Install Kubernetes Platform on Bare Metal Standard with Rook Storage

Overview

The Standard with Rook Storage deployment option is a standard installation with independent controller and worker nodes.

A Standard with Rook Storage configuration provides the following benefits:

• A pool of up to 100 worker nodes

• A 2x node high availability (HA) controller cluster with HA services running across the controller nodes in either active/active or active/standby mode

• A Rook storage back end solution using a two-to-9x node HA Rook storage cluster that supports a replication factor of two or three

Note

If you are behind a corporate firewall or proxy, you need to set proxy settings. Refer to Docker Proxy Configuration for details.

Figure 1: Standard with Rook Storage deployment configuration

Note

By default, StarlingX uses IPv4. To use StarlingX with IPv6:

• The entire infrastructure and cluster configuration must be IPv6, with the exception of the PXE boot network.

• Not all external servers are reachable via IPv6 addresses (for example Docker registries). Depending on your infrastructure, it may be necessary to deploy a NAT64/DNS64 gateway to translate the IPv4 addresses to IPv6.

• Refer to StarlingX IPv6 Deployment for details on how to deploy a NAT64/DNS64 gateway to use StarlingX with IPv6.

Hardware requirements

This section describes the hardware requirements and server preparation for a StarlingX R7.0 bare metal Standard with Rook Storage deployment configuration.

Minimum hardware requirements

The recommended minimum hardware requirements for bare metal servers for various host types are:

Minimum Requirement	Controller Node	Worker Node for rook storage	Worker Node for application
Number of servers	2	2-9	2-100
Minimum processor class	Dual-CPU Intel® Xeon® E5 26xx family (SandyBridge) 8 cores/socket
Minimum memory	64 GB	64 GB	32 GB
Primary disk	500 GB SSD or NVMe (see Configure NVMe Drive as Primary Disk)	120 GB (min. 10k RPM)	120 GB (min. 10k RPM)
Additional disks	None	1 or more 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for Ceph OSD Recommended, but not required: 1 or more SSDs or NVMe drives for Ceph journals (min. 1024 MiB per OSD journal)	For OpenStack, recommend 1 or more 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for VM ephemeral storage
Minimum network ports	Mgmt/Cluster: 1x10GE OAM: 1x1GE	Mgmt/Cluster: 1x10GE	Mgmt/Cluster: 1x10GE Data: 1 or more x 10GE
BIOS settings	Hyper-Threading technology enabled Virtualization technology enabled VT for directed I/O enabled CPU power and performance policy set to performance CPU C state control disabled Plug & play BMC detection disabled

Prepare bare metal servers

Prior to starting the StarlingX installation, the bare metal servers must be in the following condition:

• Physically installed

• Cabled for power

• All disks wiped

  • Ensures that servers will boot from either the network or USB storage (if present)

• Powered off

• Cabled for networking

  • Far-end switch ports should be properly configured to realize the networking shown in the diagram above.

This section describes the steps to install the StarlingX Kubernetes platform on a StarlingX R7.0 bare metal Standard with Rook Storage deployment configuration.

Create bootable USB

Refer to Create Bootable USB for instructions on how to create a bootable USB with the StarlingX ISO on your system.

Install software on controller-0

1. Insert the bootable USB into a bootable USB port on the host you are configuring as controller-0.

2. Power on the host.

3. Attach to a console, ensure the host boots from the USB, and wait for the StarlingX Installer Menus.

4. Make the following menu selections in the installer:

   1. First menu: Select ‘Standard Controller Configuration’

   2. Second menu: Select ‘Graphical Console’ or ‘Textual Console’ depending on your terminal access to the console port

5. Wait for non-interactive install of software to complete and server to reboot. This can take 5-10 minutes, depending on the performance of the server.

Bootstrap system on controller-0

1. Login using the username / password of “sysadmin” / “sysadmin”.

   When logging in for the first time, you will be forced to change the password.

   Login: sysadmin
   Password:
   Changing password for sysadmin.
   (current) UNIX Password: sysadmin
   New Password:
   (repeat) New Password:
   

2. Verify and/or configure IP connectivity.

   External connectivity is required to run the Ansible bootstrap playbook. The StarlingX boot image will DHCP out all interfaces so the server may have obtained an IP address and have external IP connectivity if a DHCP server is present in your environment. Verify this using the ip addr and ping 8.8.8.8 commands.

   Otherwise, manually configure an IP address and default IP route. Use the PORT, IP-ADDRESS/SUBNET-LENGTH and GATEWAY-IP-ADDRESS applicable to your deployment environment.

   sudo ip address add <IP-ADDRESS>/<SUBNET-LENGTH> dev <PORT>
   sudo ip link set up dev <PORT>
   sudo ip route add default via <GATEWAY-IP-ADDRESS> dev <PORT>
   ping 8.8.8.8
   

3. Specify user configuration overrides for the Ansible bootstrap playbook.

   Ansible is used to bootstrap StarlingX on controller-0. Key files for Ansible configuration are:

   /etc/ansible/hosts

   The default Ansible inventory file. Contains a single host: localhost.

   /usr/share/ansible/stx-ansible/playbooks/bootstrap.yml

   The Ansible bootstrap playbook.

   /usr/share/ansible/stx-ansible/playbooks/host_vars/bootstrap/default.yml

   The default configuration values for the bootstrap playbook.

   sysadmin home directory ($HOME)

   The default location where Ansible looks for and imports user configuration override files for hosts. For example: $HOME/<hostname>.yml.

   Important

   Some Ansible bootstrap parameters cannot be changed or are very difficult to change after installation is complete.

   Review the set of install-time-only parameters before installation and confirm that your values for these parameters are correct for the desired installation.

   Refer to Ansible install-time-only parameters for details.

   Specify the user configuration override file for the Ansible bootstrap playbook using one of the following methods:

   1. Use a copy of the default.yml file listed above to provide your overrides.

      The default.yml file lists all available parameters for bootstrap configuration with a brief description for each parameter in the file comments.

      To use this method, copy the default.yml file listed above to $HOME/localhost.yml and edit the configurable values as desired.

   2. Create a minimal user configuration override file.

      To use this method, create your override file at $HOME/localhost.yml and provide the minimum required parameters for the deployment configuration as shown in the example below. Use the OAM IP SUBNET and IP ADDRESSing applicable to your deployment environment.

      Note

      During system bootstrap, the platform does not support the use of quotation characters and $ in the keystone user password.

      cd ~
      cat <<EOF > localhost.yml
      system_mode: duplex
      
      dns_servers:
        - 8.8.8.8
        - 8.8.4.4
      
      external_oam_subnet: <OAM-IP-SUBNET>/<OAM-IP-SUBNET-LENGTH>
      external_oam_gateway_address: <OAM-GATEWAY-IP-ADDRESS>
      external_oam_floating_address: <OAM-FLOATING-IP-ADDRESS>
      external_oam_node_0_address: <OAM-CONTROLLER-0-IP-ADDRESS>
      external_oam_node_1_address: <OAM-CONTROLLER-1-IP-ADDRESS>
      
      admin_username: admin
      admin_password: <admin-password>
      ansible_become_pass: <sysadmin-password>
      
      # Add these lines to configure Docker to use a proxy server
      # docker_http_proxy: http://my.proxy.com:1080
      # docker_https_proxy: https://my.proxy.com:1443
      # docker_no_proxy:
      #   - 1.2.3.4
      
      EOF
      

   Configure system_local_ca_cert, system_local_ca_key and system_root_ca_cert to setup a local intermediate CA (signed by an external Root CA) for managing / signing all of the StarlingX Certificates. See Platform Issuer (system-local-ca) for more details.

   Refer to Ansible Bootstrap Configurations for information on additional Ansible bootstrap configurations for advanced Ansible bootstrap scenarios, such as Docker proxies when deploying behind a firewall, etc. Refer to Docker Proxy Configuration for details about Docker proxy settings.

4. Run the Ansible bootstrap playbook:

   ansible-playbook /usr/share/ansible/stx-ansible/playbooks/bootstrap.yml
   

   Wait for Ansible bootstrap playbook to complete. This can take 5-10 minutes, depending on the performance of the host machine.

Configure controller-0

1. Acquire admin credentials:

   source /etc/platform/openrc
   

2. Configure the OAM and MGMT interfaces of controller-0 and specify the attached networks. Use the OAM and MGMT port names, for example eth0, that are applicable to your deployment environment.

   OAM_IF=<OAM-PORT>
   MGMT_IF=<MGMT-PORT>
   system host-if-modify controller-0 lo -c none
   IFNET_UUIDS=$(system interface-network-list controller-0 | awk '{if ($6=="lo") print $4;}')
   for UUID in $IFNET_UUIDS; do
       system interface-network-remove ${UUID}
   done
   system host-if-modify controller-0 $OAM_IF -c platform
   system interface-network-assign controller-0 $OAM_IF oam
   system host-if-modify controller-0 $MGMT_IF -c platform
   system interface-network-assign controller-0 $MGMT_IF mgmt
   system interface-network-assign controller-0 $MGMT_IF cluster-host
   

3. Configure NTP servers for network time synchronization:

   system ntp-modify ntpservers=0.pool.ntp.org,1.pool.ntp.org
   

4. If required, and not already done as part of bootstrap, configure Docker to use a proxy server.

   1. List Docker proxy parameters:

      system service-parameter-list platform docker
      

   2. Refer to Docker Proxy Configuration for details about Docker proxy settings.

OpenStack-specific host configuration

Important

This step is required only if the StarlingX OpenStack application (stx-openstack) will be installed.

1. For OpenStack only: Assign OpenStack host labels to controller-0 in support of installing the stx-openstack manifest and helm-charts later.

   system host-label-assign controller-0 openstack-control-plane=enabled
   

2. For OpenStack only: Configure the system setting for the vSwitch.

   StarlingX has OVS (kernel-based) vSwitch configured as default:

   • Runs in a container; defined within the helm charts of stx-openstack manifest.

   • Shares the core(s) assigned to the platform.

   If you require better performance, OVS-DPDK (OVS with the Data Plane Development Kit, which is supported only on bare metal hardware) should be used:

   • Runs directly on the host (it is not containerized).

   • Requires that at least 1 core be assigned/dedicated to the vSwitch function.

   To deploy the default containerized OVS:

   system modify --vswitch_type none
   

   Do not run any vSwitch directly on the host, instead, use the containerized OVS defined in the helm charts of stx-openstack manifest.

   To deploy OVS-DPDK, run the following command:

   system modify --vswitch_type ovs-dpdk
   system host-cpu-modify -f vswitch -p0 1 controller-0
   

   Once vswitch_type is set to OVS-DPDK, any subsequent nodes created will default to automatically assigning 1 vSwitch core for AIO controllers and 2 vSwitch cores for compute-labeled worker nodes.

   When using OVS-DPDK, configure vSwitch memory per NUMA node with the following command:

   system host-memory-modify -f <function> -1G <1G hugepages number> <hostname or id> <processor>
   

   For example:

   system host-memory-modify -f vswitch -1G 1 worker-0 0
   

   VMs created in an OVS-DPDK environment must be configured to use huge pages to enable networking and must use a flavor with property: hw:mem_page_size=large

   Configure the huge pages for VMs in an OVS-DPDK environment with the command:

   system host-memory-modify -1G <1G hugepages number> <hostname or id> <processor>
   

   For example:

   system host-memory-modify worker-0 0 -1G 10
   

   Note

   After controller-0 is unlocked, changing vswitch_type requires locking and unlocking all compute-labeled worker nodes (and/or AIO controllers) to apply the change.

Rook-specific host configuration

Important

This step is required only if the StarlingX Rook application will be installed.

For Rook only: Assign Rook host labels to controller-0 in support of installing the rook-ceph-apps manifest/helm-charts later and add ceph-rook as storage backend:

system host-label-assign controller-0 ceph-mon-placement=enabled
system host-label-assign controller-0 ceph-mgr-placement=enabled
system storage-backend-add ceph-rook --confirmed

Unlock controller-0

Unlock controller-0 in order to bring it into service:

system host-unlock controller-0

Controller-0 will reboot in order to apply configuration changes and come into service. This can take 5-10 minutes, depending on the performance of the host machine.

Install software on controller-1 and worker nodes

1. Power on the controller-1 server and force it to network boot with the appropriate BIOS boot options for your particular server.

2. As controller-1 boots, a message appears on its console instructing you to configure the personality of the node.

3. On the console of controller-0, list hosts to see newly discovered controller-1 host (hostname=None):

   system host-list
   +----+--------------+-------------+----------------+-------------+--------------+
   | id | hostname     | personality | administrative | operational | availability |
   +----+--------------+-------------+----------------+-------------+--------------+
   | 1  | controller-0 | controller  | unlocked       | enabled     | available    |
   | 2  | None         | None        | locked         | disabled    | offline      |
   +----+--------------+-------------+----------------+-------------+--------------+
   

4. Using the host id, set the personality of this host to ‘controller’:

   system host-update 2 personality=controller
   

   This initiates the install of software on controller-1. This can take 5-10 minutes, depending on the performance of the host machine.

5. While waiting for the previous step to complete, power on the worker nodes. Set the personality to ‘worker’ and assign a unique hostname for each.

   For example, power on worker-0 and wait for the new host (hostname=None) to be discovered by checking ‘system host-list’:

   system host-update 3 personality=worker hostname=worker-0
   

   Repeat for worker-1. Power on worker-1 and wait for the new host (hostname=None) to be discovered by checking ‘system host-list’:

   system host-update 4 personality=worker hostname=worker-1
   

   For rook storage, there is no storage personality. Some hosts with worker personality providers storage service. Here we still named these worker host storage-x. Repeat for storage-0 and storage-1. Power on storage-0, storage-1 and wait for the new host (hostname=None) to be discovered by checking ‘system host-list’:

   system host-update 5 personality=worker hostname=storage-0
   system host-update 6 personality=worker hostname=storage-1
   

   Note

   A node with Edgeworker personality is also available. See Deploy Edgeworker Nodes for details.

6. Wait for the software installation on controller-1, worker-0, and worker-1 to complete, for all servers to reboot, and for all to show as locked/disabled/online in system host-list.

   system host-list
   
   +----+--------------+-------------+----------------+-------------+--------------+
   | id | hostname     | personality | administrative | operational | availability |
   +----+--------------+-------------+----------------+-------------+--------------+
   | 1  | controller-0 | controller  | unlocked       | enabled     | available    |
   | 2  | controller-1 | controller  | locked         | disabled    | online       |
   | 3  | worker-0     | worker      | locked         | disabled    | online       |
   | 4  | worker-1     | worker      | locked         | disabled    | online       |
   | 5  | storage-0    | worker      | locked         | disabled    | online       |
   | 6  | storage-1    | worker      | locked         | disabled    | online       |
   +----+--------------+-------------+----------------+-------------+--------------+
   

Configure controller-1

Configure the OAM and MGMT interfaces of controller-0 and specify the attached networks. Use the OAM and MGMT port names, for example eth0, that are applicable to your deployment environment.

(Note that the MGMT interface is partially set up automatically by the network install procedure.)

OAM_IF=<OAM-PORT>
MGMT_IF=<MGMT-PORT>
system host-if-modify controller-1 $OAM_IF -c platform
system interface-network-assign controller-1 $OAM_IF oam
system interface-network-assign controller-1 $MGMT_IF cluster-host

OpenStack-specific host configuration

Important

This step is required only if the StarlingX OpenStack application (stx-openstack) will be installed.

For OpenStack only: Assign OpenStack host labels to controller-1 in support of installing the stx-openstack manifest and helm-charts later.

system host-label-assign controller-1 openstack-control-plane=enabled

Rook-specific host configuration

Important

This step is required only if the StarlingX Rook application will be installed.

For Rook only: Assign Rook host labels to controller-1 in support of installing the rook-ceph-apps manifest/helm-charts later:

system host-label-assign controller-1 ceph-mon-placement=enabled
system host-label-assign controller-1 ceph-mgr-placement=enabled

Unlock controller-1

Unlock controller-1 in order to bring it into service:

system host-unlock controller-1

Controller-1 will reboot in order to apply configuration changes and come into service. This can take 5-10 minutes, depending on the performance of the host machine.

Configure worker nodes

1. Assign the cluster-host network to the MGMT interface for the worker nodes:

   (Note that the MGMT interfaces are partially set up automatically by the network install procedure.)

   for NODE in worker-0 worker-1; do
      system interface-network-assign $NODE mgmt0 cluster-host
   done
   

2. Configure data interfaces for worker nodes. Use the DATA port names, for example eth0, that are applicable to your deployment environment.

   Important

   This step is required for OpenStack.

   This step is optional for Kubernetes: Do this step if using SR-IOV network attachments in hosted application containers.

   For Kubernetes SR-IOV network attachments:

   • Configure SR-IOV device plug in:

     for NODE in worker-0 worker-1; do
        system host-label-assign ${NODE} sriovdp=enabled
     done
     

   • If planning on running DPDK in containers on this host, configure the number of 1G Huge pages required on both NUMA nodes:

     for NODE in worker-0 worker-1; do
        system host-memory-modify ${NODE} 0 -1G 100
        system host-memory-modify ${NODE} 1 -1G 100
     done
     

   For both Kubernetes and OpenStack:

   DATA0IF=<DATA-0-PORT>
   DATA1IF=<DATA-1-PORT>
   PHYSNET0='physnet0'
   PHYSNET1='physnet1'
   SPL=/tmp/tmp-system-port-list
   SPIL=/tmp/tmp-system-host-if-list
   
   # configure the datanetworks in sysinv, prior to referencing it
   # in the ``system host-if-modify`` command'.
   system datanetwork-add ${PHYSNET0} vlan
   system datanetwork-add ${PHYSNET1} vlan
   
   for NODE in worker-0 worker-1; do
     echo "Configuring interface for: $NODE"
     set -ex
     system host-port-list ${NODE} --nowrap > ${SPL}
     system host-if-list -a ${NODE} --nowrap > ${SPIL}
     DATA0PCIADDR=$(cat $SPL | grep $DATA0IF |awk '{print $8}')
     DATA1PCIADDR=$(cat $SPL | grep $DATA1IF |awk '{print $8}')
     DATA0PORTUUID=$(cat $SPL | grep ${DATA0PCIADDR} | awk '{print $2}')
     DATA1PORTUUID=$(cat $SPL | grep ${DATA1PCIADDR} | awk '{print $2}')
     DATA0PORTNAME=$(cat $SPL | grep ${DATA0PCIADDR} | awk '{print $4}')
     DATA1PORTNAME=$(cat $SPL | grep ${DATA1PCIADDR} | awk '{print $4}')
     DATA0IFUUID=$(cat $SPIL | awk -v DATA0PORTNAME=$DATA0PORTNAME '($12 ~ DATA0PORTNAME) {print $2}')
     DATA1IFUUID=$(cat $SPIL | awk -v DATA1PORTNAME=$DATA1PORTNAME '($12 ~ DATA1PORTNAME) {print $2}')
     system host-if-modify -m 1500 -n data0 -c data ${NODE} ${DATA0IFUUID}
     system host-if-modify -m 1500 -n data1 -c data ${NODE} ${DATA1IFUUID}
     system interface-datanetwork-assign ${NODE} ${DATA0IFUUID} ${PHYSNET0}
     system interface-datanetwork-assign ${NODE} ${DATA1IFUUID} ${PHYSNET1}
     set +ex
   done
   

OpenStack-specific host configuration

Important

This step is required only if the StarlingX OpenStack application (stx-openstack) will be installed.

1. For OpenStack only: Assign OpenStack host labels to the worker nodes in support of installing the stx-openstack manifest and helm-charts later.

   for NODE in worker-0 worker-1; do
       system host-label-assign $NODE  openstack-compute-node=enabled
       kubectl taint nodes $NODE openstack-compute-node:NoSchedule
       system host-label-assign $NODE  openvswitch=enabled
       system host-label-assign $NODE  sriov=enabled
   done

2. For OpenStack only: Set up ‘instances’ filesystem, which is needed for stx-openstack nova ephemeral disks.

   for NODE in worker-0 worker-1; do
     echo "Configuring 'instances' for Nova ephemeral storage: $NODE"
     system host-fs-add ${NODE} instances=10
   done
   

Unlock worker nodes

Unlock worker nodes in order to bring them into service:

for NODE in worker-0 worker-1; do
   system host-unlock $NODE
done

The worker nodes will reboot in order to apply configuration changes and come into service. This can take 5-10 minutes, depending on the performance of the host machine.

Configure storage nodes

1. Assign the cluster-host network to the MGMT interface for the storage nodes.

   Note that the MGMT interfaces are partially set up by the network install procedure.

   for NODE in storage-0 storage-1; do
      system interface-network-assign $NODE mgmt0 cluster-host
   done
   

2. For Rook only: Assign Rook host labels to storage-0 in support of installing the rook-ceph-apps manifest/helm-charts later:

   system host-label-assign storage-0 ceph-mon-placement=enabled
   

Unlock storage nodes

Unlock storage nodes in order to bring them into service:

for STORAGE in storage-0 storage-1; do
   system host-unlock $STORAGE
done

The storage nodes will reboot in order to apply configuration changes and come into service. This can take 5-10 minutes, depending on the performance of the host machine.

Install Rook application manifest and helm-charts

On host storage-0 and storage-1:

1. Erase gpt header of disk sdb.

   $ system host-disk-wipe -s --confirm storage-0 /dev/sdb
   $ system host-disk-wipe -s --confirm storage-1 /dev/sdb
   

2. Wait for application “rook-ceph-apps” uploaded

   $ source /etc/platform/openrc
   

   ~(keystone_admin)]$ system application-list
   +--------------------------+-----------+-------------------------------------------+------------------+----------+-----------+
   | application              | version   | manifest name                             | manifest file    | status   | progress  |
   +--------------------------+-----------+-------------------------------------------+------------------+----------+-----------+
   | cert-manager             | 24.09-79  | cert-manager-fluxcd-manifests             | fluxcd-manifests | applied  | completed |
   | dell-storage             | 24.09-25  | dell-storage-fluxcd-manifests             | fluxcd-manifests | uploaded | completed |
   | nginx-ingress-controller | 24.09-64  | nginx-ingress-controller-fluxcd-manifests | fluxcd-manifests | applied  | completed |
   | oidc-auth-apps           | 24.09-59  | oidc-auth-apps-fluxcd-manifests           | fluxcd-manifests | uploaded | completed |
   | platform-integ-apps      | 24.09-141 | platform-integ-apps-fluxcd-manifests      | fluxcd-manifests | applied  | completed |
   | rook-ceph                | 24.09-48  | rook-ceph-fluxcd-manifests                | fluxcd-manifests | uploaded | completed |
   | snmp                     | 24.09-89  | snmp-fluxcd-manifests                     | fluxcd-manifests | applied  | completed |
   +--------------------------+-----------+-------------------------------------------+------------------+----------+-----------+
   

3. Edit values.yaml for rook-ceph-apps.

   cluster:
     storage:
       nodes:
       - name: storage-0
         devices:
         - name: /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:03.0-ata-2.0
       - name: storage-1
         devices:
         - name: /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:03.0-ata-2.0
   

4. Update rook-ceph-apps override value.

   system helm-override-update rook-ceph-apps rook-ceph kube-system --values values.yaml
   

5. Apply the rook-ceph-apps application.

   system application-apply rook-ceph-apps
   

6. Wait for OSDs pod ready.

   kubectl get pods -n kube-system
   rook-ceph-mgr-a-ddffc8fbb-zkvln                     1/1     Running             0          66s
   rook-ceph-mon-a-c67fdb6c8-tlbvk                     1/1     Running             0          2m11s
   rook-ceph-mon-b-76969d8685-wcq62                    1/1     Running             0          2m2s
   rook-ceph-mon-c-5bc47c6cb9-vm4j8                    1/1     Running             0          97s
   rook-ceph-operator-6fc8cfb68b-bb57z                 1/1     Running             1          7m9s
   rook-ceph-osd-0-689b6f65b-2nvcx                     1/1     Running             0          12s
   rook-ceph-osd-1-7bfd69fdf9-vjqmp                    1/1     Running             0          4s
   rook-ceph-osd-prepare-rook-storage-0-hf28p          0/1     Completed           0          50s
   rook-ceph-osd-prepare-rook-storage-1-r6lsd          0/1     Completed           0          50s
   rook-ceph-tools-84c7fff88c-x5trx                    1/1     Running             0          6m11s
   

Next steps

• Security Guide

• System Configuration Guide

• Administration Tasks