A Guide to Deploy RedHat OpenShift on GCP

Overview

This blog will walk you through the process of creating an OpenShift cluster in Google Cloud using the automation scripts included in this project.

Containerized services are managed using Kubernetes or OpenShift. Upgrades, failover, and service provisioning can all be automated. Container deployment, operation, scaling, and maintenance are thus simplified and automated for administrators.

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Prerequisites

GCP Account
RedHat OpenShift
Enabling API services in GCP

Table1

Table2

Table3

Note: If you plan to deploy your cluster in one of the following regions, you will exceed the maximum storage quota and are likely to exceed the CPU quota limit.

“Great Services come with great quota”

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1 – Create Service Account, Assign Roles and Key

Create Service Account

1. Open GCP console > YOUR PROJECT NAME > IAM & Admin > Service Accounts > Create Service Account

2. Add Your Service Account Name

3. Add your Service Account ID

step1

4. Create and Continue

5. Assign rolls to your Service Account

step1b

compute admin
security admin
storage admin
service account admin
service account user
service account key admin
service Usage admin
DNS Administrator

6. Click on Done

7. Go to Your service account

a. Click on KEYS > Add Key > Create New

b. Select key type as JSON

step1c

Step 2 – Create DNS Zone

1. Open GCP console > YOUR PROJECT NAME > Network & Services > Cloud DNS > Create a DNS Zone

2. Click on Public

3. Add Zone Your Name

4. Add DNS name yourname.com (Your Base Domain)

5. Click Create

step2

Step 3 – Create Host VM to Deploy OpenShift Cluster

1. Open GCP console > YOUR PROJECT NAME > Compute > Create an Instance

2. Add your Name.

3. Choose Your Regions and Zone. (Page 4)

4. Select your Machine Configuration as E2-medium

step3

5. Change your Boot Disk

a. ubuntu

b. Size 50

step3b

6. Change the Access scopes to Allow full access to all Cloud APIs

7. Check the Firewall for Http & Https Traffic.

8. Click create.

step3c

Step 4 – Setup OpenShift on Host VM

1. Select your VM that was previously created

2. Click on SSH

step4

Your Host VM SSH Terminal

step4b

3. Enable the APIs needed to create a cluster

gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable cloudapis.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com 
gcloud services enable dns.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable iam.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable iamcredentials.googleapis.com 
gcloud services enable servicemanagement.googleapis.com 
gcloud services enable serviceusage.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable storage-api.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable storage-component.googleapis.com 
gcloud services enable deploymentmanager.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable cloudapis.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable dns.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable iam.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable iamcredentials.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable servicemanagement.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable serviceusage.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable storage-api.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable storage-component.googleapis.com

gcloud services enable deploymentmanager.googleapis.com

step4c

4. Create ssh-key for cluster

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N ''

1	ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N ''

5. To check key is created

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

1	cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

step4d

6. Copy your JSON key to your host VM

a. Copy your JSON file to Host VM

b. Create a file in Host VM vi key.json > paste the Keys

c. Check the File with cat key.json

step4e

7. Set the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable to the full path to your service account private key file.

export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=key.json

1	export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=key.json

8. To activate your service account in Host VM

a. Copy your service account email

gcloud auth activate-service-account <your service account email> --key-file=key.json

1	gcloud auth activate-service-account <your service account email> --key-file=key.json

b. Paste the command with your service account email and key

9. Now go to https://console.redhat.com/openshift/

a. Click on Clusters > Create Cluster > Click on GCP Platform > Select installer-provisioned infrastructure

https://console.redhat.com/openshift/install/gcp/installer-provisioned

b. copy link of Download Installer & Command line tool

c. Copy pull secrets

step4h

10. Download OpenShift Installer & Command Line Interface in Host VM

wget https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/x86_64/clients/ocp/stable/openshift-install-linux.tar.gz
wget https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/x86_64/clients/ocp/stable/openshift-client-linux.tar.gz

1 2	wget https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/x86_64/clients/ocp/stable/openshift-install-linux.tar.gz wget https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/x86_64/clients/ocp/stable/openshift-client-linux.tar.gz

11. Extract the file and move it to

tar -xvf openshift-install-linux.tar.gz
tar -xvf openshift-client-linux.tar.gz 
ls
sudo mv oc kubectl openshift-install /usr/local/bin/
oc version
openshift-install version

tar -xvf openshift-install-linux.tar.gz

tar -xvf openshift-client-linux.tar.gz

sudo mv oc kubectl openshift-install /usr/local/bin/

oc version

openshift-install version

step4j

12. Now we have to create a configuration file for cluster

openshift-install create install-config
? SSH Public Key /home/navy_nyx/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub                 #your ssh-key created
? Platform gcp						         #select gcp platform
? Project ID My First Project (iconic-biplane-367910)	         #select your gcp project ID
? Region us-east1				                        # select the host region 
? Base Domain navneettoppo.ml				         # select your dns zone
? Cluster Name nav-cluster				         # your cluster name

openshift-install create install-config

? SSH Public Key /home/navy_nyx/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub #your ssh-key created

? Platform gcp #select gcp platform

? Project ID My First Project (iconic-biplane-367910) #select your gcp project ID

? Region us-east1 # select the host region

? Base Domain navneettoppo.ml # select your dns zone

? Cluster Name nav-cluster # your cluster name

This command creates a template of install-config.yaml

step4k

13. Now create a directory as mkdir install

14. Now copy the config file inside the install directory & make changes as per your needs

cp install-config.yaml install/install-config.yaml

apiVersion: v1
baseDomain: navneettoppo.ml
compute:
- architecture: amd64
  hyperthreading: Enabled
  name: worker
  platform: 
    gcp:
      type: e2-standard-4
      osDisk:
        diskType: pd-standard
        diskSizeGB: 30
  replicas: 1
controlPlane:
  architecture: amd64
  hyperthreading: Enabled
  name: master
  platform: 
    gcp:
      type: n2-standard-4
      osDisk:
        diskType: pd-ssd
        diskSizeGB: 50
  replicas: 1
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: nav-cluster
networking:
  clusterNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
    hostPrefix: 23
  machineNetwork:
  - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16
  networkType: OpenShiftSDN
  serviceNetwork:
  - 172.30.0.0/16
platform:
  gcp:
    projectID: iconic-biplane-367910
    region: us-east1
publish: External
pullSecret: ‘YOUR OPENSHIFT PULL SECRET’
sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA…..   navy_nyx@ocp-host

cp install-config.yaml install/install-config.yaml

apiVersion: v1

baseDomain: navneettoppo.ml

compute:

- architecture: amd64

hyperthreading: Enabled

platform:

gcp:

type: e2-standard-4

osDisk:

diskType: pd-standard

diskSizeGB: 30

replicas: 1

controlPlane:

architecture: amd64

hyperthreading: Enabled

platform:

gcp:

type: n2-standard-4

osDisk:

diskType: pd-ssd

diskSizeGB: 50

replicas: 1

metadata:

creationTimestamp: null

networking:

clusterNetwork:

- cidr: 10.128.0.0/14

hostPrefix: 23

machineNetwork:

- cidr: 10.0.0.0/16

networkType: OpenShiftSDN

serviceNetwork:

- 172.30.0.0/16

platform:

gcp:

projectID: iconic-biplane-367910

region: us-east1

publish: External

pullSecret: ‘YOUR OPENSHIFT PULL SECRET’

sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA….. navy_nyx@ocp-host

step4l

15. Now run the command to create a cluster from your configuration file

openshift-install create cluster –dir install –log-level=debug

1	openshift-install create cluster –dir install –log-level=debug

step4m

You can see the 2 new nodes created by

openshift-install and check the GCP console.

1	openshift-install and check the GCP console.

step4n

To check cluster is created in the RedHat

console.

step4q

Step 5: Deploy the nginx server in OpenShift Cluster

1. Create nginx yaml script

mkdir nginx
cd nginx
nano nginx.yaml

mkdir nginx

cd nginx

nano nginx.yaml

2. Copy below nginx.yaml script save it

kind: Service
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: nginx
  labels:
    app: nginx
spec:
  selector:
    app: nginx
  ports:
  - port: 80
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 80
  type: ClusterIP
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nginx
  labels:
    app: nginx
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: nginx:latest
        imagePullPolicy: Always
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
          protocol: TCP

kind: Service

apiVersion: v1

metadata:

labels:

app: nginx

spec:

selector:

app: nginx

ports:

- port: 80

protocol: TCP

targetPort: 80

type: ClusterIP

---

apiVersion: apps/v1

kind: Deployment

metadata:

labels:

app: nginx

spec:

replicas: 1

selector:

matchLabels:

app: nginx

template:

metadata:

labels:

app: nginx

spec:

containers:

- name: nginx

image: nginx:latest

imagePullPolicy: Always

ports:

- containerPort: 80

protocol: TCP

3. Now run the following commands

oc apply --filename nginx/nginx.yaml
cd nginix/
oc get pods
oc get deployments
oc get svc

oc apply --filename nginx/nginx.yaml

cd nginix/

oc get pods

oc get deployments

oc get svc

step5

4. Go to your browser and paste the External IP of the nginx server

step5b

Conclusion

The built-in Kubernetes support makes operating a PaaS environment very straightforward, and the powerful management tools make day-to-day management a breeze. The platform handles resource intensive workloads like elastic search and media streaming. It’s also worth noting that the platform performs exceptionally well under load. For example, I saw almost no latency when running tests that subjected the applications to excessive demand. However, there are some aspects of the platform that could be improved.

In particular, I would very much like to see additional support for additional cloud providers. Currently, only the RHEL ecosystems are supported, so organizations that prefer to host their platforms on other OS will need to look elsewhere for their solutions. Finally, the cost of maintaining the platform could be reduced if the platform were hosted in regions that are closer to customers’ locations. As we discussed in the last post, this would help to reduce latency and provide more consistent performance. All in all, though, the OpenShift on Google Cloud Platform is a great solution for organizations looking to deploy and operate complex multi-tier applications in the cloud.

I hope that this guide will be useful to anyone who is trying to deploy and run applications on the OpenShift in GCP.

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FAQs

1. Is OpenShift free to use?

ANS: – OpenShift offers a free starter tier for experimentation, testing, and development. When you are ready to put your application into production and make it available to others, or if you require more resources than the free tier provides, you can upgrade to the paid tier.

2. Is OpenShift open source?

ANS: – Red Hat OpenShift is an enterprise grade open-source application platform that accelerates the development and delivery of cloud-native applications across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, all the way to the edge.

3. How do I install OpenShift on my computer?

ANS: – To quickly start up an OpenShift cluster locally inside of a virtual machine (VM), you can use Red Hat Code Ready Containers. CodeReady Containers requires a hypervisor to run the VM containing OpenShift.

VMware
Virtual Box

WRITTEN BY Navneet Nirmal Toppo

Navneet is a Research Associate at CloudThat. He is a Microsoft Certified Solution Professional and a Certified Network Security Specialist and who has experience in AWS, Azure, GCP & vSphere. He is passionate about cloud computing, cybersecurity, and learning new cloud-native technologies who strives to provide the best cloud experience to clients through transparency.