(Optional) Creating the custom resource in the OpenShift console

Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) helps you to install, update, and manage the lifecycle of all operators and services that are deployed in OpenShift clusters. Your custom resource can be created through the FormUI, instead of the file based YAML.

Before you begin

  1. You must then follow the relevant steps to prepare your environment. For more information, see Planning for a production deployment.
  2. It is recommended to use the deployment files generated through the FNCM prerequisites script, to prepare for your deployment. For more information, see Generating simple custom resource and deployment files.
  3. Log in to your OCP or ROKS cluster.
  4. If you used the All namespaces option to install the FNCM operator, switch to the project that you created for your FNCM deployment. For example, fncm-project.
  5. In the Installed Operators view, verify the status of the IBM FileNet Content Manager operator installation reads succeeded, and verify the deployment by checking whether all of the pods are running.

About this task

Operator Lifecycle Manager is part of the Operator Framework, which is an open source toolkit that is designed to manage Kubernetes applications in an effective, automated, and scalable way.

IBM provides operators to OpenShift in the form of a catalog. The catalog is added to an OpenShift cluster and appears in the OpenShift Operator Hub under the IBM Operator Catalog provider type.

Procedure

  1. Use the operator instance to apply a custom resource by clicking FNCM deployment > Create Instance.
  2. In the Form View of the deployment editor, enter the values for everything that you want to include in your deployment.
    1. Enter a Name, or use the default fncmdeploy.
    2. Enter the appVersion for example, 23.0.2.

      For more information about FNCM releases and appVersion values, see the Operator information tab in the workbooks referenced from the FileNet P8 Fix Pack Compatibility Matrices document.

    3. Accept the License by setting the value to true.
    4. Enable or disable the optional components for the deployment.
    5. Open the Shared Configuration section and enter values for the following parameters. For more information about the shared parameters, see Shared configuration parameters.
      Table 1. Shared configuration parameters
      Shared configuration parameter Value
      Purchased FNCM license Set to production or non-production.
      Platform Set to OCP or ROKS.
      root_ca_secret The default is fncm-root-ca.
      Drivers URL This is necessary if you are providing your own JDBC drivers.
      external_tls_certificate_secret Set to the name of the secret that is used to store a wildcard certificate (and concatenated signers) to be used by all routes. If the value is empty, all external routes are signed with root_ca_secret.
      Profile Size Set the profile that you want to use for your deployment. The default is small.
      Trusted certificate list If the root certificate authority (CA) key of the external service is not signed by the operator root CA key, provide the TLS certificate of the external service to the component's truststore.

      If the secret does not exist, then a self-signed signer certificate is generated. For more information, see Providing the root CA certificate.

      Important: If you choose to use self-signed certificates, certain features of the product might not work as expected because of modern browser restrictions that are related to self-signed certificates. A browser blocks any redirect to a site that uses a certificate that is not signed by a root CA that is trusted by the browser. This can result in access issues for business applications.
      Storage configuration Select a file-based dynamic storage class from the list installed in your cluster for each of the storage class fields: Slow storage for production, Medium storage for production, Fast storage for production.
      FNCM initialization Enable or disable ECM (FNCM) and BAN initialization.
      FNCM verification Enable or disable the ECM (FNCM) and BAN verification.
    6. Enter valid values for the LDAP Configuration, Database Configuration, Initialization Configuration. You must then enter valid values for the parameters.
      Note: You can copy and paste parameters from the custom resource templates in the YAML View and edit the parameters. Go to the relevant folder in container-samples/descriptors/ibm_fncm_cr_production_FC_content.yaml to find all of the templates. For more information about downloading container-samples, see Preparing a client to connect to the cluster. You can edit the CR file in the editor, but it is best if you have the CR complete and verified before you save your changes in the editor. For example, go to http://www.yamllint.com/ to verify the contents of your file.

      If you want to use a local image registry, add the sc_image_repository parameter to point to the URL of the local registry.

      shared_configuration:
         sc_image_repository: myimageregistry.com/project_name
         ...
         storage_configuration:

      You can add and remove parameters in the YAML View. You can switch between the Form View and the YAML View to complete your configuration.

  3. When you are ready, click Create.

    The page switches to the FNCM deployment tab, where you can watch the Status.

  4. You can click the deployment name (fncmdeploy), and go to the Conditions section at the bottom of the page to see the status updates and any messages.

    You can also click the YAML tab to monitor the state of the selected components.

What to do next

Tip: If you want or need to update values in a deployment that you made in the Form View, you must edit the deployment in the YAML View. You can edit true or false values in the Form View, but the other parameters need to be done in the YAML View. You can access the custom resource from the YAML tab, or by clicking Installed Operators > IBM FileNet Content Manager > FNCM Deployment > fncmdeploy and then select Actions > Edit FNCMCluster.

If you want to further customize and configure the custom resource, see Configuring an advanced custom resource.

To validate your deployment, see topic Validating your deployment.