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Version: 3.1

Install Portworx on OpenShift on vSphere using Helm

You can deploy Operator, Portworx Enterprise, and Stork using the Portworx helm chart. Before proceeding to the installation, ensure you have fulfilled the prerequisites. For detailed information, please refer to the prerequisites section.

Prerequisites​

  • Your cluster must be running OpenShift 4 or higher.
  • You must have an OpenShift cluster deployed on infrastructure that meets the minimum requirements for Portworx.
  • Any underlying nodes used for Portworx in OCP(OpenShift Container Platform) should have Secure Boot disabled.

Create a monitoring ConfigMap​

Newer OpenShift versions do not support the Portworx Prometheus deployment. As a result, you must enable monitoring for user-defined projects before installing the Portworx Operator. Use the instructions in this section to configure the OpenShift Prometheus deployment to monitor Portworx metrics.

To integrate OpenShift’s monitoring and alerting system with Portworx, create a cluster-monitoring-config ConfigMap in the openshift-monitoring namespace:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: cluster-monitoring-config
  namespace: openshift-monitoring
data:
  config.yaml: |
    enableUserWorkload: true

The enableUserWorkload parameter enables monitoring for user-defined projects in the OpenShift cluster. This creates a prometheus-operated service in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace.

Configure Storage DRS settings​

Portworx does not support the movement of VMDK files from the datastores on which they were created.

warning

Do not move them manually or have any settings that would result in a movement of these files.

To prevent Storage DRS from moving VMDK files, configure the Storage DRS settings as follows using your vSphere console.

From the Edit Storage DRS Settings window of your selected datastore cluster, edit the following settings:

  • For Storage DRS automation, choose the No Automation (Manual Mode) option, and set the same for other settings, as shown in the following screencapture:

    VsphereDRS1

  • For Runtime Settings, clear the Enable I/O metric for SDRS recommendations option.

    VsphereDRS1

  • For Advanced options, clear the Keep VMDKs together by default options.

    VsphereDRS1

Grant the required cloud permissions​

Grant permissions Portworx requires by creating a secret with user credentials:

Provide Portworx with a vCenter server user that has the following minimum vSphere privileges using your vSphere console:

  • Datastore

    • Allocate space
    • Browse datastore
    • Low level file operations
    • Remove file

  • Host

    • Local operations
    • Reconfigure virtual machine

  • Virtual machine

    • Change Configuration
    • Add existing disk
    • Add new disk
    • Add or remove device
    • Advanced configuration
    • Change Settings
    • Extend virtual disk
    • Modify device settings
    • Remove disk

    If you create a custom role as above, make sure to select Propagate to children when assigning the user to the role.

    Why select Propagate to Children ?

    In vSphere, resources are organized hierarchically. By selecting "Propagate to Children," you ensure that the permissions granted to the custom role are automatically applied not just to the targeted object, but also to all objects within its sub-tree. This includes VMs, datastores, networks, and other resources nested under the selected resource.

  1. Create a secret using the following template. Retrieve the credentials from your own environment and specify them under the data section:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Secret
    metadata:
        name: px-vsphere-secret
        namespace: portworx
    type: Opaque
    data:
        VSPHERE_USER: <your-vcenter-server-user>
        VSPHERE_PASSWORD: <your-vcenter-server-password>

    • VSPHERE_USER: to find your base64-encoded vSphere user, enter the following command:

      echo '<vcenter-server-user>' | base64

    • VSPHERE_PASSWORD: to find your base64-encoded vSphere password, enter the following command:

      echo '<vcenter-server-password>' | base64

    Once you've updated the template with your user and password, apply the spec:

    oc apply -f <your-spec-name>

  2. Ensure ports 17001-17020 on worker nodes are reachable from the control plane node and other worker nodes.

  3. If you're running a Portworx Essentials cluster, then create the following secret with your Essential Entitlement ID:

    oc -n portworx create secret generic px-essential \
        --from-literal=px-essen-user-id=YOUR_ESSENTIAL_ENTITLEMENT_ID \
        --from-literal=px-osb-endpoint='https://pxessentials.portworx.com/osb/billing/v1/register'
    note

    Add the following environment variable into the stc manifest to instruct Portworx to verify the namespace where the stc is deployed. In this case, the portworx namespace.

    env:
    - name: PXESSENTIAL_SECRET_NAMESPACE
        valueFrom:
            fieldRef:
                apiVersion: v1
                fieldPath: metadata.namespace

Deploy Portworx using Helm​

By default, Portworx is installed in the kube-system namespace. If you want to install it in a different namespace, use the -n <namespace> flag. For this example we will deploy Portworx in the portworx namespace.

  1. To install Portworx, add the portworx/helm repository to your local Helm repository.

    helm repo add portworx https://raw.githubusercontent.com/portworx/helm/master/stable/
    "portworx" has been added to your repositories

  2. Verify that the repository has been successfully added.

    helm repo list
    NAME    	URL                                                           
    portworx	https://raw.githubusercontent.com/portworx/helm/master/stable/

  3. Create a px_install_values.yaml file and add the following parameters.

    openshiftInstall: true
    drives: 'type=thin,size=150'
    envs:
      - name: VSPHERE_INSECURE
        value: 'true'
      - name: VSPHERE_USER
        valueFrom:
          secretKeyRef: null
          name: px-vsphere-secret
          key: VSPHERE_USER
      - name: VSPHERE_PASSWORD
        valueFrom:
          secretKeyRef: null
          name: px-vsphere-secret
          key: VSPHERE_PASSWORD
      - name: VSPHERE_VCENTER
        value: <your-vCenter-Endpoint>
      - name: VSPHERE_VCENTER_PORT
        value: <your-vCenter-Port>
      - name: VSPHERE_DATASTORE_PREFIX
        value: <your-vCenter-Datastore-prefix>
      - name: VSPHERE_INSTALL_MODE
        value: shared

  4. (Optional) In many cases, you may want to customize Portworx configurations, such as enabling monitoring or specifying specific storage devices. You can pass the custom configuration to the px_install_values.yaml yaml file.

    note
    • You can refer to the Portworx Helm chart parameters for a list of configurable parameters and values.yaml file for configuration file template.
    • The default clusterName is mycluster. However, it's recommended to change it to a unique identifier to avoid conflicts in multi-cluster environments.

  5. Install Portworx Enterprise using the following command:

    note

    To install a specific version of Helm chart, you can use the --version flag. Example: helm install <px-release> portworx/portworx --version <helm-chart-version>.

    helm install <px-release> portworx/portworx -n <portworx> -f px_install_values.yaml --debug

  6. You can check the status of your Portworx installation.

    helm status <px-release> -n <portworx>
    NAME: px-release
    LAST DEPLOYED: Thu Sep 26 05:53:17 2024
    NAMESPACE: portworx
    STATUS: deployed
    REVISION: 1
    TEST SUITE: None
    NOTES:
    Your Release is named "px-release"
    Portworx Pods should be running on each node in your cluster.

    Portworx would create a unified pool of the disks attached to your Kubernetes nodes. 
    No further action should be required and you are ready to consume Portworx Volumes as part of your application data requirements.

Verify your Portworx installation​

Once you've installed Portworx, you can perform the following tasks to verify that Portworx has installed correctly.

Verify if all pods are running​

Enter the following oc get pods command to list and filter the results for Portworx pods:

oc get pods -n portworx -o wide | grep -e portworx -e px
portworx-api-774c2                                      1/1     Running   0                2m55s   192.168.121.196   username-k8s1-node0    <none>           <none>
portworx-api-t4lf9                                      1/1     Running   0                2m55s   192.168.121.99    username-k8s1-node1    <none>           <none>
portworx-kvdb-94bpk                                     1/1     Running   0                4s      192.168.121.196   username-k8s1-node0    <none>           <none>
portworx-operator-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx                    1/1     Running   0                4m1s    10.244.1.99       username-k8s1-node0    <none>           <none>
prometheus-px-prometheus-0                              2/2     Running   0                2m41s   10.244.1.105      username-k8s1-node0    <none>           <none>
px-cluster-1c3edc42-4541-48fc-b173-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx   2/2     Running   0                2m55s   192.168.121.196   username-k8s1-node0    <none>           <none>
px-cluster-1c3edc42-4541-48fc-b173-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx   1/2     Running   0                2m55s   192.168.121.99    username-k8s1-node1    <none>           <none>
px-csi-ext-868fcb9fc6-xxxxx                             4/4     Running   0                3m5s    10.244.1.103      username-k8s1-node0    <none>           <none>
px-csi-ext-868fcb9fc6-xxxxx                             4/4     Running   0                3m5s    10.244.1.102      username-k8s1-node0    <none>           <none>
px-csi-ext-868fcb9fc6-xxxxx                             4/4     Running   0                3m5s    10.244.3.107      username-k8s1-node1    <none>           <none>
px-prometheus-operator-59b98b5897-xxxxx                 1/1     Running   0                3m3s    10.244.1.104      username-k8s1-node0    <none>           <none>

Note the name of one of your px-cluster pods. You'll run pxctl commands from these pods in following steps.

Verify Portworx cluster status​

You can find the status of the Portworx cluster by running pxctl status commands from a pod. Enter the following oc exec command, specifying the pod name you retrieved in the previous section:

oc exec px-cluster-1c3edc42-4541-48fc-b173-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx -n portworx -- /opt/pwx/bin/pxctl status
Defaulted container "portworx" out of: portworx, csi-node-driver-registrar
Status: PX is operational
Telemetry: Disabled or Unhealthy
Metering: Disabled or Unhealthy
License: Trial (expires in 31 days)
Node ID: 788bf810-57c4-4df1-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx
        IP: 192.168.121.99 
        Local Storage Pool: 1 pool
        POOL    IO_PRIORITY     RAID_LEVEL      USABLE  USED    STATUS  ZONE    REGION
        0       HIGH            raid0           3.0 TiB 10 GiB  Online  default default
        Local Storage Devices: 3 devices
        Device  Path            Media Type              Size            Last-Scan
        0:1     /dev/vdb        STORAGE_MEDIUM_MAGNETIC 1.0 TiB         14 Jul 22 22:03 UTC
        0:2     /dev/vdc        STORAGE_MEDIUM_MAGNETIC 1.0 TiB         14 Jul 22 22:03 UTC
        0:3     /dev/vdd        STORAGE_MEDIUM_MAGNETIC 1.0 TiB         14 Jul 22 22:03 UTC
        * Internal kvdb on this node is sharing this storage device /dev/vdc  to store its data.
        total           -       3.0 TiB
        Cache Devices:
         * No cache devices
Cluster Summary
        Cluster ID: px-cluster-1c3edc42-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx
        Cluster UUID: 33a82fe9-d93b-435b-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx
        Scheduler: kubernetes
        Nodes: 2 node(s) with storage (2 online)
        IP              ID                                      SchedulerNodeName       Auth            StorageNode     Used    Capacity        Status  StorageStatus       Version         Kernel                  OS
        192.168.121.196 f6d87392-81f4-459a-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx    username-k8s1-node0      Disabled        Yes             10 GiB  3.0 TiB         Online  Up 2.11.0-81faacc   3.10.0-1127.el7.x86_64  CentOS Linux 7 (Core)
        192.168.121.99  788bf810-57c4-4df1-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx    username-k8s1-node1      Disabled        Yes             10 GiB  3.0 TiB         Online  Up (This node)      2.11.0-81faacc  3.10.0-1127.el7.x86_64  CentOS Linux 7 (Core)
Global Storage Pool
        Total Used      :  20 GiB
        Total Capacity  :  6.0 TiB

The Portworx status will display PX is operational if your cluster is running as intended.

Verify pxctl cluster provision status​

  • Find the storage cluster, the status should show as Online:

    oc -n portworx get storagecluster
    NAME                                              CLUSTER UUID                           STATUS   VERSION   AGE
    px-cluster-1c3edc42-4541-48fc-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx   33a82fe9-d93b-435b-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx   Online   2.11.0    10m

  • Find the storage nodes, the statuses should show as Online:

    oc -n portworx get storagenodes
    NAME                  ID                                      STATUS   VERSION          AGE
    username-k8s1-node0   f6d87392-81f4-459a-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx   Online   2.11.0-81faacc   11m
    username-k8s1-node1   788bf810-57c4-4df1-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx   Online   2.11.0-81faacc   11m

  • Verify the Portworx cluster provision status . Enter the following oc exec command, specifying the pod name you retrieved in the previous section:

    oc exec px-cluster-1c3edc42-4541-48fc-b173-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx -n portworx -- /opt/pwx/bin/pxctl cluster provision-status
    Defaulted container "portworx" out of: portworx, csi-node-driver-registrar
    NODE                                    NODE STATUS     POOL                                            POOL STATUS     IO_PRIORITY     SIZE    AVAILABLE   USED   PROVISIONED          ZONE    REGION  RACK
    788bf810-57c4-4df1-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx    Up              0 ( 96e7ff01-fcff-4715-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx )      Online          HIGH            3.0 TiB 3.0 TiB    10 GiB       0 B             default default default
    f6d87392-81f4-459a-xxxx-xxxxxxxxx       Up              0 ( e06386e7-b769-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx )          Online          HIGH            3.0 TiB 3.0 TiB    10 GiB       0 B             default default default

Create your first PVC​

For your apps to use persistent volumes powered by Portworx, you must use a StorageClass that references Portworx as the provisioner. Portworx includes a number of default StorageClasses, which you can reference with PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs) you create. For a more general overview of how storage works within Kubernetes, refer to the Persistent Volumes section of the Kubernetes documentation.

Perform the following steps to create a PVC:

  1. Create a PVC referencing the px-csi-db default StorageClass and save the file:

    kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
    apiVersion: v1
    metadata:
        name: px-check-pvc
    spec:
        storageClassName: px-csi-db
        accessModes:
            - ReadWriteOnce
        resources:
            requests:
                storage: 2Gi

  2. Run the oc apply command to create a PVC:

    oc apply -f <your-pvc-name>.yaml
    persistentvolumeclaim/px-check-pvc created

Verify your StorageClass and PVC​

  1. Enter the following oc get storageclass command, specify the name of the StorageClass you created in the steps above:

    oc get storageclass <your-storageclass-name>
    NAME                   PROVISIONER        RECLAIMPOLICY   VOLUMEBINDINGMODE   ALLOWVOLUMEEXPANSION   AGE
    px-csi-db              pxd.portworx.com   Delete          Immediate           false                  24m

    oc will return details about your storageClass if it was created correctly. Verify the configuration details appear as you intended.

  2. Enter the oc get pvc command, if this is the only StorageClass and PVC you've created, you should see only one entry in the output:

    oc get pvc <your-pvc-name>
    NAME          STATUS   VOLUME                                     CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS           AGE
    px-check-pvc  Bound    pvc-dce346e8-ff02-4dfb-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx   2Gi        RWO            example-storageclass   3m7s

    oc will return details about your PVC if it was created correctly. Verify the configuration details appear as you intended.

Update Portworx Configuration using Helm​

If you need to update the configuration of Portworx, you can modify the parameters in the px_install_values.yaml file specified during the Helm installation. This allows you to change the values of configuration parameters.

  1. Create or edit the px_install_values.yaml file to update the desired parameters.

    vim px_install_values.yaml
    monitoring:
        telemetry: false
        grafana: true

  2. Apply the changes using the following command:

    helm upgrade <px-release> portworx/portworx -n <portworx> -f px_install_values.yaml
    Release "px-release" has been upgraded. Happy Helming!
    NAME: px-release
    LAST DEPLOYED: Thu Sep 26 06:42:20 2024
    NAMESPACE: portworx
    STATUS: deployed
    REVISION: 2
    TEST SUITE: None
    NOTES:
    Your Release is named "px-release"
    Portworx Pods should be running on each node in your cluster.

    Portworx would create a unified pool of the disks attached to your Kubernetes nodes. 
    No further action should be required and you are ready to consume Portworx Volumes as part of your application data requirements.

  3. Verify that the new values have taken effect.

    helm get values <px-release> -n <portworx>

    You should see all the custom configurations passed using the px_install_values.yaml file.

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