All-in-One – techbloc.net

I haven’t written much since the summer 2021 and I thought I start the New Year with a little update regarding OpenShift/OKD 4.9 Single Node cluster (SNO) installation. The single node type is not new because I have been using these All-in-One or Single Node clusters since OpenShift 3.x and it worked great until OpenShift 4.7. When RedHat released OpenShift 4.8 the single node installation stopped working because of issue with the control-plane because it expected three nodes for high availability and this installation method was possible till then but not officially supported by RedHat.

When the OpenShift 4.9 release was announced the single node installation method called SNO became a supported way for deploying OpenShift Edge clusters on bare-metal or virtual machine using the RedHat Cloud Assisted Installer.

This opened the possibility again to install OpenShift/OKD 4.9 as a single node (SNO) on any cloud provider like AWS, GCP or Azure through the openshift-install command line utility or through OpenShift Hive / Advanced Cluster Management operator.

The install-config.yaml for a single node cluster is pretty much the same like for a normal cluster only that you change the worker node replicas to zero and control-plane (master) nodes to one. Make sure your instance size has minimum 8x vCPUs and 32 GB of memory.

---
apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: k8s.domain.com
compute:
- name: worker
  platform:
    aws:
      rootVolume:
        iops: 100
        size: 22
        type: gp2
      type: m5.2xlarge
  replicas: 0
controlPlane:
  name: master
  platform:
    aws:
      rootVolume:
        iops: 100
        size: 22
        type: gp2
      type: m5.2xlarge
  replicas: 1
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: okd-eu-west-1
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineCIDR: 10.0.0.0/16
  networkType: OpenShiftSDN
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  aws:
    region: eu-west-1
pullSecret: ""
sshKey: ""

I am using OpenShift Hive for installing the OKD 4.9 single node cluster which requires Kubernetes to run the Hive operator.

Create a install-config secret:

$ kubectl create secret generic install-config -n okd --from-file=install-config.yaml=./okd-sno-install-config.yaml

In the ClusterDeployment you specify AWS credentials, reference the install-config and the release image for OKD 4.9. Here you can find the latest OKD release image tags: https://quay.io/repository/openshift/okd

---
apiVersion: hive.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterDeployment
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: okd-eu-west-1
  namespace: okd
spec:
  baseDomain: k8s.domain.com
  clusterName: okd-eu-west-1
  controlPlaneConfig:
    servingCertificates: {}
  installed: false
  platform:
    aws:
      credentialsSecretRef:
        name: aws-creds
      region: eu-west-1
  provisioning:
    releaseImage: quay.io/openshift/okd:4.9.0-0.okd-2022-01-14-230113
    installConfigSecretRef:
      name: install-config
  pullSecretRef:
    name: pull-secret

Apply the cluster deployment and wait for Hive to install the OpenShift/OKD cluster.

$ kubectl apply -f ./okd-clusterdeployment.yaml

The provision pod will output the messages from the openshift-install binary and the cluster will be finish the installation in around 35mins.

$ kubectl logs okd-eu-west-1-0-8vhnf-provision-qrjrg -c hive -f
time="2022-01-15T15:51:32Z" level=debug msg="Couldn't find install logs provider environment variable. Skipping."
time="2022-01-15T15:51:32Z" level=debug msg="checking for SSH private key" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:32Z" level=info msg="unable to initialize host ssh key" error="cannot configure SSH agent as SSH_PRIV_KEY_PATH is unset or empty" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:32Z" level=info msg="waiting for files to be available: [/output/openshift-install /output/oc]" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:32Z" level=info msg="found file" installID=m2zcxsds path=/output/openshift-install
time="2022-01-15T15:51:32Z" level=info msg="found file" installID=m2zcxsds path=/output/oc
time="2022-01-15T15:51:32Z" level=info msg="all files found, ready to proceed" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:35Z" level=info msg="copied /output/openshift-install to /home/hive/openshift-install" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=info msg="copied /output/oc to /home/hive/oc" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=info msg="copying install-config.yaml" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=info msg="copied /installconfig/install-config.yaml to /output/install-config.yaml" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=info msg="waiting for files to be available: [/output/.openshift_install.log]" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=info msg="cleaning up from past install attempts" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=warning msg="skipping cleanup as no infra ID set" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=debug msg="object does not exist" installID=m2zcxsds object=okd/okd-eu-west-1-0-8vhnf-admin-kubeconfig
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=debug msg="object does not exist" installID=m2zcxsds object=okd/okd-eu-west-1-0-8vhnf-admin-password
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=info msg="generating assets" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=info msg="running openshift-install create manifests" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=info msg="running openshift-install binary" args="[create manifests]" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:37Z" level=info msg="found file" installID=m2zcxsds path=/output/.openshift_install.log
time="2022-01-15T15:51:37Z" level=info msg="all files found, ready to proceed" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=debug msg="OpenShift Installer unreleased-master-5011-geb132dae953888e736c382f1176c799c0e1aa49e-dirty"
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=debug msg="Built from commit eb132dae953888e736c382f1176c799c0e1aa49e"
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=debug msg="Fetching Master Machines..."
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=debug msg="Loading Master Machines..."
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=debug msg="  Loading Cluster ID..."
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=debug msg="    Loading Install Config..."
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=debug msg="      Loading SSH Key..."
time="2022-01-15T15:51:36Z" level=debug msg="      Loading Base Domain..."

....

time="2022-01-15T16:14:17Z" level=debug msg="Still waiting for the cluster to initialize: Working towards 4.9.0-0.okd-2022-01-14-230113"
time="2022-01-15T16:14:31Z" level=debug msg="Still waiting for the cluster to initialize: Working towards 4.9.0-0.okd-2022-01-14-230113: 529 of 744 done (71% complete)"
time="2022-01-15T16:14:32Z" level=debug msg="Still waiting for the cluster to initialize: Working towards 4.9.0-0.okd-2022-01-14-230113: 585 of 744 done (78% complete)"
time="2022-01-15T16:14:47Z" level=debug msg="Still waiting for the cluster to initialize: Working towards 4.9.0-0.okd-2022-01-14-230113: 702 of 744 done (94% complete)"
time="2022-01-15T16:15:02Z" level=debug msg="Still waiting for the cluster to initialize: Working towards 4.9.0-0.okd-2022-01-14-230113: 703 of 744 done (94% complete)"
time="2022-01-15T16:15:32Z" level=debug msg="Still waiting for the cluster to initialize: Working towards 4.9.0-0.okd-2022-01-14-230113: 708 of 744 done (95% complete)"
time="2022-01-15T16:15:47Z" level=debug msg="Still waiting for the cluster to initialize: Working towards 4.9.0-0.okd-2022-01-14-230113: 720 of 744 done (96% complete)"
time="2022-01-15T16:16:02Z" level=debug msg="Still waiting for the cluster to initialize: Working towards 4.9.0-0.okd-2022-01-14-230113: 722 of 744 done (97% complete)"
time="2022-01-15T16:17:17Z" level=debug msg="Still waiting for the cluster to initialize: Some cluster operators are still updating: authentication, console, monitoring"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=debug msg="Cluster is initialized"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=info msg="Waiting up to 10m0s for the openshift-console route to be created..."
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=debug msg="Route found in openshift-console namespace: console"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=debug msg="OpenShift console route is admitted"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=info msg="Install complete!"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=info msg="To access the cluster as the system:admin user when using 'oc', run 'export KUBECONFIG=/output/auth/kubeconfig'"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=info msg="Access the OpenShift web-console here: https://console-openshift-console.apps.okd-eu-west-1.k8s.domain.com"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=debug msg="Time elapsed per stage:"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=debug msg="           cluster: 6m35s"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=debug msg="         bootstrap: 34s"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=debug msg="Bootstrap Complete: 12m46s"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=debug msg="               API: 4m2s"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=debug msg=" Bootstrap Destroy: 1m15s"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=debug msg=" Cluster Operators: 4m59s"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:02Z" level=info msg="Time elapsed: 26m13s"
time="2022-01-15T16:18:03Z" level=info msg="command completed successfully" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T16:18:03Z" level=info msg="saving installer output" installID=m2zcxsds
time="2022-01-15T16:18:03Z" level=info msg="install completed successfully" installID=m2zcxsds

Check the cluster deployment and get the kubeadmin password from the secret the Hive operator created during the installation and login to the web console:

$ kubectl get clusterdeployments
NAME            PLATFORM   REGION      CLUSTERTYPE   INSTALLED   INFRAID               VERSION   POWERSTATE   AGE
okd-eu-west-1   aws        eu-west-1                 true        okd-eu-west-1-l4g4n   4.9.0     Running      39m
$ kubectl get secrets okd-eu-west-1-0-8vhnf-admin-password -o jsonpath={.data.password} | base64 -d
EP5Fs-TZrKj-Vtst6-5GWZ9

The cluster details show that the control plane runs as single master node:

Your cluster has a single combined master/worker node:

These single node type clusters can be used in combination with OpenShift Hive ClusterPools to have an amount of pre-installed OpenShift/OKD clusters available for automated tests or as temporary development environment.

apiVersion: hive.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterPool
metadata:
  name: okd-eu-west-1-pool
  namespace: okd
spec:
  baseDomain: k8s.domain.com
  imageSetRef:
    name: 4.9.0-0.okd-2022-01-14
  installConfigSecretTemplateRef:
    name: install-config
  platform:
    aws:
      credentialsSecretRef:
        name: aws-creds
      region: eu-west-1
  pullSecretRef:
    name: pull-secret
  size: 3

The clusters are hibernating (shutdown) in the pool and will be powered on when you apply the ClusterClaim to allocate a cluster with a lifetime set to 8 hours. After 8 hours the cluster gets automatically deleted by the Hive operator.

apiVersion: hive.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterClaim
metadata:
  name: test-1
  namespace: okd
spec:
  clusterPoolName: okd-eu-west-1-pool
  lifetime: 8h

This sums up how to deploy a OpenShift/OKD 4.9 as single node cluster. I hope this article is helpful and leave a comment if you have questions.

The concept of a single-node or All-in-One OpenShift / Kubernetes cluster isn’t something new, years ago when I was working with OpenShift 3 and before that with native Kubernetes, we were using single-node clusters as ephemeral development environment, integrations testing for pull-request or platform releases. It was only annoying because this required complex Jenkins pipelines, provision the node first, then install prerequisites and run the openshift-ansible installer playbook. Not always reliable and not a great experience but it done the job.

This is possible as well with the new OpenShift/OKD 4 version and with the help from OpenShift Hive. The experience is more reliable and quicker than previously and I don’t need to worry about de-provisioning, I will let Hive delete the cluster after a few hours automatically.

It requires a few simple modifications in the install-config. You need to add the Availability Zone you want where the instance will be created. When doing this the VPC will only have two subnets, one public and one private subnet in eu-west-1. You can also install the single-node cluster into an existing VPC you just have to specify subnet ids. Change the compute worker node replicas zero and control-plane replicas to one. Make sure to have an instance size with enough CPU and memory for all OpenShift components because they need to fit onto the single node. The rest of the install-config is pretty much standard.

---
apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: k8s.domain.com
compute:
- name: worker
  platform:
    aws:
      zones:
      - eu-west-1a
      rootVolume:
        iops: 100
        size: 22
        type: gp2
      type: r4.xlarge
  replicas: 0
controlPlane:
  name: master
  platform:
    aws:
      zones:
      - eu-west-1a
      rootVolume:
        iops: 100
        size: 22
        type: gp2
      type: r5.2xlarge
  replicas: 1
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: okd-aio
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineCIDR: 10.0.0.0/16
  networkType: OpenShiftSDN
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  aws:
    region: eu-west-1
pullSecret: ""
sshKey: ""

Create a new install-config secret for the cluster.

kubectl create secret generic install-config-aio -n okd --from-file=install-config.yaml=./install-config-aio.yaml

We will be using OpenShift Hive for the cluster deployment because the provision is more simplified and Hive can also apply any configuration using SyncSets or SelectorSyncSets which is needed. Add the annotation hive.openshift.io/delete-after: “2h” and Hive will automatically delete the cluster after 4 hours.

---
apiVersion: hive.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterDeployment
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  annotations:
    hive.openshift.io/delete-after: "2h"
  name: okd-aio 
  namespace: okd
spec:
  baseDomain: k8s.domain.com
  clusterName: okd-aio
  controlPlaneConfig:
    servingCertificates: {}
  installed: false
  platform:
    aws:
      credentialsSecretRef:
        name: aws-creds
      region: eu-west-1
  provisioning:
    releaseImage: quay.io/openshift/okd:4.5.0-0.okd-2020-07-14-153706-ga
    installConfigSecretRef:
      name: install-config-aio
  pullSecretRef:
    name: pull-secret
  sshKey:
    name: ssh-key
status:
  clusterVersionStatus:
    availableUpdates: null
    desired:
      force: false
      image: ""
      version: ""
    observedGeneration: 0
    versionHash: ""

Apply the cluster deployment to your clusters namespace.

kubectl apply -f  ./clusterdeployment-aio.yaml

This is slightly faster than provision 6 nodes cluster and will take around 30mins until your ephemeral test cluster is ready to use.