The goal of this repository is to provide a simple, reproducible way to deploy an OpenShift Container Platform lab using the vSphere UPI method with Static IP Addresses.

This is a concise summary of everything you need to do to use the repo. Rest of the document goes into details of every step.

1. Edit group_vars/all.yml, the following must be changed while the rest can remain the same
   • pull secret
   • ip and host/domain names
   • enable/disable fips mode
   • vcenter details
     • datastore name
     • datacenter name
     • username and passwords of admin/service accounts
   • validate current Govc version is set
   • enable ntp with their details, as required
2. If you wish to run a specific Channel and Version modify the following in group_vars/all.yml:
   • download.channel
   • download.version
3. For the CoreDNS VM to be able to pull the image from Quay.io you must specify an coredns_vm.upstream_dns. It cannot have itself as a primary DNS Server

1. vSphere ESXi and vCenter 6.7U3 or 7.0 installed.

2. A datacenter created with a vSphere host added to it, a datastore exists and has adequate capacity

3. Ansible (preferably latest) on the machine where this repo is cloned.

   • Before you install Ansible, install the epel-release, run yum -y install epel-release

4. Your DNS Provider (PiHole, AdGuard, etc) should be configured to lookup your base_domain from your coredns_vm.ipaddr

   • Optionally, you configure the coredns_vm.upstream_dns to be your primary DNS Server and then configure your workstation or bastion host to use the CoreDNS Server as your primary DNS Server.
   • If you wish to use the CoreDNS as your primary DNS Server see the deploy-aio-lab.yml Extra Variables section below.

5. If you plan to deploy the DNS or LoadBalancer using this playbook you need to be running an OS with a glibc version higher than 2.32 such as Fedora 33 or higher or you can deploy from the ocp4-vsphere-deploy-container

   NOTE: If you are going to use the CoreDNS vm as your primary DNS Server you must specify your vcenter in group_vars/all.yml as an IP address as no A Record will exist.

Pre-populated entries in group_vars/all.yml are ready to be used unless you need to customize further. Any updates described below refer to group_vars/all.yml unless otherwise specified.

1. Get the pull secret from here. Update the file on the line with location of your pull_secret. ex. ~/openshift/pull-secret.json
2. Get the vCenter details:
   1. IP address
   2. Service account username (can be the same as admin)
   3. Service account password (can be the same as admin)
   4. Admin account username
   5. Admin account password
   6. Datacenter name (created in the prerequisites mentioned above)
   7. Datastore name
   8. Absolute path of the vCenter folder to use (optional). If this field is not populated, its is auto-populated and points to /${vcenter.datacenter}/vm/${infraID}
3. Downloadable link to govc (vSphere CLI, pre-populated)
4. OpenShift cluster
   1. base domain (pre-populated with example.com)
   2. cluster name (pre-populated with ocp4)
   3. network type *(pre-populated with OpenShiftSDN)
5. If you wish to install without enabling the Kubernetes vSphere Cloud Provider (Useful for mixed installs with both Virtual Nodes and Bare Metal Nodes), change the provider: to none in all.yaml.

   config:
     provider: none
     base_domain: example.com
     ...
   

6. If you wish to enable custom NTP servers on your nodes, set ntp.custom to True and define ntp.ntp_server_list to fit your requirements.

   ntp:
     custom: True
     ntp_server_list:
     - 0.rhel.pool.ntp.org
     - 1.rhel.pool.ntp.org
   

# Deploy the Lab and all components
ansible-playbook deploy-aio-lab.yml

config_local_dns=true - Configures /etc/resolv.conf or systemd-resolved to use CoreDNS as primary DNS after CoreDNS has been deployed.

skip_ova=true - Skips downloading and deploying the OVA if previous deployed to vCenter.

skip_lb=true - Skips deploying the LoadBalancer VM if a LoadBalancer already exists.

skip_dns=true - Skips deploying a DNS server if proper DNS is already configured.

specific_version=4.6.z - Deploys a specific version of OpenShift. Must be in 4.x.z format.

# Destroy the Lab and all components
ansible-playbook destroy-aio-lab.yml -e cluster=true

# Destroy the Lab and all components while retaining the ova
ansible-playbook destroy-aio-lab.yml -e cluster=true -e skip_ova=true

# Destroy the Lab and all components and revert DNS Configuration
ansible-playbook destroy-aio-lab.yml -e cluster=true -e config_local_dns=true

cluster=true - Required to delete the entire cluster, ova, folder, and vwware tag.

skip_ova=true - Skips downloading and deploying the OVA if previous deployed to vCenter.

bootstrap=true - To delete the bootstrap VM

NOTE: The OVA file needs to be outside of the Cluster Folder in VMware for -e skip_ova=true to work

1. Necessary Linux packages installed for the installation
2. Necessary folders [bin, downloads, downloads/ISOs, install-dir] created
3. OpenShift client, install and .ova binaries downloaded to the downloads folder
4. Unzipped versions of the binaries installed in the bin folder
5. In the install-dir folder:
   1. master.ign and worker.ign
   2. Copy of the install-config.yaml
6. A folder is created in the vCenter under the mentioned datacenter and the template is imported
7. The template file is edited to carry certain default settings and runtime parameters common to all the VMs
8. VMs (coredns, lb, bootstrap, master0-2, worker0-2) are generated in the designated folder and (in state of) poweredon

# In the root folder of this repo run the following commands
export KUBECONFIG=$(pwd)/install-dir/auth/kubeconfig
export PATH=$(pwd)/bin:$PATH

# OpenShift Client Commands
oc whoami
oc get co

1. Specify the worker_prefix in group_vars\all.yml under the config section.

2. Add a new line to group_vars\all.yml under worker_vms.

   Ex. - { name: "worker3", ipaddr: "10.0.0.26", cpus: "2", memory_mb: "8192", disk_size_gb: "120"}

3. Running add-new-nodes.yml will add all additional new worker nodes and redeploy CoreDNS and the HAProxy LB with the new node information.

   • To not redeploy the CoreDNS vm add the extra variable skip_dns=true
   • To not redeploy the HAProxy LB vm add the extra variable skip_lb=true

4. If you choose to redeploy the HAProxy LB vm you can scale the ingress controller by following these steps: Scaling an Ingress Controller

Vijay Chintalapati, Mike Allmen, and all the contributors to ocp4-vsphere-upi-automation Repo that inspired this repository.

Morgan Peterman