Preparing your cluster

Set up your cluster and install the necessary software before you prepare your application environment for installing the containers with the operator.

About this task

The administrator must make sure that the target Kubernetes-based or OpenShift-based cluster meets all of the requirements. The Detailed system requirements that you can generate from the IBM Software Product Compatibility Report provides a cluster requirements guideline for content services containers. Use the following checklist to prepare your cluster.

Table 1. Server requirements
Requirement More information
A cluster The containers are supported on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform as well as many Kubernetes platforms certified by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF certified).
Examples of supported platforms include:
  • OpenShift clusters that are installed privately to be directly managed.

    You must install a supported version of OpenShift. For more information, see Software Product Compatibility Report. You must have a Red Hat account to access the OpenShift Cluster Manager. If you do not have a Red Hat account, you must create a Red Hat login. For more information, see Getting Started with Red Hat OpenShift.

  • RedHat OpenShift Kubernetes Service (ROKS) on IBM cloud.
    Note: Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Generation 2 compute infrastructure is supported if you use OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF) as your storage provider.

    Before you deploy your content services containers on IBM Cloud® (your target cluster platform is ROKS), you must create an OpenShift cluster.

    1. If you do not have an account, create an account on IBM Cloud.
    2. If you do not have a cluster, then create one. From the IBM Cloud Overview page, in the OpenShift Cluster tile, click Create Cluster. Refer to the IBM Cloud documentation to create a Kubernetes cluster. The cluster that you create includes attached storage.
  • CNCF certified Kubernetes clusters.

    For more information on IBM FileNet Content Manager support for CNCF Kubernetes, see FileNet Content Manager and IBM Content Foundation support statement for Kubernetes platforms
IBM Entitled Registry entitlement key
  1. Log in to MyIBM Container Software Library with the IBMid and password that is associated with the entitled software.
  2. In the Container software library tile, verify your entitlement on the View library page, and then go to Get entitlement key to retrieve the key.
Remember: Take a note of the key so that the installer can enter it with the deployment script.
Capacity The administrator must make sure that the target cluster has the capacity for all of the container components that you plan to install. For more information, see Identifying the infrastructure requirements.
Secrets You are going to need to create secrets to store and manage sensitive information, such as passwords and ssh keys. Storing confidential information in a secret is safer and more flexible than putting it in a pod definition or in a container image. For more information, see Creating secrets to protect sensitive configuration data.
A dynamic storage class (RWX) The installation needs a dynamic storage class (RWX). The administrator must make a note of the storage classes to use, and provide the names to the user who runs the deployment script. All the container images require persistent volumes (PVs) and persistent volume claims (PVCs), so review the topics on preparing these PVs and PVCs.

For more information, see Storage considerations.
Users You need a cluster admin and a non-admin user to run the scripts.
Multiple deployments Multiple installations of the content services containers are supported. You can install multiple copies of the FileNet Content Manager operator into different namespaces.
Synchronized worker nodes clocks The content services containers require that the clocks on the worker nodes are synchronized. A cluster that is installed in a restricted network is configured to use a public Network Time Protocol (NTP) server by default. To avoid clock skew, reconfigure the cluster to use a private NTP server instead. Time synchronization must be enabled on all hosts in the cluster, whether using NTP or any other method.
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Install an instance of LDAP for your intended deployment. For more information, see Preparing the P8 Platform directory server.
Database Set up your database environment to support your P8 components by creating a database user and creating the Global Configuration Database and the object store database. For more information, see Preparing the P8 Platform database.

What to do next

Go to and complete the next step in Preparing a client to connect to the cluster.