RHEL for Edge (RFE) introduces a new model for building and deploying RHEL. This repository (very much a work in progress) will contain necessary documentation and automation to support a GitOps approach to building and delivering RFE content at scale.
Our design will focus on the following topics:
- Deployment of Image Builder
- Management of Blueprint Definitions
- Building RFE Images
- Managing/Hosting RFE Artifacts
- Kickstarts
- RFE Tarballs
- CI/CD Tooling/Process
- End to End Installation/Update of RFE Deployments
- Managing RFE Deployments at Scale
- Aggregating Logging/Metrics Collection
- Deploying Containerized Workloads
The overall architecture is still being defined. We have split out "Above Site" components (things like RFE build orchestration and CI/CD tooling) and "Below Site" (the actual RFE deployments). All Above Site components will be hosted on OpenShift.
All of the Above Site components (see architecture) will be deployed on OpenShift. Most of these components will be deployed/configured by tools like Argo CD.
We also chose to use Sealed Secrets to support our GitOps workflow. We leverage an "app of apps" methodology to deploy all of the components and two overlays are provided. The shared overylay is used to provision a shared development environment, but most users will want to leverage the byo overlay.
To deploy the above site components we first need to deploy Argo CD. Argo CD is installed using the GitOps operator in OpenShift. If Argo CD is already installed, you can skip to the next section
From the root of the repository, run the following command to install the operator:
oc apply -k openshift/gitops/manifests/bootstrap/argocd-operator/baseThen run the following to deploy an instance of Argo CD.
until oc apply -k openshift/gitops/manifests/bootstrap/argocd/base; do sleep 2; doneSome secrets will need to be created to support the deployment. We will use the Kustomize Secrets Generator to source specific values from files. An SSH key will be needed as well as credentials for the Red Hat Portal. A table of the specific components are laid out below:
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| SSH Key | Use to support key based authentication to the Image Builder VM |
| Red Hat Portal Username | Username to subscribe Image Builder VM |
| Red Hat Portal Password | Password to subscribe Image Builder VM |
| Pool ID | Pool ID use to map the appropriate subscription to the Image Builder VM |
| Red Hat Portal Offline Token | Token used to access the Red Hat API and download RHEL images |
To generate an SSH key, run the following command:
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C cloud-user@image-builder -f ~/.ssh/image-builderCreate symlinks to key you just created into the project:
ln -s ~/.ssh/image-builder openshift/gitops/clusters/overlays/byo/bootstrap/image-builder-ssh-private-key
ln -s ~/.ssh/image-builder.pub openshift/gitops/clusters/overlays/byo/bootstrap/image-builder-ssh-public-keyNext, modify openshift/gitops/clusters/overlays/byo/bootstrap/redhat-portal-credentials and add the Red Hat Portal Username, Password, Pool ID and Offline Token to the appropriate variables. More information about generating an Offline Token can be found here.
We are now ready to bootstrap the environment. To do this, run:
kustomize build --load_restrictor=LoadRestrictionsNone openshift/gitops/clusters/overlays/byo/bootstrap/ | oc apply -f -Finally, deploy all of the above site components by running the following:
kustomize build openshift/gitops/clusters/overlays/byo/argocd/manager | oc apply -f -A basic workthrough to demonstrate the end to end flow of building RHEL for Edge content and using it to create a RHEL for Edge instance can be found below: