Installation configuration parameters for vSphere

Before you deploy an OKD cluster on vSphere, you provide parameters to customize your cluster and the platform that hosts it. When you create the install-config.yaml file, you provide values for the required parameters through the command line. You can then modify the install-config.yaml file to customize your cluster further.

Available installation configuration parameters for vSphere

The following tables specify the required, optional, and vSphere-specific installation configuration parameters that you can set as part of the installation process.

After installation, you cannot modify these parameters in the install-config.yaml file.

Required configuration parameters

Required installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 1. Required parameters
ParameterDescriptionValues

apiVersion

The API version for the install-config.yaml content. The current version is v1. The installation program may also support older API versions.

String

baseDomain

The base domain of your cloud provider. The base domain is used to create routes to your OKD cluster components. The full DNS name for your cluster is a combination of the baseDomain and metadata.name parameter values that uses the <metadata.name>.<baseDomain> format.

A fully-qualified domain or subdomain name, such as example.com.

metadata

Kubernetes resource ObjectMeta, from which only the name parameter is consumed.

Object

metadata.name

The name of the cluster. DNS records for the cluster are all subdomains of {{.metadata.name}}.{{.baseDomain}}.

String of lowercase letters and hyphens (-), such as dev.

platform

The configuration for the specific platform upon which to perform the installation: alibabacloud, aws, baremetal, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, powervs, vsphere, or {}. For additional information about platform.<platform> parameters, consult the table for your specific platform that follows.

Object

Network configuration parameters

You can customize your installation configuration based on the requirements of your existing network infrastructure. For example, you can expand the IP address block for the cluster network or provide different IP address blocks than the defaults.

  • If you use the Red Hat OpenShift Networking OVN-Kubernetes network plugin, both IPv4 and IPv6 address families are supported.

  • If you use the Red Hat OpenShift Networking OpenShift SDN network plugin, only the IPv4 address family is supported.

On VMware vSphere, dual-stack networking must specify IPv4 as the primary address family.

If you configure your cluster to use both IP address families, review the following requirements:

  • Both IP families must use the same network interface for the default gateway.

  • Both IP families must have the default gateway.

  • You must specify IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in the same order for all network configuration parameters. For example, in the following configuration IPv4 addresses are listed before IPv6 addresses.

  1. networking:
  2.   clusterNetwork:
  3.   - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
  4.     hostPrefix: 23
  5.   - cidr: fd00:10:128::/56
  6.     hostPrefix: 64
  7.   serviceNetwork:
  8.   - 172.30.0.0/16
  9.   - fd00:172:16::/112

Globalnet is not supported with Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation disaster recovery solutions. For regional disaster recovery scenarios, ensure that you use a nonoverlapping range of private IP addresses for the cluster and service networks in each cluster.

Table 2. Network parameters
ParameterDescriptionValues

networking

The configuration for the cluster network.

Object

You cannot modify parameters specified by the networking object after installation.

networking.networkType

The Red Hat OpenShift Networking network plugin to install.

Either OpenShiftSDN or OVNKubernetes. The default value is OVNKubernetes.

networking.clusterNetwork

The IP address blocks for pods.

The default value is 10.128.0.0/14 with a host prefix of /23.

If you specify multiple IP address blocks, the blocks must not overlap.

An array of objects. For example:

  1. networking:
  2.   clusterNetwork:
  3.   - cidr: 10.128.0.0/14
  4.     hostPrefix: 23

networking.clusterNetwork.cidr

Required if you use networking.clusterNetwork. An IP address block.

An IPv4 network.

An IP address block in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation. The prefix length for an IPv4 block is between 0 and 32.

networking.clusterNetwork.hostPrefix

The subnet prefix length to assign to each individual node. For example, if hostPrefix is set to 23 then each node is assigned a /23 subnet out of the given cidr. A hostPrefix value of 23 provides 510 (2^(32 - 23) - 2) pod IP addresses.

A subnet prefix.

The default value is 23.

networking.serviceNetwork

The IP address block for services. The default value is 172.30.0.0/16.

The OpenShift SDN and OVN-Kubernetes network plugins support only a single IP address block for the service network.

An array with an IP address block in CIDR format. For example:

  1. networking:
  2.   serviceNetwork:
  3.    - 172.30.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork

The IP address blocks for machines.

If you specify multiple IP address blocks, the blocks must not overlap.

An array of objects. For example:

  1. networking:
  2.   machineNetwork:
  3.   - cidr: 10.0.0.0/16

networking.machineNetwork.cidr

Required if you use networking.machineNetwork. An IP address block. The default value is 10.0.0.0/16 for all platforms other than libvirt and IBM Power Virtual Server. For libvirt, the default value is 192.168.126.0/24. For IBM Power Virtual Server, the default value is 192.168.0.0/24.

An IP network block in CIDR notation.

For example, 10.0.0.0/16.

Set the networking.machineNetwork to match the CIDR that the preferred NIC resides in.

Optional configuration parameters

Optional installation configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 3. Optional parameters
ParameterDescriptionValues

additionalTrustBundle

A PEM-encoded X.509 certificate bundle that is added to the nodes’ trusted certificate store. This trust bundle may also be used when a proxy has been configured.

String

capabilities

Controls the installation of optional core cluster components. You can reduce the footprint of your OKD cluster by disabling optional components. For more information, see the “Cluster capabilities” page in Installing.

String array

capabilities.baselineCapabilitySet

Selects an initial set of optional capabilities to enable. Valid values are None, v4.11, v4.12 and vCurrent. The default value is vCurrent.

String

capabilities.additionalEnabledCapabilities

Extends the set of optional capabilities beyond what you specify in baselineCapabilitySet. You may specify multiple capabilities in this parameter.

String array

cpuPartitioningMode

Enables workload partitioning, which isolates OKD services, cluster management workloads, and infrastructure pods to run on a reserved set of CPUs. Workload partitioning can only be enabled during installation and cannot be disabled after installation. While this field enables workload partitioning, it does not configure workloads to use specific CPUs. For more information, see the Workload partitioning page in the Scalability and Performance section.

None or AllNodes. None is the default value.

compute

The configuration for the machines that comprise the compute nodes.

Array of MachinePool objects.

compute.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64 (the default).

String

compute.hyperthreading

Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading, on compute machines. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines’ cores.

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance.

Enabled or Disabled

compute.name

Required if you use compute. The name of the machine pool.

worker

compute.platform

Required if you use compute. Use this parameter to specify the cloud provider to host the worker machines. This parameter value must match the controlPlane.platform parameter value.

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, powervs, vsphere, or {}

compute.replicas

The number of compute machines, which are also known as worker machines, to provision.

A positive integer greater than or equal to 2. The default value is 3.

featureSet

Enables the cluster for a feature set. A feature set is a collection of OKD features that are not enabled by default. For more information about enabling a feature set during installation, see “Enabling features using feature gates”.

String. The name of the feature set to enable, such as TechPreviewNoUpgrade.

controlPlane

The configuration for the machines that comprise the control plane.

Array of MachinePool objects.

controlPlane.architecture

Determines the instruction set architecture of the machines in the pool. Currently, clusters with varied architectures are not supported. All pools must specify the same architecture. Valid values are amd64.

String

controlPlane.hyperthreading

Whether to enable or disable simultaneous multithreading, or hyperthreading, on control plane machines. By default, simultaneous multithreading is enabled to increase the performance of your machines’ cores.

If you disable simultaneous multithreading, ensure that your capacity planning accounts for the dramatically decreased machine performance.

Enabled or Disabled

controlPlane.name

Required if you use controlPlane. The name of the machine pool.

master

controlPlane.platform

Required if you use controlPlane. Use this parameter to specify the cloud provider that hosts the control plane machines. This parameter value must match the compute.platform parameter value.

alibabacloud, aws, azure, gcp, ibmcloud, nutanix, openstack, powervs, vsphere, or {}

controlPlane.replicas

The number of control plane machines to provision.

The only supported value is 3, which is the default value.

credentialsMode

The Cloud Credential Operator (CCO) mode. If no mode is specified, the CCO dynamically tries to determine the capabilities of the provided credentials, with a preference for mint mode on the platforms where multiple modes are supported.

Mint, Passthrough, Manual or an empty string (“”). [1]

imageContentSources

Sources and repositories for the release-image content.

Array of objects. Includes a source and, optionally, mirrors, as described in the following rows of this table.

imageContentSources.source

Required if you use imageContentSources. Specify the repository that users refer to, for example, in image pull specifications.

String

imageContentSources.mirrors

Specify one or more repositories that may also contain the same images.

Array of strings

publish

How to publish or expose the user-facing endpoints of your cluster, such as the Kubernetes API, OpenShift routes.

Internal or External. The default value is External.

Setting this field to Internal is not supported on non-cloud platforms.

If the value of the field is set to Internal, the cluster will become non-functional. For more information, refer to BZ#1953035.

sshKey

The SSH key to authenticate access to your cluster machines.

For production OKD clusters on which you want to perform installation debugging or disaster recovery, specify an SSH key that your ssh-agent process uses.

For example, sshKey: ssh-ed25519 AAAA...

  1. Not all CCO modes are supported for all cloud providers. For more information about CCO modes, see the “Managing cloud provider credentials” entry in the Authentication and authorization content.

Additional VMware vSphere configuration parameters

Additional VMware vSphere configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 4. Additional VMware vSphere cluster parameters
ParameterDescriptionValues
  1. platform:
  2.     vsphere
  3.       apiVIPs

Virtual IP (VIP) addresses that you configured for control plane API access.

Note: This parameter applies only to installer-provisioned infrastructure.

Multiple IP addresses

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       diskType

Optional. The disk provisioning method. This value defaults to the vSphere default storage policy if not set.

Valid values are thin, thick, or eagerZeroedThick.

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       failureDomains

Establishes the relationships between a region and zone. You define a failure domain by using vCenter objects, such as a datastore object. A failure domain defines the vCenter location for OKD cluster nodes.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       failureDomains
  4.         topology
  5.           networks

Lists any network in the vCenter instance that contains the virtual IP addresses and DNS records that you configured.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       failureDomains
  4.         region

If you define multiple failure domains for your cluster, you must attach the tag to each vCenter datacenter. To define a region, use a tag from the openshift-region tag category. For a single vSphere datacenter environment, you do not need to attach a tag, but you must enter an alphanumeric value, such as datacenter, for the parameter.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       failureDomains
  4.         zone

If you define multiple failure domains for your cluster, you must attach the tag to each vCenter cluster. To define a zone, use a tag from the openshift-zone tag category. For a single vSphere datacenter environment, you do not need to attach a tag, but you must enter an alphanumeric value, such as cluster, for the parameter.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       failureDomains
  4.         template

Specify the absolute path to a pre-existing Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) image template or virtual machine. The installation program can use the image template or virtual machine to quickly install FCOS on vSphere hosts. Consider using this parameter as an alternative to uploading an FCOS image on vSphere hosts. The parameter is available for use only on installer-provisioned infrastructure.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       ingressVIPs

Virtual IP (VIP) addresses that you configured for cluster Ingress.

Note: This parameter applies only to installer-provisioned infrastructure.

Multiple IP addresses

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere

Describes your account on the cloud platform that hosts your cluster. You can use the parameter to customize the platform. When providing additional configuration settings for compute and control plane machines in the machine pool, the parameter is optional. You can only specify one vCenter server for your OKD cluster.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       vcenters

Lists any fully-qualified hostname or IP address of a vCenter server.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       vcenters
  4.         datacenters

Lists and defines the datacenters where OKD virtual machines (VMs) operate. The list of datacenters must match the list of datacenters specified in the failureDomains field.

String

Deprecated VMware vSphere configuration parameters

In OKD 4.13, the following vSphere configuration parameters are deprecated. You can continue to use these parameters, but the installation program does not automatically specify these parameters in the install-config.yaml file.

The following table lists each deprecated vSphere configuration parameter:

Table 5. Deprecated VMware vSphere cluster parameters
ParameterDescriptionValues
  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       apiVIP

The virtual IP (VIP) address that you configured for control plane API access.

Note: In OKD 4.12 and later, the apiVIP configuration setting is deprecated. Instead, use a List format to enter a value in the apiVIPs configuration setting.

An IP address, for example 128.0.0.1.

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       cluster

The vCenter cluster to install the OKD cluster in.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       datacenter

Defines the datacenter where OKD virtual machines (VMs) operate.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       defaultDatastore

The name of the default datastore to use for provisioning volumes.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       folder

Optional. The absolute path of an existing folder where the installation program creates the virtual machines. If you do not provide this value, the installation program creates a folder that is named with the infrastructure ID in the data center virtual machine folder.

String, for example, /<datacenter_name>/vm/<folder_name>/<subfolder_name>.

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       ingressVIP

Virtual IP (VIP) addresses that you configured for cluster Ingress.

Note: In OKD 4.12 and later, the ingressVIP configuration setting is deprecated. Instead, use a List format to enter a value in the ingressVIPs configuration setting.

An IP address, for example 128.0.0.1.

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       network

The network in the vCenter instance that contains the virtual IP addresses and DNS records that you configured.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       password

The password for the vCenter user name.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       resourcePool

Optional. The absolute path of an existing resource pool where the installation program creates the virtual machines. If you do not specify a value, the installation program installs the resources in the root of the cluster under /<datacenter_name>/host/<cluster_name>/Resources.

String, for example, /<datacenter_name>/host/<cluster_name>/Resources/<resource_pool_name>/<optional_nested_resource_pool_name>.

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       username

The user name to use to connect to the vCenter instance with. This user must have at least the roles and privileges that are required for static or dynamic persistent volume provisioning in vSphere.

String

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       vCenter

The fully-qualified hostname or IP address of a vCenter server.

String

Optional VMware vSphere machine pool configuration parameters

Optional VMware vSphere machine pool configuration parameters are described in the following table:

Table 6. Optional VMware vSphere machine pool parameters
ParameterDescriptionValues
  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       clusterOSImage

The location from which the installation program downloads the Fedora CoreOS (FCOS) image. Before setting a path value for this parameter, ensure that the default FCOS boot image in the OKD release matches the FCOS image template or virtual machine version; otherwise, cluster installation might fail.

An HTTP or HTTPS URL, optionally with a SHA-256 checksum. For example, https://mirror.openshift.com/images/rhcos-<version>-vmware.<architecture>.ova.

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       osDisk
  4.         diskSizeGB

The size of the disk in gigabytes.

Integer

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       cpus

The total number of virtual processor cores to assign a virtual machine. The value of platform.vsphere.cpus must be a multiple of platform.vsphere.coresPerSocket value.

Integer

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       coresPerSocket

The number of cores per socket in a virtual machine. The number of virtual sockets on the virtual machine is platform.vsphere.cpus/platform.vsphere.coresPerSocket. The default value for control plane nodes and worker nodes is 4 and 2, respectively.

Integer

  1. platform
  2.     vsphere
  3.       memoryMB

The size of a virtual machine’s memory in megabytes.

Integer