing and understanding the OKD web console.

Additional resources

See About remote health monitoring for more information about the Telemetry service.

Next steps

Validating an installation.
Customize your cluster.
If necessary, you can opt out of remote health reporting.
If necessary, you can remove cloud provider credentials.

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`.