Tag Archives: VMware

Red Hat OpenShift on VMware vSphere – How to Scale and Edit your cluster deployments

November 3, 2020Kubernetes, VMwareMachineSet, openshift, Scale, VMware, vSphereDean

Working with Red Hat OpenShift on vSphere, I’m really starting to understand the main infrastructure components and how everything fits together.

Next up was understanding how to control the cluster size after initial deployment. So, with Red Hat OpenShift, there are some basic concepts we need to understand first, before we jump into the technical how-to’s below in this blog.

In this blog I will cover the following;

- Understanding the concepts behind controlling Machines in OpenShift
- Editing your MachineSet to control your Virtual Machine Resources
- Editing your MachineSet to scale your cluster manually
- Deleting a node
- Configuring ClusterAutoscaler to automatically scale your environment

Machine API

The Machine API is a combination of primary resources that are based on the upstream Cluster API project and custom OpenShift Container Platform resources.

The Machine API performs all node host provisioning management actions as a post cluster installation method, providing you dynamic provisioning on top of your VMware vSphere platform (and other public/private cloud platforms).

The two primary resources are:

Machines: An object that describes the host for a Node. A machine has a providerSpec, which describes the types of compute nodes that are offered for different cloud platforms. For example, a machine type for a worker node on Amazon Web Services (AWS) might define a specific machine type and required metadata.
MachineSets: Groups of machines. MachineSets are to machines as ReplicaSets are to Pods. If you need more machines or must scale them down, you change the replicas field on the MachineSet to meet your compute need.

These custom resources add capabilities to your OpenShift cluster:

MachineAutoscaler

This resource automatically scales machines in a cloud. You can set the minimum and maximum scaling boundaries for nodes in a specified MachineSet, and the MachineAutoscaler maintains that range of nodes. The MachineAutoscaler object takes effect after a ClusterAutoscaler object exists. Both ClusterAutoscaler and MachineAutoscaler resources are made available by the ClusterAutoscalerOperator.

ClusterAutoscaler

This resource is based on the upstream ClusterAutoscaler project. In the OpenShift Container Platform implementation, this is integrated with the Machine API by extending the MachineSet API. You can set cluster-wide scaling limits for resources such as cores, nodes, memory, GPU, etc. You can configure priorities so that the cluster prioritizes pods so that new nodes are not brought online for less important pods. You can also set the ScalingPolicy, so that for example, you can scale up nodes but not scale down the node count.

MachineHealthCheck

This resource detects when a machine is unhealthy, deletes it, and, on supported platforms, creates a new machine. You can read more here about this technology preview feature in OCP 4.6.

Editing your MachineSet to control your Virtual Machine Resources

To view the current MachineSet objects available run; Continue reading Red Hat OpenShift on VMware vSphere – How to Scale and Edit your cluster deployments →

vCenter patching failed to update the VAMI build “Got exception while trying to save metadata to a file: Unexpected content in /etc/issue file”

September 19, 2020VMware/etc/issue, Build number, patch, unexpected, Update, VCSA, VMwareDean

The issue

After patching/upgrading your vCenter 6.7 appliance, the vCenter UI shows the latest build number, but in VAMI you see the older VAMI build number.

To troubleshoot upgrade issues, you can look at the following file;

/var/log/vmware/software-packages.log

In the log, you see the following error;

INFO:vmware.vherd.base.software_update:Setting appliance version to 6.7.0.31000 build 13643870

ERROR:vmware.vherd.base.software_update:Got exception while trying to save metadata to a file: Unexpected content in /etc/issue file. Data: {Unique_Data}

The cause

This issue is thrown when a custom login banner is set by configuring the advanced setting “config.etc.issue” and the default values which include the version number and deployment type have been removed.

Default lines example;

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.0.31000
Type: vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller

William Lam documents how to configure custom banners in this blog post.

The Fix

To workaround this issue follow the steps below:

Modify the /etc/issue file to the original before patching.

The file ‘/etc/issue’ contents can be customized but the defaults lines which has the version number and deployment type must be kept for patching to succeed.

Check the VAMI page for product version and type and update the /etc/issue file accordingly.

Example: /etc/issue  :: (Original Content from a LAB).
Note line 1 and 3 should be blank. Line 2 will have the version and line 4 will have the deployment type, as shown in the below example:

root@vcsa1 [ ~ ]# less -N /etc/issue
      1
      2 VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.0.31000
      3
      4 Type: vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller
      5
/etc/issue (END)

This issue will be fixed in a future release.

Note: Since I originally drafted this blog post, VMware have now produced an external KB.
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/76024

Regards

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Dean Lewis

How to deploy OpenShift 4.3 on VMware vSphere with Static IP addresses using Terraform

July 22, 2020Kubernetes, VMwareopenshift, Static IP, Terraform, VMware, vSphereDean

Install OpenShift 4.x on vSphere 6.x/7.x

The following procedure is intended to create VM’s from an OVA template booting with static IP’s when the DHCP server can not reserve the IP addresses.

The Problem

OCP requires that all DNS configurations be in place. VMware requires that the DHCP assign the correct IPs to the VM. Since many real installations require the coordination with different teams in an organization, many times we don’t have control of DNS, DHCP or Load balancer configurations.

The CoreOS documentation explain how to create configurations using ignition files. I created a python script to put the network configuration using the ignition files created by the openshift-install program.

Reference Architecture

For this guide, we are going to deploy 3 master nodes (control-plane) and 2 worker nodes (compute This guide uses RHEL CoreOS 4.3 as the virtual machine image, deploying Red Hat OCP 4.3, as per the support of N-1 from Red Hat.

We will use a centralised Linux server (Ubuntu) that will perform the following functions;

Load Balancer – HAProxy
Web Server – Apache2
Terraform automation host – version 0.11.14
- The deployment will be semi-automated using Terraform, so that we can easily build configuration files used by the CoreOS VM’s that have Static IP settings.
- Using a later version of Terraform will cause failures.
Client Tools for OpenShift deployment
- OC
- Kubectl
- Openshift-install

DNS will be provided by a Windows Server.

The installation will use a Bootstrap server to bring the cluster online, which will be removed at the end of the build process.

Deployment Steps

In this guide we will deploy our environment in the following order;

Configure DNS
Import Red Hat Core OS image into vCenter
Deploy Ubuntu Host
- Configure Apache
- Configure HAProxy
- Install Client-Tools
- Install Terraform
Build OpenShift Cluster configuration
Configuring the Terraform deployment
Running the Terraform deployment

DNS

Openshift uses a “clusterName.BaseDomain” format.

For example; I want to call my Openshift cluster Demo. And my DNS Domain is Simon.local, then my full format used by Openshift is “demo.simon.local”

Below is a table plan of the IP addresses you will use to build the environment.

The last three addresses are cluster level resources that are available on each control-plane node, accessible via the load balancer.

To configure the DNS records in Windows, you can use the Script and CSV file here

https://github.com/saintdle/OCP-4.3-vSphere-Static-IP/tree/master/DNS

In the below screenshot, the script has created the “demo” domain folder and entered my records. It is important that you have PTR records setup for everything apart from the “etcd-X” records.

Import Red Hat CoreOS Image into vCenter

Continue reading How to deploy OpenShift 4.3 on VMware vSphere with Static IP addresses using Terraform →

Introducing the VMware UK&I TAM Spotify playlist

March 16, 2020VMware, GeneralSpotify, TAM, Technical Account Manager, VMwareDean

As we find ourselves on reduced or zero travel thanks to the outbreak of COVID-19, we also find ourselves with reduced human interaction. Sometimes that can be a good thing (less chance to contract the virus in question), sometimes it cannot.

Whilst chatting to a few of my team members last week, I decided to ask our collective group about their Desert Island top 3 songs. Taking the idea from UK’s BBC Radio 4 show “Desert Island Discs”

Desert Island Discs is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.

Each week a guest, called a 'castaway' during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usually, but not always, music), a book and a luxury item that they would take if they were to be cast away on a desert island, whilst discussing their lives and the reasons for their choices.

Source

This was simply just a way to start off a conversation that wasn’t to do with the virus that is affecting all of our lives at the moment.

So, I present to you the VMware UK & Ireland TAM Team’s Desert Island Discs Spotfiy Playlist…

I also challenge you to have the same conversations with your teams over the next few weeks, create a playlist and make it public and tag me on twitter or comment below.

I challenge you all to do the same with your teams, especially if you are all remote. Open up the conversation today about something other than work! #vCommunity #vExpert #VeeamVanguard #itsec #Cisco Champion https://t.co/3ojUOcRpyr

— Dean L. (@saintdle) March 10, 2020

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Dean Lewis

Link-O-Rama – VMware Announcements – Tanzu, vSphere 7, Cloud Foundation 4.0 and More

March 10, 2020VMwareTanzu, VCF 4.0, VMware, vROPs 8.1, vSphere 7Dean

Today VMware ran their announcement event “App Modernization in a multi-cloud world” event, which leads with their vSphere 7 flagship product and the native integration of Kubernetes (Project Pacific).

Below I’ve summarised the available information as of today;

Launch Event

Cloud Foundation Blog

vSphere Blog

Introducing vSphere 7: Essential Services for the Modern Hybrid Cloud
Introducing vSphere 7: Features & Technology for the Hybrid Cloud
YouTube playlist – Lightboard recordings of the various vSphere 7 features
VMware vSphere Edition Comparison
vSphere 7 Mind Map
- This mind map provides an overview of some the key features and capabilities in vSphere 7.

Virtual Blocks

Cloud Management Blog

Network Virtualisation

VMware Tanzu Service Mesh, built on VMware NSX is Now Available!

And finally here is the official press release for all of today’s announcements.

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Dean Lewis

vEducate.co.uk

Fixing issues and blogging

Tag Archives: VMware

Red Hat OpenShift on VMware vSphere – How to Scale and Edit your cluster deployments

Like this:

vCenter patching failed to update the VAMI build “Got exception while trying to save metadata to a file: Unexpected content in /etc/issue file”

Like this:

How to deploy OpenShift 4.3 on VMware vSphere with Static IP addresses using Terraform

Install OpenShift 4.x on vSphere 6.x/7.x

The Problem

Reference Architecture

Deployment Steps

DNS

Import Red Hat CoreOS Image into vCenter

Like this:

Introducing the VMware UK&I TAM Spotify playlist

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Link-O-Rama – VMware Announcements – Tanzu, vSphere 7, Cloud Foundation 4.0 and More

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Install OpenShift 4.x on vSphere 6.x/7.x

The Problem

Reference Architecture

Deployment Steps

DNS

Import Red Hat CoreOS Image into vCenter

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