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Prerequisites

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.

Installation requirments

Red Hat does not publish a Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for the AWS China regions.

Before you can install the cluster, you must:

  • Upload a custom FCOS AMI.

  • Manually create the installation configuration file (install-config.yaml).

  • Specify the AWS region, and the accompanying custom AMI, in the installation configuration file.

You cannot use the OKD installation program to create the installation configuration file. The installer does not list an AWS region without native support for an FCOS AMI.

Private clusters

You can deploy a private OKD cluster that does not expose external endpoints. Private clusters are accessible from only an internal network and are not visible to the internet.

By default, OKD is provisioned to use publicly-accessible DNS and endpoints. A private cluster sets the DNS, Ingress Controller, and API server to private when you deploy your cluster. This means that the cluster resources are only accessible from your internal network and are not visible to the internet.

If the cluster has any public subnets, load balancer services created by administrators might be publicly accessible. To ensure cluster security, verify that these services are explicitly annotated as private.

To deploy a private cluster, you must:

  • Use existing networking that meets your requirements. Your cluster resources might be shared between other clusters on the network.

  • Deploy from a machine that has access to:

    • The API services for the cloud to which you provision.

    • The hosts on the network that you provision.

    • The internet to obtain installation media.

You can use any machine that meets these access requirements and follows your company’s guidelines. For example, this machine can be a bastion host on your cloud network.

AWS China does not support a VPN connection between the VPC and your network. For more information about the Amazon VPC service in the Beijing and Ningxia regions, see Amazon Virtual Private Cloud in the AWS China documentation.

Private clusters in AWS

To create a private cluster on Amazon Web Services (AWS), you must provide an existing private VPC and subnets to host the cluster. The installation program must also be able to resolve the DNS records that the cluster requires. The installation program configures the Ingress Operator and API server for access from only the private network.

The cluster still requires access to internet to access the AWS APIs.

The following items are not required or created when you install a private cluster:

  • Public subnets

  • Public load balancers, which support public ingress

  • A public Route 53 zone that matches the baseDomain for the cluster

The installation program does use the baseDomain that you specify to create a private Route 53 zone and the required records for the cluster. The cluster is configured so that the Operators do not create public records for the cluster and all cluster machines are placed in the private subnets that you specify.

Limitations

The ability to add public functionality to a private cluster is limited.

  • You cannot make the Kubernetes API endpoints public after installation without taking additional actions, including creating public subnets in the VPC for each availability zone in use, creating a public load balancer, and configuring the control plane security groups to allow traffic from the internet on 6443 (Kubernetes API port).

  • If you use a public Service type load balancer, you must tag a public subnet in each availability zone with kubernetes.io/cluster/<cluster-infra-id>: shared so that AWS can use them to create public load balancers.

About using a custom VPC

In OKD 4.9, you can deploy a cluster into existing subnets in an existing Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in Amazon Web Services (AWS). By deploying OKD into an existing AWS VPC, you might be able to avoid limit constraints in new accounts or more easily abide by the operational constraints that your company’s guidelines set. If you cannot obtain the infrastructure creation permissions that are required to create the VPC yourself, use this installation option.

Because the installation program cannot know what other components are also in your existing subnets, it cannot choose subnet CIDRs and so forth on your behalf. You must configure networking for the subnets that you install your cluster to yourself.

Requirements for using your VPC

The installation program no longer creates the following components:

  • Internet gateways

  • NAT gateways

  • Subnets

  • Route tables

  • VPCs

  • VPC DHCP options

  • VPC endpoints

The installation program requires that you use the cloud-provided DNS server. Using a custom DNS server is not supported and causes the installation to fail.

If you use a custom VPC, you must correctly configure it and its subnets for the installation program and the cluster to use. See Amazon VPC console wizard configurations and Work with VPCs and subnets in the AWS documentation for more information on creating and managing an AWS VPC.

The installation program cannot:

  • Subdivide network ranges for the cluster to use.

  • Set route tables for the subnets.

  • Set VPC options like DHCP.

You must complete these tasks before you install the cluster. See VPC networking components and Route tables for your VPC for more information on configuring networking in an AWS VPC.

Your VPC must meet the following characteristics:

  • The VPC must not use the kubernetes.io/cluster/.*: owned tag.

    The installation program modifies your subnets to add the kubernetes.io/cluster/.*: shared tag, so your subnets must have at least one free tag slot available for it. See Tag Restrictions in the AWS documentation to confirm that the installation program can add a tag to each subnet that you specify.

  • You must enable the enableDnsSupport and enableDnsHostnames attributes in your VPC, so that the cluster can use the Route 53 zones that are attached to the VPC to resolve cluster’s internal DNS records. See DNS Support in Your VPC in the AWS documentation.

    If you prefer to use your own Route 53 hosted private zone, you must associate the existing hosted zone with your VPC prior to installing a cluster. You can define your hosted zone using the platform.aws.hostedZone field in the install-config.yaml file.

  • If you use a cluster with public access, you must create a public and a private subnet for each availability zone that your cluster uses. Each availability zone can contain no more than one public and one private subnet.

If you are working in a disconnected environment, you are unable to reach the public IP addresses for EC2 and ELB endpoints. To resolve this, you must create a VPC endpoint and attach it to the subnet that the clusters are using. The endpoints should be named as follows:

  • ec2.<region>.amazonaws.com.cn

  • elasticloadbalancing.<region>.amazonaws.com

  • s3.<region>.amazonaws.com

Required VPC components

You must provide a suitable VPC and subnets that allow communication to your machines.

Component AWS type Description

VPC

  • AWS::EC2::VPC

  • AWS::EC2::VPCEndpoint

You must provide a public VPC for the cluster to use. The VPC uses an endpoint that references the route tables for each subnet to improve communication with the registry that is hosted in S3.

Public subnets

  • AWS::EC2::Subnet

  • AWS::EC2::SubnetNetworkAclAssociation

Your VPC must have public subnets for between 1 and 3 availability zones and associate them with appropriate Ingress rules.

Internet gateway

  • AWS::EC2::InternetGateway

  • AWS::EC2::VPCGatewayAttachment

  • AWS::EC2::RouteTable

  • AWS::EC2::Route

  • AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation

  • AWS::EC2::NatGateway

  • AWS::EC2::EIP

You must have a public internet gateway, with public routes, attached to the VPC. In the provided templates, each public subnet has a NAT gateway with an EIP address. These NAT gateways allow cluster resources, like private subnet instances, to reach the internet and are not required for some restricted network or proxy scenarios.

Network access control

  • AWS::EC2::NetworkAcl

  • AWS::EC2::NetworkAclEntry

You must allow the VPC to access the following ports:

Port

Reason

80

Inbound HTTP traffic

443

Inbound HTTPS traffic

22

Inbound SSH traffic

1024 - 65535

Inbound ephemeral traffic

0 - 65535

Outbound ephemeral traffic

Private subnets

  • AWS::EC2::Subnet

  • AWS::EC2::RouteTable

  • AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation

Your VPC can have private subnets. The provided CloudFormation templates can create private subnets for between 1 and 3 availability zones. If you use private subnets, you must provide appropriate routes and tables for them.

VPC validation

To ensure that the subnets that you provide are suitable, the installation program confirms the following data:

  • All the subnets that you specify exist.

  • You provide private subnets.

  • The subnet CIDRs belong to the machine CIDR that you specified.

  • You provide subnets for each availability zone. Each availability zone contains no more than one public and one private subnet. If you use a private cluster, provide only a private subnet for each availability zone. Otherwise, provide exactly one public and private subnet for each availability zone.

  • You provide a public subnet for each private subnet availability zone. Machines are not provisioned in availability zones that you do not provide private subnets for.

If you destroy a cluster that uses an existing VPC, the VPC is not deleted. When you remove the OKD cluster from a VPC, the kubernetes.io/cluster/.*: shared tag is removed from the subnets that it used.

Division of permissions

Starting with OKD 4.3, you do not need all of the permissions that are required for an installation program-provisioned infrastructure cluster to deploy a cluster. This change mimics the division of permissions that you might have at your company: some individuals can create different resource in your clouds than others. For example, you might be able to create application-specific items, like instances, buckets, and load balancers, but not networking-related components such as VPCs, subnets, or ingress rules.

The AWS credentials that you use when you create your cluster do not need the networking permissions that are required to make VPCs and core networking components within the VPC, such as subnets, routing tables, internet gateways, NAT, and VPN. You still need permission to make the application resources that the machines within the cluster require, such as ELBs, security groups, S3 buckets, and nodes.

Isolation between clusters

If you deploy OKD to an existing network, the isolation of cluster services is reduced in the following ways:

  • You can install multiple OKD clusters in the same VPC.

  • ICMP ingress is allowed from the entire network.

  • TCP 22 ingress (SSH) is allowed to the entire network.

  • Control plane TCP 6443 ingress (Kubernetes API) is allowed to the entire network.

  • Control plane TCP 22623 ingress (MCS) is allowed to the entire network.

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
  1. If you do not have an existing SSH key pair on your local machine to use for authentication onto your cluster nodes, create one. For example, on a computer that uses a Linux operating system, run the following command:

    $ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N '' -f <path>/<file_name> (1)
    1 Specify the path and file name, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, of the new SSH key. If you have an existing key pair, ensure your public key is in the your ~/.ssh directory.

    If you plan to install an OKD cluster that uses FIPS Validated / Modules in Process cryptographic libraries on the x86_64 architecture, do not create a key that uses the ed25519 algorithm. Instead, create a key that uses the rsa or ecdsa algorithm.

  2. View the public SSH key:

    $ cat <path>/<file_name>.pub

    For example, run the following to view the ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub public key:

    $ cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
  3. Add the SSH private key identity to the SSH agent for your local user, if it has not already been added. SSH agent management of the key is required for password-less SSH authentication onto your cluster nodes, or if you want to use the ./openshift-install gather command.

    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

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

  4. Add your SSH private key to the ssh-agent:

    $ ssh-add <path>/<file_name> (1)
    1 Specify the path and file name for your SSH private key, such as ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
    Example output
    Identity added: /home/<you>/<path>/<file_name> (<computer_name>)
Next steps
  • When you install OKD, provide the SSH public key to the installation program.

Uploading a custom FCOS AMI in AWS

If you are deploying to a custom Amazon Web Services (AWS) region, you must upload a custom Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that belongs to that region.

Prerequisites
Procedure
  1. Export your AWS profile as an environment variable:

    $ export AWS_PROFILE=<aws_profile> (1)
    1 The AWS profile name that holds your AWS credentials, like beijingadmin.
  2. Export the region to associate with your custom AMI as an environment variable:

    $ export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=<aws_region> (1)
    1 The AWS region, like cn-north-1.
  3. Export the version of FCOS you uploaded to Amazon S3 as an environment variable:

    $ export RHCOS_VERSION=<version> (1)
    1 The FCOS VMDK version, like 4.9.0.
  4. Export the Amazon S3 bucket name as an environment variable:

    $ export VMIMPORT_BUCKET_NAME=<s3_bucket_name>
  5. Create the containers.json file and define your FCOS VMDK file:

    $ cat <<EOF > containers.json
    {
       "Description": "rhcos-${RHCOS_VERSION}-x86_64-aws.x86_64",
       "Format": "vmdk",
       "UserBucket": {
          "S3Bucket": "${VMIMPORT_BUCKET_NAME}",
          "S3Key": "rhcos-${RHCOS_VERSION}-x86_64-aws.x86_64.vmdk"
       }
    }
    EOF
  6. Import the FCOS disk as an Amazon EBS snapshot:

    $ aws ec2 import-snapshot --region ${AWS_DEFAULT_REGION} \
         --description "<description>" \ (1)
         --disk-container "file://<file_path>/containers.json" (2)
    
    1 The description of your FCOS disk being imported, like rhcos-${RHCOS_VERSION}-x86_64-aws.x86_64.
    2 The file path to the JSON file describing your FCOS disk. The JSON file should contain your Amazon S3 bucket name and key.
  7. Check the status of the image import:

    $ watch -n 5 aws ec2 describe-import-snapshot-tasks --region ${AWS_DEFAULT_REGION}
    Example output
    {
        "ImportSnapshotTasks": [
            {
                "Description": "rhcos-4.7.0-x86_64-aws.x86_64",
                "ImportTaskId": "import-snap-fh6i8uil",
                "SnapshotTaskDetail": {
                    "Description": "rhcos-4.7.0-x86_64-aws.x86_64",
                    "DiskImageSize": 819056640.0,
                    "Format": "VMDK",
                    "SnapshotId": "snap-06331325870076318",
                    "Status": "completed",
                    "UserBucket": {
                        "S3Bucket": "external-images",
                        "S3Key": "rhcos-4.7.0-x86_64-aws.x86_64.vmdk"
                    }
                }
            }
        ]
    }

    Copy the SnapshotId to register the image.

  8. Create a custom FCOS AMI from the FCOS snapshot:

    $ aws ec2 register-image \
       --region ${AWS_DEFAULT_REGION} \
       --architecture x86_64 \ (1)
       --description "rhcos-${RHCOS_VERSION}-x86_64-aws.x86_64" \ (2)
       --ena-support \
       --name "rhcos-${RHCOS_VERSION}-x86_64-aws.x86_64" \ (3)
       --virtualization-type hvm \
       --root-device-name '/dev/xvda' \
       --block-device-mappings 'DeviceName=/dev/xvda,Ebs={DeleteOnTermination=true,SnapshotId=<snapshot_ID>}' (4)
    
    1 The FCOS VMDK architecture type, like x86_64, s390x, or ppc64le.
    2 The Description from the imported snapshot.
    3 The name of the FCOS AMI.
    4 The SnapshotID from the imported snapshot.

To learn more about these APIs, see the AWS documentation for importing snapshots and creating EBS-backed AMIs.

Obtaining the installation program

Before you install OKD, download the installation file on a local computer.

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

Procedure
  1. 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.

  2. 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
  3. 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.

    • 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.

Manually creating the installation configuration file

When installing OKD on Amazon Web Services (AWS) into a region requiring a custom Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) AMI, you must manually generate your installation configuration file.

Prerequisites
  • You have uploaded a custom RHCOS AMI.

  • You have an SSH public key on your local machine to provide to the installation program. The key will be used for SSH authentication onto your cluster nodes for debugging and disaster recovery.

  • You have obtained the OKD installation program and the pull secret for your cluster.

Procedure
  1. Create an installation directory to store your required installation assets in:

    $ mkdir <installation_directory>

    You must create a directory. Some installation assets, like bootstrap X.509 certificates have short expiration intervals, so 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.

  2. Customize the sample install-config.yaml file template that is provided and save it in the <installation_directory>.

    You must name this configuration file install-config.yaml.

  3. 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 next step of the installation process. 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.

The openshift-install command does not validate field names for parameters. If an incorrect name is specified, the related file or object is not created, and no error is reported. Ensure that the field names for any parameters that are specified are correct.

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 installer 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: aws, baremetal, azure, gcp, openstack, ovirt, 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.

Table 2. Network parameters
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 cluster network provider Container Network Interface (CNI) 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 providers 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. For libvirt, the default value is 192.168.126.0/24.

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:

Table 3. Optional parameters
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

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, heteregeneous clusters are not supported, so all pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

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.

aws, azure, gcp, openstack, ovirt, 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.

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, heterogeneous clusters are not supported, so all pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

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.

aws, azure, gcp, openstack, ovirt, 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 on 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. The default value is External.

Setting this field to Internal is not supported on non-cloud platforms.

sshKey

The SSH key or keys to authenticate 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.

One or more keys. For example:

sshKey:
  <key1>
  <key2>
  <key3>

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. Use it as a resource to enter parameter values into the installation configuration file that you created manually.

apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: example.com (1)
credentialsMode: Mint (2)
controlPlane:  (3) (4)
  hyperthreading: Enabled (5)
  name: master
  platform:
    aws:
      zones:
      - cn-north-1a
      - cn-north-1b
      rootVolume:
        iops: 4000
        size: 500
        type: io1 (6)
      type: m5.xlarge
  replicas: 3
compute: (3)
- hyperthreading: Enabled (5)
  name: worker
  platform:
    aws:
      rootVolume:
        iops: 2000
        size: 500
        type: io1 (6)
      type: c5.4xlarge
      zones:
      - cn-north-1a
  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
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  aws:
    region: cn-north-1 (1)
    userTags:
      adminContact: jdoe
      costCenter: 7536
    subnets: (7)
    - subnet-1
    - subnet-2
    - subnet-3
    amiID: ami-96c6f8f7  (1) (8)
    serviceEndpoints: (9)
      - name: ec2
        url: https://vpce-id.ec2.cn-north-1.vpce.amazonaws.com.cn
    hostedZone: Z3URY6TWQ91KVV (10)
sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA... (11)
pullSecret: '{"auths": ...}' (1)
publish: Internal (12)
1 Required.
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 Platform 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.
5 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.
7 If you provide your own VPC, specify subnets for each availability zone that your cluster uses.
8 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.
9 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.
10 The ID of your existing Route 53 private hosted zone. Providing an existing hosted zone requires that you supply your own VPC and the hosted zone is already associated with the VPC prior to installing your cluster. If undefined, the installation program creates a new hosted zone.
11 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.

12 How to publish the user-facing endpoints of your cluster. Set publish to Internal to deploy a private cluster, which cannot be accessed from the internet. The default value is External.

Minimum resource requirements for cluster installation

Each cluster machine must meet the following minimum requirements:

Table 4. Minimum resource requirements
Machine Operating System vCPU [1] Virtual RAM Storage 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

  1. One vCPU is equivalent to one physical core when simultaneous multithreading (SMT), or hyperthreading, is not enabled. When enabled, use the following formula to calculate the corresponding ratio: (threads per core × cores) × sockets = vCPUs.

  2. 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.

  3. 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 planned for removal in a future release of OKD 4.

Supported AWS machine types

The following Amazon Web Services (AWS) instance types are supported with OKD.

Instance types for machines
Instance type Bootstrap Control plane Compute

i3.large

x

m4.large

x

m4.xlarge

x

x

m4.2xlarge

x

x

m4.4xlarge

x

x

m4.10xlarge

x

x

m4.16xlarge

x

x

m5.large

x

m5.xlarge

x

x

m5.2xlarge

x

x

m5.4xlarge

x

x

m5.8xlarge

x

x

m5.12xlarge

x

x

m5.16xlarge

x

x

m5a.large

x

m5a.xlarge

x

x

m5a.2xlarge

x

x

m5a.4xlarge

x

x

m5a.8xlarge

x

x

m5a.12xlarge

x

x

m5a.16xlarge

x

x

m6i.xlarge

x

x

m6i.2xlarge

x

x

m6i.4xlarge

x

x

m6i.8xlarge

x

x

m6i.16xlarge

x

x

c4.2xlarge

x

x

c4.4xlarge

x

x

c4.8xlarge

x

x

c5.xlarge

x

c5.2xlarge

x

x

c5.4xlarge

x

x

c5.9xlarge

x

x

c5.12xlarge

x

x

c5.18xlarge

x

x

c5.24xlarge

x

x

c5a.xlarge

x

c5a.2xlarge

x

x

c5a.4xlarge

x

x

c5a.8xlarge

x

x

c5a.12xlarge

x

x

c5a.16xlarge

x

x

c5a.24xlarge

x

x

r4.large

x

r4.xlarge

x

x

r4.2xlarge

x

x

r4.4xlarge

x

x

r4.8xlarge

x

x

r4.16xlarge

x

x

r5.large

x

r5.xlarge

x

x

r5.2xlarge

x

x

r5.4xlarge

x

x

r5.8xlarge

x

x

r5.12xlarge

x

x

r5.16xlarge

x

x

r5.24xlarge

x

x

r5a.large

x

r5a.xlarge

x

x

r5a.2xlarge

x

x

r5a.4xlarge

x

x

r5a.8xlarge

x

x

r5a.12xlarge

x

x

r5a.16xlarge

x

x

r5a.24xlarge

x

x

t3.large

x

t3.xlarge

x

t3.2xlarge

x

t3a.large

x

t3a.xlarge

x

t3a.2xlarge

x

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).

  • You have added the ec2.<region>.amazonaws.com.cn, elasticloadbalancing.<region>.amazonaws.com, and s3.<region>.amazonaws.com endpoints to your VPC endpoint. These endpoints are required to complete requests from the nodes to the AWS EC2 API. Because the proxy works on the container level, not the node level, you must route these requests to the AWS EC2 API through the AWS private network. Adding the public IP address of the EC2 API to your allowlist in your proxy server is not sufficient.

Procedure
  1. 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: example.com (3)
    additionalTrustBundle: | (4)
        -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
        <MY_TRUSTED_CA_CERT>
        -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    ...
    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.
    4 If provided, the installation program generates a config map that is named user-ca-bundle in the openshift-config namespace to hold the additional CA certificates. If you provide additionalTrustBundle and at least one proxy setting, the Proxy object is configured to reference the user-ca-bundle config map in the trustedCA field. The Cluster Network Operator then creates a trusted-ca-bundle config map that merges the contents specified for the trustedCA parameter with the FCOS trust bundle. The additionalTrustBundle field is required unless the proxy’s identity certificate is signed by an authority from the FCOS trust bundle.

    The installation program does not support the proxy readinessEndpoints field.

  2. 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.

Procedure
  1. Change to the directory that contains the installation program and initialize the cluster deployment:

    $ ./openshift-install create cluster --dir <installation_directory> \ (1)
        --log-level=info (2)
    
    1 For <installation_directory>, specify the location of your customized ./install-config.yaml file.
    2 To view different installation details, specify warn, debug, or error instead of info.

    If the cloud provider account that you configured on your host does not have sufficient permissions to deploy the cluster, the installation process stops, and the missing permissions are displayed.

    When the cluster deployment completes, directions for accessing your cluster, including a link to its web console and credentials for the kubeadmin user, display in your terminal.

    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: "4vYBz-Ee6gm-ymBZj-Wt5AL"
    INFO Time elapsed: 36m22s

    The cluster access and credential information also outputs to <installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log when an installation succeeds.

    • 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.

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

  2. 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.

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 4.9. 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
  1. Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.

  2. Download oc.tar.gz.

  3. Unpack the archive:

    $ tar xvf <file>
  4. Place the oc binary in a directory that is on your PATH.

    To check your PATH, execute the following command:

    $ echo $PATH

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
  1. Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.

  2. Download oc.zip.

  3. Unzip the archive with a ZIP program.

  4. 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

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
  1. Navigate to https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/clients/oc/latest/ and choose the folder for your operating system and architecture.

  2. Download oc.tar.gz.

  3. Unpack and unzip the archive.

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

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

    $ echo $PATH

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
  1. Export the kubeadmin credentials:

    $ export KUBECONFIG=<installation_directory>/auth/kubeconfig (1)
    1 For <installation_directory>, specify the path to the directory that you stored the installation files in.
  2. Verify you can run oc commands successfully using the exported configuration:

    $ oc whoami
    Example output
    system:admin

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
  1. 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.

  2. 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
  3. 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