VMware vSphere: install Centos 8 and run minishift#
Many companies are running OpenShift on top of VMware vSphere to deploy, run and manage their container lifecycle. OpenShift uses the container orchestration platform Kubernetes to do so.
Especially when developing applications for OpenShift or if you just want to run a local test environment to play around, you should definitely check out minishift.
This blog posts covers the creation of a virtual machine and the installation of the Centos 8 operating system as well as the first steps installing minishift.
Creation of the virtual machine#
You can pretty much create a completely standardized VM and select Centos 8 (x64) as the operating system. As we want to run it based on KVM in that VM, you need to export the hardware virtualization feature.
Installation of Centos 8#
We don’t dig into the installation of Centos 8 itself, as its pretty straightforward. You can simply download the dvd image here, connect it and run the installer:
http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/8/isos/x86_64/CentOS-8-x86_64-1905-dvd1.iso
First start Centos 8#
The real interesting part starts with the first configuration steps of your fresh installed operating system. Especially if you’re not used to RedHat OS or used to older versions, there are some changes in the command line.
Setup your network
set your hostname
nmtui-hostname# configure your network nmtui-edit# connect your network nmtui-connect
Update packages
dnf check-update dnf update dnf clean all# install some basic tools dnf install nano vim wget curl net-tools lsof bash-completion
Create a new user account with sudo permissions
useradd user passwd user usermod -aG wheel user
Install kvm#
Start by configuring a bridge network
create and edit the following file
vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-br0# file content DEVICE=br0 TYPE=Bridge IPADDR=192.168.10.100 NETMASK=255.255.255.0 GATEWAY=192.168.10.1 DNS=192.168.10.1 ONBOOT=yes BOOTPROTO=static DELAY=0
and the default network adapter
create or change the interface config (check the interface name, i. e. ens192)
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ens192# file content DEVICE=eth0 TYPE=Ethernet BOOTPROTO=none BRIDGE=br0 NAME=ens192 DEVICE=ens192 ONBOOT=yes
Reboot the system and it should come up with a bridge network and the configured ip address.
install required packages
dnf install qemu-kvm qemu-img libvirt virt-install libvirt-client# check the kvm module lsmod | grep kvm# start and enable the libvirtd systemctl start libvirtd systemctl enable libvirtd
That’s it, KVM is installed and should be up and running.
Preparation#
As virtualbox is used by default, we need to install the minishift KVM driver first:
sudo usermod -a -G libvirtd $(whoami) newgrp libvirt curl -L https://github.com/dhiltgen/docker-machine-kvm/releases/download/v0.10.0/docker-machine-driver-kvm-centos7 -o docker-machine-driver-kvm sudo mv docker-machine-driver-kvm /usr/local/bin/docker-machine-driver-kvm sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-machine-driver-kvm
Then start the default network
sudo virsh net-start default sudo virsh net-autostart default
Installation#
Check the latest release and change the release number accordingly:
https://github.com/minishift/minishift/releases/latest
export VER=“1.34.1” curl -L https://github.com/minishift/minishift/releases/download/v$VER/minishift-$VER-linux-amd64.tgz -o minishift-$VER-linux-amd64.tgz tar xvf minishift-$VER-linux-amd64.tgz# copy the executable to /usr/local/bin sudo mv minishift-$VER-linux-amd64/minishift /usr/local/bin # check the version minishift version
First start#
start minishift
minishift start# get minishift console url minishift console: url# stop minishift minishift stop
The last message should show the console url that can be opened using a browser
Server Information … OpenShift server started.The server is accessible via web console at: https://192.168.42.144:8443/console
Install cli (oc)#
To control and manage Openshift using the command line, you should install the oc command as well. The oc command is already integrated and you can simply copy it into your default path, like /usr/local/bin
sudo cp ~/.minishift/cache/oc/v3.11.0/linux/oc /usr/local/bin
oc commands#
check if oc is working: oc version
login as administrator: oc login -u system:admin
check your running configuration: oc config view
Next steps#
You should now have a running installation and the oc command should give you meaningful responses. Within a next blog post we’re going to cover steps like kubectl installation, addon installation and running your first application.
