Configuring custom resources

Creating a database secret

Use the following command to create the secret:

oc create secret generic <NAME> -n <NAMESPACE> --from-literal=AddressContext='<ADDRESS_CONTEXT_CONNECTION_STRING>' --from-literal=AutomationContext='<AUTOMATION_CONTEXT_CONNECTION_STRING>' --from-literal=KnowledgeBase='<KNOWLEDGEBASE_CONTEXT_CONNECTION_STRING>' --from-literal=WordnetContext='<WORDNET_CONTEXT_CONNECTION_STRING>' --from-literal=AuditContext='<AUDIT_CONTEXT_CONNECTION_STRING>'

Replacing the following values:

• NAME
  The name of your secret. It must match the name that you specify in the externalConnection section of the CR.

• NAMESPACE
  The namespace that you want the secret to be created in. It can be the same namespace that you create your IBM RPA instance in.

• ADDRESS_CONTEXT_CONNECTION_STRING
  The connection string to the address database.

• AUTOMATION_CONTEXT_CONNECTION_STRING
  The connection string to the automation database.

• KNOWLEDGEBASE_CONTEXT_CONNECTION_STRING
  The connection string to the knowledgebase database.

• WORDNET_CONTEXT_CONNECTION_STRING
  The connection string to the wordnet database.

• AUDIT_CONTEXT_CONNECTION_STRING
  The connection string to the audit database.

These connection strings must correspond to the Microsoft SQL Server databases you created as described in the Create the connection strings topic.

Example of connection string:

Data Source=dbserver.example.com\SQLEXPRESS,1433;Initial Catalog=automation;User ID=dbuser;Password=dbpass;Connect Timeout=30;Encrypt=False;TrustServerCertificate=False;ApplicationIntent=ReadWrite;MultiSubnetFailover=False

Creating an SMTP secret

Use the following command to create the secret:

oc create secret generic <NAME> -n <NAMESPACE> --from-literal=username=<USERNAME> --from-literal=password=<PASSWORD>

Replace the following values:

• NAME
  The name of your secret. It must match the name that you specify in the userSecret property in the smtp section of the CR.

• NAMESPACE
  The namespace that you want the secret to be created in. It needs to be the same namespace that you create your IBM RPA instance in.

• USERNAME
  The username for the SMTP server.

• PASSWORD
  The password for the SMTP server.

Creating the first tenant owner secret

Use the following command to create the secret:

oc create secret generic <NAME> -n <NAMESPACE> --from-literal=name=<USERNAME> --from-literal=email=<EMAIL>

Replace the following values:

• NAME
  The name of your secret. It must match the name that you specify in the ownerSecret property in the firstTenant section of the CR.

• NAMESPACE
  The namespace that you want the secret to be created in. It must be the same namespace that you create your RPA instance in.

• USERNAME
  The username of the tenant admin.

• EMAIL
  The email address of the tenant admin user.

Creating a Redis password secret

1. Create a YAML secret locally with a specified password:

   apiVersion: v1
   kind: Secret
   metadata:
     name: <RPA-INSTANCE-NAME>-redis-rpa
     namespace: <NAMESPACE>
     labels:
       app.kubernetes.io/component: rpa
       app.kubernetes.io/instance: <RPA-INSTANCE-NAME>
       app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: ibm-rpa-operator
       app.kubernetes.io/name: redis
       rpa.automation.ibm.com/cr-name: <RPA-INSTANCE-NAME>
   data:
     ADMIN_PASSWORD: <PASSWORD>
   type: Opaque 
   

   Replace the following values:

   • RPA-INSTANCE-NAME
     The name of your IBM RPA instance, which is specified in the name property of your Robotic Process Automation CR.

   • NAMESPACE
     The namespace that you want the secret to be created in. It needs to be the same namespace that you create your IBM RPA instance in.

   • PASSWORD
     The base64-encoded password for Redis.

2. Apply the file:

   oc apply -f <FILENAME>.yaml
   

   Replace FILENAME with the path to the YAML file.

Understanding required CR sections

• license
  Accept the license. Refer to IBM RPA license 🡥 for license details.
• version
  Specify the version of the IBM RPA operand. Refer Versioning reference for available options.
• tls
  Specify an empty TLS section in order for the operator to create self-signed certificates.
• externalConnection
  Specify the name of a secret that contains the database connection strings.
• api
  • firstTenant
    Specify the authentication configuration for the first tenant.
    • name
      Name of the first tenant
    • owner
      • ownerSecret
        Name of the secret that contains the username and email for the first tenant owner.
  • replicas
    Number of replicas of the IBM RPA's API server pod.
  • smtp
    Configure the SMTP server that IBM RPA uses to send email notifications.
    • port
      The port number used to connect to the SMTP server by using TLS.
    • server
      The hostname of the SMTP server
    • userSecret
      Name of the secret that contains the username and password for the SMTP server.
  • storage
    By specifying an empty storage section, the operator creates persistent volume claims using the cluster default storage class.
• ui
  • replicas
    The number of replicas of the UI server pod.
• ocr
  • replicas
    The number of replicas of the ABBYY™ Optical Character Recognition (OCR) pod. If you specify 0, no OCR pods are created.

Optional configurations

There are several sections that you get by default, but do not need to specify in the CR. You can include them if you want to customize their values and change the default behavior:

• antiVirus
  Configures the antiVirus component of IBM RPA. This section is optional. If you do not specify it, the default number of replicas is 1.
  • replicas
    The number of replicas of the antivirus pod. If you specify 0, no antivirus pods are created.
• nlp
  Configures the NLP provider component of IBM RPA. This section is optional. If you do not specify it, the default number of replicas is 1.
  • replicas
    The number of replicas of the NLP pod. If you specify 0, no NLP pods are created.

• webDriverUpdates
  Configures whether the server should look for web browser driver updates.

• systemQueueProvider
  Configures the system queue provider for IBM RPA.

  • highAvailability
    If you do not specify highAvailability in the CR, the default value is false and deploys a single instance of IBM MQ as the system queue provider. If true, it deploys a high-availability configuration of IBM MQ.

  • supplementalGroups
    Provides a list of Linux™ Group IDs to be set on a container. This may be required when using NFS storage, for example:

    supplementalGroups:
    - 4001
    - 4002
    

    If you install IBM RPA on Red Hat® OpenShift® Kubernetes Service on IBM Cloud (ROKS) or on Red Hat® OpenShift® Service on AWS (ROSA), use the following configuration:

    supplementalGroups:
    - 65534
    

    Important:For clusters with Red Hat Enterprise Linux™ 7, use 99 instead of 65534.

    To learn more, see Configuring storage. See IBM MQ in containers and IBM Cloud Pak for Integration for additional settings.

• createRoutes
  Configures whether the IBM RPA operator creates Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform routes for IBM RPA.

false means that the IBM RPA does not create its own routes and true means that IBM RPA creates is own routes. If you do not specify createRoutes, the default value is false.

Example:

apiVersion: rpa.automation.ibm.com/v1beta1
kind: RoboticProcessAutomation
metadata:
  name: rpa-sample
spec:
  license:
    accept: true
  version: 1.12.0
  tls: {}
  api:
    externalConnection:
      secretName: rpa-db
    firstTenant:
      name: ibm
      owner:
        ownersecret:
          secretName: rpa-owner
    replicas: 1
    smtp:
      port: 587
      server: smtp.example.com
      userSecret:
        secretName: rpa-smtp
    storage: {}
    webDriverUpdates:
      enabled: true
    systemQueueProvider:
      storage:
        class: my-storage-class
  ui:
    replicas: 1
  ocr:
    replicas: 1  

Note: In basic configuration, you get one replica by default but you do not need to specify in the CR.