Appendix: Installing IBM Storage Scale CSI on a Kubernetes cluster with RHEL 8 or RHEL 9 nodes

Note: No official Kubernetes community or Red Hat support documentation is available for the Kubernetes installation on RHEL 8 or RHEL 9. Although many unofficial documentations are available on the Internet, the Kubernetes configuration in these documentations is not validated with IBM Storage Scale CSI driver. Ideally, if Kubernetes works properly, CSI is also expected to work. If CSI does not work because of some Kubernetes configuration issues, these issues can be fixed with a limited support. The following configuration is used on RHEL 8 or RHEL 9 nodes.
  1. Enable IP forwarding on the nodes on which you are setting up a Kubernetes cluster, if it is not enabled. 
    echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
  2. Install the kubeadm toolbox to create a Kubernetes cluster.

    For more information, see Installing kubeadm in the Kubernetes documentation.

    1. Install a container runtime to run a container.

      For more information, see Installing a container runtime in the Kubernetes documentation.

      For x86_64 architecture, use the cri-o container runtime and choose VERSION=1.27, and OS=CentOS_8 for RHEL 8 or OS=CentOS_9_Stream for RHEL 9. For more information, see CRI-O installation instructions.

      For ppc64le architecture, use containerd container runtime. For more information, see containerd installation instructions.

  3. Verify the RPM versions that are installed.

    For x86_64 architecture:

    # rpm -qa | grep kubelet
kubelet-1.27.6-150500.1.1.x86_64
# rpm -qa | grep kubectl
kubectl-1.27.6-150500.1.1.x86_64
# rpm -qa | grep kubeadm
kubeadm-1.27.6-150500.1.1.x86_64
# rpm -qa | grep cri-o
cri-o-1.27.1-4.1.el8.x86_64 (RHEL 8)
cri-o-1.27.1-4.13.el9.x86_64 (RHEL 9)

    For ppc64le architecture:

    # rpm -qa | grep kubelet
kubelet-1.27.8-150500.1.1.ppc64le
# rpm -qa | grep kubectl
kubectl-1.27.8-150500.1.1.ppc64le
# rpm -qa | grep kubeadm
kubeadm-1.27.8-150500.1.1.ppc64le
# rpm -qa | grep containerd
containerd.io-1.6.9-3.1.el8.ppc64le
    The following configuration is tested and supported on the cluster:
    • IBM Storage Scale: 5.1.9.1
    • Kubernetes: 1.27
    • For x86_64 architecture:
      • RHEL: 8.6 or 9.2
      • Linux Kernel:
        • RHEL 8: 4.18.0-372.32.1.el8_6.x86_64
        • RHEL 9: 5.14.0-284.30.1.el9_2.x86_64
      • cri-o: 1.27
    • For ppc64le architecture:
      • RHEL: 8.9
      • Kernel Linux: 4.18.0-513.9.1.el8_9.ppc64le
      • containerd: 1.6.9
    Note: If any issues are observed with any variation of this configuration, a limited support can be provided.
  4. Install CSI on the Kubernetes cluster. For more information about the CSI installation, see the Installation chapter.