Installing the agent

Note: IEAM agent installation requires cluster admin access on the edge cluster.

Begin by installing the IBM Edge Application Manager agent on one of these types of Kubernetes edge clusters:

Then, deploy an edge service to your edge cluster:

If you need to remove the agent:

Installing agent on OCP Kubernetes edge cluster

This content describes how to install the IEAM agent on your OCP edge cluster. Follow these steps on a host that has admin access to your edge cluster:

  1. Log in to your edge cluster as admin:

    oc login https://<api_endpoint_host>:<port> -u <admin_user> -p <admin_password> --insecure-skip-tls-verify=true

  2. If you have not completed the steps in Creating your API key, do that now. This process creates an API key, locates some files, and gathers environment variable values that are needed when you set up edge nodes. Set the same environment variables on this edge cluster:

    export HZN_EXCHANGE_USER_AUTH=iamapikey:<api-key>
export HZN_ORG_ID=<your-exchange-organization>
export HZN_FSS_CSSURL=https://<ieam-management-hub-ingress>/edge-css/

  3. Set the agent namespace variable to its default value (or whatever namespace you want to explicitly install the agent into):

    export AGENT_NAMESPACE=openhorizon-agent

  4. Set the storage class that you want the agent to use - either a built-in storage class or one that you created. You can view the available storage classes with the first of the following two commands, then substitute the name of the one you want to use into the second command. One storage class should be labeled (default):

    oc get storageclass
export EDGE_CLUSTER_STORAGE_CLASS=<rook-ceph-cephfs-internal>

  5. Determine whether a default route for the OpenShift image registry has been created so that it is accessible from outside of the cluster:

    oc get route default-route -n openshift-image-registry --template='{{ .spec.host }}'

    If the command response indicates the default-route is not found, you need to expose it (see Exposing the registry for details):

    oc patch configs.imageregistry.operator.openshift.io/cluster --patch '{"spec":{"defaultRoute":true}}' --type=merge

  6. Retrieve the repository route name that you need to use:

    export OCP_IMAGE_REGISTRY=`oc get route default-route -n openshift-image-registry --template='{{ .spec.host }}'`

  7. Create a new project to store your images:

    export OCP_PROJECT=$AGENT_NAMESPACE
oc new-project $OCP_PROJECT

  8. Create a service account with a name of your choosing:

    export OCP_USER=<service-account-name>
oc create serviceaccount $OCP_USER

  9. Add a role to your service account for the current project:

    oc policy add-role-to-user edit system:serviceaccount:$OCP_PROJECT:$OCP_USER

  10. Set your service account token to the following environment variable:

    export OCP_TOKEN=`oc serviceaccounts get-token $OCP_USER`

  11. Get the OpenShift certificate and allow docker to trust it:

    echo | openssl s_client -connect $OCP_IMAGE_REGISTRY:443 -showcerts | sed -n "/-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----/,/-----END CERTIFICATE-----/p" > ca.crt

    On Linux:

    mkdir -p /etc/docker/certs.d/$OCP_IMAGE_REGISTRY
cp ca.crt /etc/docker/certs.d/$OCP_IMAGE_REGISTRY
systemctl restart docker.service

    On macOS:

    mkdir -p ~/.docker/certs.d/$OCP_IMAGE_REGISTRY
cp ca.crt ~/.docker/certs.d/$OCP_IMAGE_REGISTRY

    On macOS, use the Docker Desktop icon on the right side of the desktop menu bar to restart Docker by clicking Restart in the dropdown menu.

  12. Log in to the OCP Docker host:

    echo "$OCP_TOKEN" | docker login -u $OCP_USER --password-stdin $OCP_IMAGE_REGISTRY

  13. Configure additional trust stores for image registry access: 

    oc create configmap registry-config --from-file=$OCP_IMAGE_REGISTRY=ca.crt -n openshift-config

  14. Edit the new registry-config:

    oc edit image.config.openshift.io cluster

  15. Update the spec: section:

    spec:
  additionalTrustedCA:
    name: registry-config

  16. The agent-install.sh script stores the IEAM agent in the edge cluster container registry. Set the registry user, password, and full image path (minus the tag):

    export EDGE_CLUSTER_REGISTRY_USERNAME=$OCP_USER
export EDGE_CLUSTER_REGISTRY_TOKEN="$OCP_TOKEN"
export IMAGE_ON_EDGE_CLUSTER_REGISTRY=$OCP_IMAGE_REGISTRY/$OCP_PROJECT/amd64_anax_k8s

    Note: The IEAM agent image is stored in the local edge cluster registry because the edge cluster Kubernetes needs ongoing access to it, in case it needs to restart it or move it to another pod.

  17. Download the agent-install.sh script from the Cloud Sync Service (CSS) and make it executable:

    curl -u "$HZN_ORG_ID/$HZN_EXCHANGE_USER_AUTH" -k -o agent-install.sh $HZN_FSS_CSSURL/api/v1/objects/IBM/agent_files/agent-install.sh/data
chmod +x agent-install.sh

  18. Run agent-install.sh to get the necessary files from CSS, install and configure the Horizon agent, and register your edge cluster with policy:

    ./agent-install.sh -D cluster -i 'css:'

    Notes:

  19. Change to the agent namespace (also known as project) and verify that the agent pod is running:

    oc project $AGENT_NAMESPACE
oc get pods

  20. Now that the agent is installed on your edge cluster, you can run these commands if you want to familiarize yourself with the Kubernetes resources associated with the agent:

    oc get namespace $AGENT_NAMESPACE
oc project $AGENT_NAMESPACE   # ensure this is the current namespace/project
oc get deployment -o wide
oc get deployment agent -o yaml   # get details of the deployment
oc get configmap openhorizon-agent-config -o yaml
oc get secret openhorizon-agent-secrets -o yaml
oc get pvc openhorizon-agent-pvc -o yaml   # persistent volume

  21. Often, when an edge cluster is registered for policy, but does not have user-specified node policy, none of the deployment policies will deploy edge services to it. That is the case with the Horizon examples. Proceed to Deploying services to your edge cluster to set node policy so that an edge service will be deployed to this edge cluster.

Installing agent on k3s and microk8s edge clusters

This content describes how to install the IEAM agent on k3s or microk8s, lightweight and small Kubernetes clusters:

  1. Log in to your edge cluster as root.

  2. If you have not completed the steps in Creating your API key, do that now. This process creates an API key, locates some files, and gathers environment variable values that are needed when setting up edge nodes. Set the same environment variables on this edge cluster:

    export HZN_EXCHANGE_USER_AUTH=iamapikey:<api-key>
export HZN_ORG_ID=<your-exchange-organization>
export HZN_FSS_CSSURL=https://<ieam-management-hub-ingress>/edge-css/

  3. Copy the agent-install.sh script to your new edge cluster.

  4. The agent-install.sh script will store the IEAM agent in the edge cluster image registry. Set the full image path (minus the tag) that should be used. For example:

    Note: The IEAM agent image is stored in the local edge cluster registry because the edge cluster Kubernetes needs ongoing access to it, in case it needs to restart it or move it to another pod.

  5. Instruct agent-install.sh to use the default storage class:

  6. Run agent-install.sh to get the necessary files from CSS (Cloud Sync Service), install and configure the Horizon agent, and register your edge cluster with policy:

    ./agent-install.sh -D cluster -i 'css:'

    Notes:

  7. Verify that the agent pod is running:

    kubectl get namespaces
kubectl -n openhorizon-agent get pods

  8. Usually, when an edge cluster is registered for policy, but does not have any user-specified node policy, none of the deployment policies deploy edge services to it. This is expected. Proceed to Deploying services to your edge cluster to set node policy so that an edge service will be deployed to this edge cluster.

Deploying services to your edge cluster

Setting node policy on this edge cluster can cause deployment policies to deploy edge services here. This content shows an example of doing that.

  1. Set some aliases to make it more convenient to run the hzn command. (The hzn command is inside the agent container, but these aliases make it possible to run hzn from this host.)

    cat << 'END_ALIASES' >> ~/.bash_aliases
alias getagentpod='kubectl -n openhorizon-agent get pods --selector=app=agent -o jsonpath={.items[*].metadata.name}'
alias hzn='kubectl -n openhorizon-agent exec -i $(getagentpod) -- hzn'
END_ALIASES
source ~/.bash_aliases

  2. Verify that your edge node is configured (registered with the IEAM management hub):

    hzn node list

  3. To test your edge cluster agent, set your node policy with a property that deploys the example helloworld operator and service to this edge node:

    cat << 'EOF' > operator-example-node.policy.json
{
  "properties": [
    { "name": "openhorizon.example", "value": "operator" }
  ]
}
EOF

cat operator-example-node.policy.json | hzn policy update -f-
hzn policy list

    Note:

  4. After a minute, check for an agreement and the running edge operator and service containers:

    hzn agreement list
kubectl -n openhorizon-agent get pods

  5. Using the pod IDs from the previous command, view the log of edge operator and service:

    kubectl -n openhorizon-agent logs -f <operator-pod-id>
# control-c to get out
kubectl -n openhorizon-agent logs -f <service-pod-id>
# control-c to get out

  6. You can also view the environment variables that the agent passes to the edge service:

    kubectl -n openhorizon-agent exec -i <service-pod-id> -- env | grep HZN_

Changing what services are deployed to your edge cluster