Installing the IBM MQ Operator

The IBM® MQ Operator can be installed onto Red Hat® OpenShift® using the OpenShift console or command line interface (CLI).

1. Install Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.
   For detailed steps to install OpenShift, see Installing Red Hat software 4.6 or later.

   Important: Ensure that you install a supported version of OpenShift Container Platform. For example, to use IBM MQ Operator 3.4 or later, you must install OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 or later. For more information, see IBM Cloud Pak and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform compatibility.

   For any steps that use the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform CLI, you must be logged in to your OpenShift cluster with oc login. To install the CLI, see Getting started with the OpenShift CLI.

   After you install OpenShift, you can verify and gain access to your container software by using the IBM entitlement key that you create in Create the entitlement key secret.

2. Configure storage.

   You must define storage classes in Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and set your storage configuration to satisfy your sizing requirements.

   Important: IBM MQ single-instance and Native HA queue managers can use RWO access mode, while multi-instance queue managers require RWX as described in Planning storage for the IBM MQ Operator. IBM MQ multi-instance queue managers require particular file system characteristics, which can be verified using the instructions for Testing a shared file system for IBM MQ.

   A list of known compliant and non-compliant file systems, and notes on other limits or restrictions, can be found in the Testing statement for IBM MQ file systems.

   Recommended storage providers can be found on the CP4I Storage considerations page.

3. Mirror images (air-gap only).
   If your cluster is in a restricted (air-gapped) network environment, you must mirror the IBM MQ images using the following values:

   export OPERATOR_PACKAGE_NAME=ibm-mq
   export OPERATOR_VERSION=3.4.0

   For information about the contents of the IBM MQ CASE, which is used for air-gap installs and upgrades, see IBM MQ CASE for air-gap install and upgrade on Red Hat OpenShift.

   To create mirror images, see Mirroring images for an air-gapped cluster.

4. Add the IBM MQ Operator catalog source.

   Add the catalog source that makes the operators available to your cluster. See Adding the IBM MQ Operator catalog source.

5. Install the IBM MQ Operator.

   Choose one of the following two options (use the console, or use the CLI):

   • Option 1: Install the IBM MQ Operator using the OpenShift console.
   • Option 2: Install the IBM MQ Operator using the OpenShift CLI.
6. Create the entitlement key secret (online installs only).

   The IBM MQ Operator deploys queue manager images that are pulled from a container registry that performs a license entitlement check. This check requires an entitlement key that is stored in a docker-registry pull secret. If you do not yet have an entitlement key in the namespace in which you will install queue managers, follow these instructions to get an entitlement key and create a pull secret.

   Note: The entitlement key is not required if only IBM MQ Advanced for Developers (Non-Warranted) queue managers are going to be deployed.

   You can create the entitlement key secret using either the OpenShift console or the CLI. The following example uses the CLI:

   1. Get the entitlement key that is assigned to your IBM ID. Log in to MyIBM Container Software Library with the IBM ID and password that are associated with the entitled software.
   2. In the Entitlement keys section, select Copy key to copy the entitlement key to the clipboard.
   3. From the OpenShift CLI, run the following command to create an image pull secret called ibm-entitlement-key.

      oc create secret docker-registry ibm-entitlement-key \
      --docker-server=cp.icr.io \
      --docker-username=cp \
      --docker-password=entitlement_key \
      --docker-email=user_email 
      \--namespace=namespace

      Where entitlement_key is the entitlement key that you copied in step b, user_email is the IBM ID associated with the entitled software, and namespace is the namespace that you installed your IBM MQ Operator into.
7. Deploy the License Service.

   This is required for monitoring license usage of queue managers. Follow the instructions in Deploying License Service.

8. Deploy a queue manager.
   For instructions on deploying an example quick start queue manager, see Deploying a simple queue manager using the IBM MQ Operator.