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Setup Robin Cloud Native Storage on IBM Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift |
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true|false |
Setup Robin Cloud Native Storage on IBM Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift |
ISV, Cloud Native Storage |
containers |
cloud, container, and infrastructure |
containers |
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Get started with Robin Cloud Native Storage solutions on Kubernetes and OpenShift |
Setup Robin Cloud Native Storage on IBM Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift |
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tutorial|howto |
Robin Cloud Native Storage (CNS) is an application-aware container storage that offers advanced data management capabilities and runs natively on any Kubernetes distribution including IBM Kubernetes Service (IKS), Red Hat OpenShift Kuernetes Service (ROKS), stand-alone OpenShift, etc. Robin Cloud Native Storage delivers bare-metal performance and enables you to protect (via snapshots, backups), secure (via encryption), collaborate (via clones and git like push/pull workflows), and make portable (via cloud-sync) any stateful application that is deployed using helm charts or operators.
This tutorial provides detailed steps to install Robin CNS on IBM Kubernetes service as well as OpenShift on IBM Cloud. It also covers provisioning of drives on these clusters.
This tutorial will help developers looking for:
- Setting up Robin CNS
- Cloud native storage solutions
Both these areas are covered with detailed steps.
In order to follow the steps outlined in this tutorial, users need to have the following setup.
- IBM Cloud Account: Create an IBM Cloud account.
- IBM Cloud CLI: Download and Install IBM Cloud CLI tool.
- kubectl CLI: Download and Install Kubectl CLI tool.
- OC CLI: Download and Install OpenShift CLI tool.
With prerequisites in place, this tutorial should take about 20 min to complete.
Note: The estimated time is excluding cluster provisioning.
You will have to enable access specific ports for the Robin installation to succeed and for Robin to operate correctly.
Hence Kubernetes or OpenShift has to be installed on top of a VPC and not on Classic infrastructure.
- Login to IBM Cloud, and Create a VPC. Ensure you Attach Public gateway as it is required to install Robin CNS.
NOTE: We have provisioned two VPC one for Kubernetes cluster and another for OpenShift cluster. The VPC configurations for both the clusters remains the same.
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Once the VPC is provisioned, enable the following ports:
Ports Description 29442 - 29470 Robin services 30000 - 32767 IKS Access Ports -
Visit the Virtual Private Clouds Dashboard and select your VPC.
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In your VPC overview page, select the Default Security Group as shown.
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Under the Rules tab, in the Inbound rules section, click on Create to create a new inbound rule.
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Specify the following details in the new inbound rules section:
- Protocol: TCP
- Port: Port range
- Port min: 29442
- Port max: 29470
- Source type: Any
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Similarly, create another inbound rule with the following details:
- Protocol: TCP
- Port: Port range
- Port min: 30000
- Port max: 32767
- Source type: Any
At this point, you will have successfully:
- created a VPC infrastructure
- exposed the ports required for Robin
Once you have setup the VPC infrastructure, you can now install Kubernetes or OpenShift on your VPC.
- Login to IBM Cloud, and create a Kubernetes cluster. Select the specifications as listed below:
- Plan details: Standard
- Orchestration service: Kubernetes
- Infrastructure: Make sure you select VPC infrastructure that you created in step 1.
- Location: default
- Worker pool: Make sure you have at least 3 worker nodes as it is recommended by Robin
- Resource details: Enter a name for your cluster
NOTE: It will take approximately 30min to provision the Kubernetes cluster.
- Once the Kubernetes cluster is provisioned, you can connect to the cluster via CLI. Go to Kubernetes cluster dashboard and select the cluster that you created. Click on Access tab on the left panel and follow the on screen instructions to connect to the cluster through your terminal.
- Before creating an OpenShift cluster, you will have to create a Cloud Object Storage. Login to IBM Cloud, and create a Cloud Object Storage with Standard plan.
- Login to IBM Cloud, and create a Red Hat OpenShift cluster. Select the specifications as listed below:
- Orchestration service: OpenShift 4.6.23
- OCP entitlement: If you have an OCP entitlement license you can select Apply my Cloud Pak OCP entitlement, else select the default Purchase additional licenses
- Infrastructure: Make sure you select VPC infrastructure that you created in step 1 and the cloud object storage that you created in step 2.2.
- Location: default
- Worker pool: Make sure you have at least 3 worker nodes as it is recommended by Robin
- Resource details: Enter a name for your cluster
NOTE: It will take approximately 30min to provision the OpenShift cluster.
- Once the OpenShift cluster is provisioned, you can connect to the cluster via CLI. Go to Kubernetes cluster dashboard and select the OpenShift cluster that you created. Click on Actions tab on the top right, select the Connect via CLI. In the opened panel, click on the oauth token request page. You will be redirected to a different page. On that page click on Display Token to get an
oc logintoken. Copy paste the command in your terminal and you will be connected to the OpenShift cluster.
Example Token:
oc login --token=sha256~xxxx --server=https://xxxx.xx.containers.cloud.ibm.com:30716
At this point, you will have successfully:
- created a VPC infrastructure
- exposed the ports required for Robin
- created a Kubernetes cluster or OpenShift cluster
- connected to the cluster from your terminal
You will need an IBM Cloud API key to install Robin CNS on IBM Cloud based Kubernetes or OpenShift. In this step you will learn how to create an IBM Cloud API Key.
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Go to Manage access users > API keys, click on Create an IBM Cloud API key. Enter name and description of the api key and click on Create.
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Once the API Key is created, download the key as it will be required in the subsequent steps.
NOTE: You need to download the API Key to keep it with you and view anytime. Once the dialog box is dismissed in the dashboard, you cannot view the API Key on the dashboard.
In this section you will learn to download, install, and activate Robin CNS on Kubernetes.
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Goto get.robin.io, and enter your email id. Click on Sign in to Download.
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Check your email you, will have received a one-time login link. Open the link and enter your email id once again. Click on Sign in.
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You will receive another email with one-time login link on your email address. Click on the link to log in to your account and download the Robin CNS installer.
NOTE: The link is only valid for 15 minutes.
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Once logged in, you will be presented to the Robin Home Page.
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Go to the Download Robin Cloud Native Storage to download installer.
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Click on Download and Install under the Deploy on IBM IKS section to download Robin CNS for Kubernetes
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A curl and wget command will be displayed, copy and paste the command in your terminal to download the Robin CNS.
Example Command:
wget "http://get.robin.io/download/storage?id=<your-id>&type=iks" -O robin-install.tarcurl -L "http://get.robin.io/download/storage?id=<your-id>&type=iks" -o robin-install.tar -
Also go to get.robin.io/activate and copy the USERID in a notepad as it will be required in subsequent steps.
Example:
robin license activate XXXXXXXXcopy theXXXXXXXXwhich is your USERID.
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Extract the
robin-install.tarinto a directoryrobin, In terminal run the following command:$ mkdir -p ./robin && tar -xf robin-install.tar -C ./robin -
Go to the newly created
robindirectory and run the shell script, In terminal run the following command:-
Get the Robin CNS version number:
$ cd ./robin $ cat robin.yaml | grep robinsys/robinimg
image_robin: robinsys/robinimg:5.3.4-75 -
Run the following command with the above version number.
$ ./install-robin.sh --version=5.3.4-75
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You will be asked for IBM api key, enter the IBM Api Key which you downloaded in step 3.
Validating Kubernetes cluster......Done Enter IBM api key: XXXXXXXX Validating kubernetes cluster permissions......Done Validating robin cluster yaml......Done Installing Robin operator...........Done Installing Robin cluster............Done Setting up robin client............Done Activate robin license............Required ***** ***** Your ROBIN License is NOT ACTIVATED... ***** Please register at https://get.robin.io/activate ***** to activate your license and access all ROBIN features. ***** $ robin license activate <USERID> Note: You can get your User ID after registering on https://get.robin.io. Above command will only work if the host on which the ROBIN client is running on has an internet connection. If this is not the case please retrieve the license key by using the below link and apply it using the command 'robin license apply <key>'. https://get.robin.io/activate?clusterid=YGVgYGggYWFj.GkhY00fYWBcZ1ccYF8oNF0DQDQ7XEMxPyf1XGFeZlVgYVz5PzU1Qy7xPWjj.XZoclkjXWNcYFwgYWRoJA__ For logging into robin cluster, Default username: admin Default password: Robin123 -
It will take about 10-15 min to install Robin CNS on your cluster.
-
NOTE: If the installation freezes at
Setting up robin client............for a long time, you can run thekubectl describeoroc describecommand given in the next point to verify the status of all the pods. If the status is running, Robin CNS has been installed successfully. -
In new Terminal, run the following command to verify
runningstatus of the robin pods.$ kubectl get pods -n robinio
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE csi-attacher-robin-5b4f68d79b-j4g54 3/3 Running 0 23d csi-nodeplugin-robin-nmgfj 3/3 Running 0 23d csi-nodeplugin-robin-q65z6 3/3 Running 0 23d csi-nodeplugin-robin-q6ww7 3/3 Running 0 23d csi-provisioner-robin-75fd9ff95f-9r6cx 3/3 Running 0 23d csi-resizer-robin-787cd495d5-ncccp 3/3 Running 0 23d csi-snapshotter-robin-0 3/3 Running 0 23d robin-5c5dw 1/1 Running 0 23d robin-85pnq 1/1 Running 0 23d robin-operator-6b94489778-x45xk 1/1 Running 0 23d robin-pjfpq 1/1 Running 0 23d -
You will see all the pods up and running, which confirms the Robin CNS has been installed successfully.
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Also run the
describecommand to verifyReadystatus of thePhasefield to confirm that Robin CNS has been installed successfully.$ kubectl describe robincluster -n robinio
Name: robin Namespace: robinio Labels: app.kubernetes.io/instance=robin app.kubernetes.io/managed-by=robin.io app.kubernetes.io/name=robin Annotations: kubectl.kubernetes.io/ API Version: manage.robin.io/v1 Kind: RobinCluster ... Phase: Ready pod_status: robin-85pnq 10.240.64.4 Running 10.240.64.4 robin-5c5dw 10.240.64.6 Running 10.240.64.6 robin-pjfpq 10.240.64.5 Running 10.240.64.5 ...
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In terminal, run the following command to get the connection command:
$ kubectl describe robincluster -n robinio | grep "kubectl exec"
connect_command: kubectl exec -it robin-85pnq -n robinio -- bash -
Copy the command and paste it in terminal to enter the Robin pod and start accessing the Robin client.
$ kubectl exec -it robin-85pnq -n robinio -- bash -
Notice that your terminal prompt will be changed to the robin pod prompt.
[robinds@kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-0000029e ~]#
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In terminal, under the robin prompt, run the
robin logincommand with default username asadminand password asRobin123:[robinds@kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-0000029e ~]# robin login admin Password: User admin is logged into Administrators tenant [robinds@kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-0000029e ~]# -
You are now logged in to Robin client, now you can activate it with the activation code copied in step 3.2. In terminal run the following command:
[robinds@kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-0000029e ~]# robin license activate <USERID>License has been applied successfully -
At this point, you will have successfully logged into robin client and activated it.
In this section you will learn to install Robin CNS operator on your openshift cluster from Red Hat Marketplace.
-
In terminal, run the following command to create a
robinionamespace in OpenShift and initialize it with IBM Cloud API key secret.$ oc new-project robinio -
Add the IBM Cloud API key copied in step 3 to the
robinionamespace. In terminal run the following command.$ oc create secret generic cloud-cred-secret --from-literal=api_key=<API KEY> -n robinio -
Once the namespace is created and the IBM Cloud API key secret is in place, you can proceed with installing the operator from OpenShift.
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Follow the tutorial to Register your OpenShift cluster on Red Hat Marketplace before you start.
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Once the cluster is registered on RHM, make sure to Replace the worker nodes of your OpenShift cluster by going to Kubernetes cluster dashboard and select the OpenShift cluster that you created. On the left panel select Worker nodes. Select all the nodes and click on Replace. This will take about an hour to replace the nodes.
Note: This replace step is required only for IBM Cloud managed OpenShift cluster, this step may be skipped for AWS or GCP managed OpenShift cluster.
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After the OpenShift cluster is back online, goto the Red Hat Marketplace and search for Robin.
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Select the Robin Cloud Native Storage.
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The Robin Cloud Native Storage product page gives you an overview, documentation, and pricing options associated with the product. Select the Free Trial button.
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Next, the purchase summary will show the Subscription term, with a total cost of $0.00. Click Start trial.
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Visit Workspace > Software to view your list of purchased software.
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Select Robin Cloud Native Storage and then click the Operators tab. Select the Install operator button. Leave the default selection for Update channel and Approval strategy. Select the cluster and namespace scope as
robiniofor the operator and click Install.
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You can check the progress of the installation on your OpenShift cluster. Go to Kubernetes cluster dashboard and select the OpenShift cluster that you created. Click on OpenShift web console to launch the OpenShift console.
-
Under Operators in the left panel, select Installed Operators. Make sure you are in the project
robinioto view the status of the Robin CNS installation.
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Once the status is Succeeded, click on the operator name to open the operator page. Under Details > Provided APIs, click on the Create Instance to create a Robin Cluster.
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In the Create RobinCluster page, select the YAML View.
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In the YAML file, change the
host_typetoibmand add the following key value pairs at the end of the YAML file as shown.cloud_cred_secret: cloud-cred-secret update_etc_hosts: "1"
Note:
update_etc_hosts: "1"is specific only to IBM managed OpenShift cluster. -
Click on Create to create the Robin Cluster.
Note: It will take about 5mins to create the cluster.
-
Once the status of the Robin cluster becomes Ready you have successfully installed Robin CNS on OpenShift.
-
Click on the Robin cluster name to view more details about Robin CNS. Copy the Robin Connect Command and run it in your terminal.
$ kubectl exec -it robin-dzlch -n robinio -- bash -
Notice that your terminal prompt will be changed to the robin pod prompt.
[robinds@kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniodzlch-default-0000029e ~]#
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In terminal, under the robin prompt, run the
robin logincommand with default username asadminand password asRobin123:[robinds@kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniodzlch-default-0000029e ~]# robin login admin Password: User admin is logged into Administrators tenant [robinds@kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniodzlch-default-0000029e ~]# -
At this point, you will have successfully logged into robin client.
Robin discovers disks attached to the nodes and uses them for providing storage to applications. Storage on IKS and ROKS clusters can be provisioned dynamically. You can either use IBM Cloud provided utilities or alternatively you can utilize Robin utility to provision and attach disks in IBM Cloud to use for application deployment
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Robin provides a utility through which it can provision disks of any size, attach them to hosts and discover them automatically on multiple cloud platforms. This enables users to expand the storage available for their cluster with convenience and ease.
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Drive can be created using the command
robin drive create. Explore options for this command usingrobin drive create --help[robinds@kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-0000029e ~]# robin drive create --help usage: robin disk create [-h] [--type TYPE] [--number NUMBER] [--size SIZE] [--iops [100-160000]] [--wait] [--mount-path MOUNT_PATH] hostname positional arguments: hostname Hostname on which the disk(s) will be attached. For appropriate hostnames please check the output of robin host list. optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit --type TYPE GCP valid disks: pd-ssd, pd-standard. AWS valid disks: gp2, io1, st1. Azure valid disks: premium, standard. Anthos valid disks: independent_persistent. IBM valid disks: general-purpose, 5iops-tier, 3iops-tier, custom (must provide --iops for 'custom') --number NUMBER Number of disks to be created. Default value is 1. --size SIZE Specify the size of the disk(s) you want to create in GB. The default value is 500 GB. --iops [100-160000] IOPs for AWS 'io1' disk type and Azure 'ultrassd' disk type. Default value is based on the type of disk. --wait Run this command in the background --mount-path MOUNT_PATH Specify a comma seperated set of mount path(s) for the disk(s) to be created. Note this option is only valid for AWS disks and each specified path must start with '/dev/sd'. -
You will notice that IBM valid disks are
general-purpose,5iops-tier,3iops-tier,custom(must provide --iops for 'custom'). -
The disks are attached to hostnames. You can get hostnames using the below command:
[robinds@kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-0000029e ~]# robin host listId | Hostname | Version | Status | RPool | LastOpr | Roles | Isol Shared Cores | Isol Dedicated Cores | Non-Isol Cores | GPUs | Mem | HDD(#/Alloc/Total) | SSD(#/Alloc/Total) | Pod Usage | Joined Time -------------+--------------------------------------------------------+----------+--------+---------+---------+-------+-------------------+----------------------+----------------+-------+-----------+--------------------+--------------------+-----------+---------------------- 1617705466:1 | kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-0000029e | 5.3.4-75 | Ready | default | ONLINE | M*,S | 0/0/0 | 0/0/0 | 37/3/40 | 0/0/0 | 9G/6G/15G | 3/-/60G | -/-/- | 50/50/100 | 06 Apr 2021 00:38:11 1617705466:2 | kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-000001e1 | 5.3.4-75 | Ready | default | ONLINE | S,M | 0/0/0 | 0/0/0 | 36/4/40 | 0/0/0 | 8G/6G/15G | 2/-/40G | -/-/- | 54/46/100 | 06 Apr 2021 00:38:51 1617705466:3 | kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-000003f7 | 5.3.4-75 | Ready | default | ONLINE | M,S | 0/0/0 | 0/0/0 | 36/4/40 | 0/0/0 | 8G/7G/15G | 2/12G/40G | -/-/- | 55/45/100 | 06 Apr 2021 00:38:55 -
You can provision robin drives for any of the hostnames. Robin recommends atleast 3 drives for each hostnames. In Terminal run the following command to create robin drive.
[robinds@kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-0000029e ~]# robin drive create kube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-0000029e --type general-purpose --number 3 --size 20 -
This command provisions
three20GBdisks of typegeneral-purposeand attach to hostnamekube-c1ima1bd0o105lencd5g-robiniooscl-default-0000029e. Similarly you can provision more drives to the same hostname or different hostnames. -
These disks will be attached automatically and auto discovered by Robin so they will be ready to use straightaway.
In this tutorial, you learnt how to set up Robin CNS for both IKS and ROKS on IBM Cloud. In addition, you also how to provision a disk for the clusters. You are now ready to use Robin CNS to implement your cloud storage solutions.
For further exploration, refer [Robin series link].