Deploying IBM Cloud Satellite hosts

Steps to set up, configure, and deploy IBM Cloud® Satellite hosts.

Before you begin

  • Install Red Hat®OpenShift® Virtualization Operator.
    Note:
  • If an image does not exist, do the following steps to create an image.

    Rephrase leading sentence.

    :
    1. IBM Cloud Satellite operator assumes the availability of a registry, where the virtual machine image can be stored. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.X images are available in qcow2 format. The qcow2 images must be uploaded and available for the registry. Use the following docker file to create an image:
      FROM scratch
ADD ./rhel-8.8-x86_64-kvm.qcow2 /disk/
    2. Use the following script to create and push the image to the docker registry.
      #!/bin/sh

docker build -t qcow2-image:latest 
docker image tag qcow2-image:latest <docker-repo>/qcow2-image:latest
docker image push hub.docker.com/repository/docker/satelliteimage/qcow2-image:latest
      Note: Before you run the docker build command, make sure that you use only the external OpenShift registry for these images and the rhel-server-8.8-x86_64-kvm.qcow2 on the path where you have the Dockerfile.
  • Create a VLAN of type IBM Cloud Satellite and add the created VLAN to Link. For more information about VLAN, see Adding VLANs. For more information about Link, see Adding links.
  • Verify IBM Cloud Satellite operator installation:
    Verify whether the IBM Cloud Satellite is installed, and the corresponding pod is in Running state in the ibm-spectrum-fusion-ns project. Do these steps:
    1. Log in to IBM Storage Fusion.
    2. From the menu, click OpenShift console to go to the OpenShift web management console.
    3. Go to Workloads > Pods.
    4. Verify whether the isf-ics-operator-controller-manager is in Running state.
  • Verify whether the following secrets and Configmaps are available:
    Note:
    • If they are not available, then use the OC command to create the secrets and the sample YAML file to create the Configmap.
    • After isf-operator upgrade, the isf-ui-operator-ics-config configmap gets reset to default. Before you deploy any new satellite locations, update configmap parameters with proper values.
    • Secret
      • <Secret> isf-ics-pull-secret
        oc create secret docker-registry isf-ics-pull-secret --docker-server=<docker-server> --docker-username=<username> --docker-password=<password> --docker-email=<email ID> -n ibm-spectrum-fusion-ns
        Here, docker-server, username and password are for the docker registry where the qcow2 image is mirrored.
      • <Secret> isf-ics-rhsubscription
        You must have access to all the Red Hat repositories. This secret stores Red Hat subscription details.
        oc create secret generic isf-ics-rhsubscription --from-literal=rhsuser=<Redhat Subscription Username> --from-literal=rhspassword=<Redhat Subscription Password> -n ibm-spectrum-fusion-ns
    • Configmap

      The isf-ui-operator-ics-config configmap has two parameters, namely storageclass and isfregistryurl. Before you deploy Satellite Locations, update these parameters with proper values.

      The sample value for storageclass is ibm-spectrum-fusion and format for isfregistryurl sample value is docker-registry/<path to file>/qcow2-image:latest.

  • Review and follow the host network requirements that relate to the network setup and inbound connectivity requirements of host machines. For more information, see Host network and Inbound connectivity requirements.
  • Review and follow the outbound connectivity requirements for hosts in all regions. For the required outbound connectivity for hosts in all regions, see Required outbound connectivity for hosts in all regions.

Procedure

  1. Create your location and download the host attach script:
    1. Enter the following URL in the browser to log in to IBM Cloud.
      https://cloud.ibm.com/.
    2. Go to Satellite > Locations
    3. Click Create a Satellite location.
      A Browse templates page gets displayed.
    4. Select On-premises & Edge as platforms to create the location.
    5. Give a name to the location, select hosts as RHEL only, and click Create location.
    6. Click Create location.
      Wait for sometime and a notification gets displayed with the following message.
      Starting to create a location.
      Note: Always use a unique location for every satellite instance deployment.
    7. To download the host attach script for your location, see and follow the steps available in Downloading the host attachment script for your location.
  2. Deploy compute hosts to your location.
  3. To verify the deployed hosts, do the following steps:
    1. In the IBM Storage Fusion user interface, click IBM Cloud Satellite menu and click Manage hosts. In the OpenShift Container Platform web management console, go to Virtualization.
    2. Change the project according to the host that you deployed.
      It lists all virtual machines of that project.
    3. Go to Disks tab on the virtual machine to see an entry in the source registry with Storage Class as ibm-spectrum-fusion.
    4. In the Overview tab, you can view the utilization details.
    5. From the Console tab, you can log in to the virtual machine and work with it.
      Note: You can also observe that the downloaded shell script gets run in this virtual machine.
  4. Assign your hosts to the Satellite control plane. For more information, see Manually assigning hosts to Satellite resources in the IBM Cloud Satellite documentation.
  5. Create OpenShift clusters in IBM Cloud Satellite. For complete steps, see Creating OpenShift clusters in Satellite.
  6. To add disks to the newly created compute nodes, do the following steps:
    1. In the IBM Storage Fusion user interface, click IBM Cloud Satellite menu and click Manage hosts.
    2. In the OpenShift Container Platform web management console, go to Virtualization > Virtual machines.
    3. Change the project according to the host that you deployed. It lists all the virtual machines of that project.
    4. Go to Disks tab, click Add disk. The Add disk (hot plugged) window gets displayed.
    5. In the Add disk (hot plugged) window, enter the following details: Source, name, size, type, interface, and storage class.
    6. Click Add. The Disk tab gets displayed. Ensure that the disk is successfully added.
  7. Add the local storage configuration on the cluster.
    1. Go to Satellite > Locations
    2. Click your location from the available list.
      The Location overview page gets displayed.
    3. Go to Storage tab, and click Create storage configuration.
      The Create a storage configuration page gets displayed.
    4. In the Create a storage configuration page, the Basics tab is selected by default. Enter the following details:
      Configuration name
      Enter a name for the storage configuration.
      Storage type
      Select the storage type as OpenShift Data Foundation for local devices.
      Version
      Select the version that you have installed.
      The OpenShift Data Foundation for local devices window gets displayed.
    5. Check the details and click Next
    6. In the Parameters tab, define the parameters for the selected storage configuration.
      Automatic storage volume discovery
      Set the value as true, if you want to automatically discover and use the storage volumes on your worker nodes.
      Number of OSD
      Enter the number of OSD volumes that you are added to the cluster.
      Upgrade
      If you want to upgrade the Data Foundation version, set the value to true.
    7. Click Next.
      The Secrets tab gets displayed.
    8. In the Secrets tab, define the secrets for the specified storage configuration.
      Note: Make sure you provide the IAM API key in the text box. To generate the IAM API key, do the following steps:
      1. In the IBM Cloud Satellite page, go to Manage and select Access (IAM) from the drop-down list.
      2. In the IAM page, go to API keys tab and copy and secure the key.
    9. Click Next.
      The Storage classes page gets displayed.
    10. In the Storage classes page, view the storage classes for storage configuration. If the template allows you to add the custom storage classes, you can add them.
    11. Click Next.
      The Assign to service page gets displayed.
    12. In the Assign to service page, select the Red Hat OpenShift from the service section.
      You must attach the storage configuration to the cluster.
    13. Click Complete.
      Ensure that the storage configuration is created successfully and the following message is displayed.
      Successfully created storage configuration.
  8. Deploy any application in the Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation. For more information, see Deploying an app on OpenShift Data Foundation.
  9. If you face any issues with IBM Cloud Satellite deployment, then see IBM Cloud Satellite diagnosis and troubleshooting for troubleshooting information and its workaround steps.