Setting up the cluster by running a script

To install IBM Business Automation Insights, a cluster administrator user can run a script to set up the cluster. They can also run the script in silent mode if set of environment variables are created before the script is run. The administrator must also provide information that they get from the script to a non-administrator user so they can run the deployment script.

Before you begin

Make sure that you prepared your cluster with the necessary infrastructure and software. For more information, see Preparing your cluster for an online deployment.

About this task

The cluster setup script is one of four core scripts (cluster setup, prerequisites, deployment, and post-install) that are provided to help you install IBM Business Automation Insights. You must be a cluster administrator to run the setup script. For more information, see Cloud Pak personas External link opens a new window or tab.

The cluster setup script identifies or creates a namespace and applies the custom resource definitions (CRD). It then adds the specified user to the ibm-bai-insights-engine-operator role, binds the role to the service account.

The script also prompts the administrator to take note of the cluster hostname and a dynamic storage class on the cluster. These names must be provided to the user who runs the deployment script.

Note: You can run the scripts on an amd64/x86, a Linux® on Z, or a Linux on Power® machine that can run Podman. The setup script does not set any parameters in the custom resource (CR). The cluster administrator might be running the script on a different host than the user who later runs the deployment script.

A new installation of IBM Business Automation Insights always includes a namespace-scoped instance of foundational services when you use the scripts.

Use the following steps to complete the setup.

Procedure

  1. Download the appropriate repository to a Linux based machine (RHEL) or a client to a linux-based machine or VM that runs podman natively.

    For more information about downloading cert-kubernetes-bai, see Option 1: Preparing your cluster for an online deployment.

  2. Optional: If you want to run the script in silent mode, create the environment variables that are needed for your installation. For more information, see Environment variables for installation in silent mode External link opens a new window or tab.
  3. Log in to the target cluster as the <cluster-admin> user.

    Using the OC client:

    oc login https://<cluster-ip>:<port> -u <cluster-admin> -p <password>

    On ROKS, if you are not already logged in:

    oc login --token=<token> --server=https://<cluster-ip>:<port>
  4. Change directory to the extracted cert-kubernetes-bai/scripts folder. 
    cd ${PATH_TO_EXTRACTED_FILES}/cert-kubernetes-bai/scripts
  5. Run the cluster setup script and follow the prompts in the command window. 
    ./bai-clusteradmin-setup.sh
    1. Select the installation mode: Online or Offline/Airgap.
    2. Select the platform type: ROKS (1), OCP (2) or Other (3).
    3. If you selected OCP, make sure Yes is selected if you want to install Business Automation Insights as a private catalog rather than in the global catalog namespace (GCN). The GCN uses the openshift-marketplace namespace, the private option uses the target namespace of your Business Automation Insights deployment. The default is Yes.
    4. Enter Yes or No to confirm whether you want to install as separation of operators and operands.
    5. Enter the namespace where you want to install Business Automation Insights.
    6. Select a non-admin user on your cluster for the installation.
    7. Enter Yes or No to confirm whether you want to use the images in the IBM® Entitlement Registry.
    8. If you replied Yes to use the IBM Entitlement Registry, enter your IBM Entitled Registry key and login credentials (user and password).

      If you want to load the container images to a local registry, then set up the cluster by mirroring the images instead of running the bai-clusteradmin-setup.sh script. For more information, see Setting up the cluster and use a local image registry.

      Tip: If you ran the bai-clusteradmin-setup.sh script and you see one or more of the following messages, then make sure that you start Docker or Podman and run the script again.
      Error saving credentials: error storing credentials
Error: unable to connect
The Entitlement Registry key failed
    9. Enter the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the cluster on a Rancher platform. This is needed for the creation of ingress endpoints.

    The following message is displayed:

    [INFO] Checking the IBM Cert-manager Operator ready or not
...
[INFO] Applying the latest IBM BAI Operator catalog source...
[✔] IBM BAI Operator catalog source Updated!
  6. Monitor the operator pods until they show a STATUS of "Running". 
    kubectl get pod -w
    Tip: If ibm-bai-insights-engine-operator is inactive for some time, you can delete the operator pod and let it reconcile.
    To confirm that the operator is stuck, check to see whether the log is providing an output. 
    kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=<namespace of Business Automation Insights operator
NAMESPACE=<<namespace of Business Automation Insights operator>>
podname=$(kubectl get pod -n $NAMESPACE | grep ibm-bai-insights-engine-operator | awk '{print $1}') kubectl logs $podname -f

    You can also list the ClusterServiceVersion (CSV) to verify the version of the running operators on your cluster.

    kubectl get csv -n $NAMESPACE
    Note: The version number (25.0.0) of the installed operators corresponds to the channel for Business Automation Insights 25.0.0.

    If you set any subscriptions to manual, then you must approve any pending operator updates. It is not recommended to set subscriptions to manual because it can make the installation error prone when some of the dependency operators are not approved. By default, all subscriptions are set to automatic.

    Tip: Subscriptions for the Cloud Pak foundational services operators are created when they are "needed". Some subscriptions are created during the installation of the operators. If other subscriptions are needed, they are created during the installation of the BAI deployment. To check for subscriptions that are waiting for approval, get the install plans by running the following command.
    kubectl get installPlan

Results

When the script is finished, all of the available storage class names are displayed along with the infrastructure node name. Take a note of the following information and provide it to the admin user as they are needed for the deployment script:

  1. Project name or namespace.
  2. Username to log in to the cluster.

What to do next

You can see the list of operators that are installed in your cluster on the Operators > Installed Operators page. For more information about foundational services, see IBM Cloud Pak® foundational services External link opens a new window or tab.

To verify the foundational services installation, check whether all the pods in the target BAI deployment namespace are running. Use the following command:

kubectl get pods -n $NAMESPACE

Continue to install BAI, you can go to Preparing LDAP secrets for BAI by running a script.