Overview

HPE and Red Hat have a long standing partnership to provide jointly supported software, platform and services with the absolute best customer experience in the industry.

Red Hat OpenShift uses open source Kubernetes and various other components to deliver a PaaS experience that benefits both developers and operations. This packaged experience differs slightly on how you would deploy and use the HPE volume drivers and this page serves as the authoritative source for all things HPE primary storage and Red Hat OpenShift.

OpenShift 4

Software deployed on OpenShift 4 follows the Operator pattern. CSI drivers are no exception.

Certified combinations

Software delivered through the HPE and Red Hat partnership follows a rigorous certification process and only qualify what's listed as "Certified" in the below table.

Status Red Hat OpenShift HPE CSI Operator Container Storage Providers
Field Tested5 4.12 EUS3 2.2.0 using Helm All
Field Tested5 4.11 2.2.0 using Helm All
Certified 4.10 EUS3 2.2.1 All
Uncertified2 4.9 (Upgrade path only) - -
Certified 4.8 EUS3 2.1.34, 2.2.1 All
Uncertified2 4.7 (Upgrade path only) - -
Certified 4.6 EUS3 1.4.04, 2.0.04, 2.1.34 All

1 = End of life support per Red Hat OpenShift Life Cycle Policy.
2 = HPE will only be certifying the HPE CSI Operator for Kubernetes on EVEN versions of Red Hat OpenShift (i.e. 4.4, 4.6, etc). The Operator will not go through the Red Hat certification process for MIDDLE releases (i.e. 4.5, 4.7, etc.) and will only be supported as upgrade path to the next EVEN release of Red Hat OpenShift.
3 = Red Hat OpenShift Extended Update Support.
4 = This version is currently uninstallable.
5 = Passes the CSI e2e test suite on the listed CSPs using the unsupported Helm chart install method.

Check this table periodically for future releases.

Pointers

  • Other combinations may work but will not be supported.
  • Both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat CoreOS worker nodes are supported.
  • Instructions on this page only reflect the current stable version of the CSI Operator and OpenShift EUS.

Security model

By default, OpenShift prevents containers from running as root. Containers are run using an arbitrarily assigned user ID. Due to these security restrictions, containers that run on Docker and Kubernetes might not run successfully on Red Hat OpenShift without modification.

Users deploying applications that require persistent storage (i.e. through the HPE CSI Driver) will need the appropriate permissions and Security Context Constraints (SCC) to be able to request and manage storage through OpenShift. Modifying container security to work with OpenShift is outside the scope of this document.

For more information on OpenShift security, see Managing security context constraints.

Note

If you run into issues writing to persistent volumes provisioned by the HPE CSI Driver under a restricted SCC, add the fsMode: "0770" parameter to the StorageClass with RWO claims or fsMode: "0777" for RWX claims.

Limitations

Since the CSI Operator only provides "Basic Install" capabilities. The following limitations apply:

  • The ConfigMap "hpe-linux-config" that controls host configuration is immutable

Deployment

The HPE CSI Operator for Kubernetes needs to be installed through the interfaces provided by Red Hat. Do not follow the instructions found on OperatorHub.io.

Tip

There's a tutorial available on YouTube accessible through the Video Gallery on how to install and use the HPE CSI Operator on Red Hat OpenShift.

Upgrading

In situations where the operator needs to be upgraded, follow the prerequisite steps in the Helm chart on Artifact Hub.

Automatic Updates

Do not under any circumstance enable "Automatic Updates" for the HPE CSI Operator for Kubernetes

Once the steps have been followed for the particular version transition:

  • Uninstall the HPECSIDriver instance
  • Delete the "hpecsidrivers.storage.hpe.com" CRD
    : oc delete crd/hpecsidrivers.storage.hpe.com
  • Uninstall the HPE CSI Operator for Kubernetes
  • Proceed to installation through the OpenShift Web Console or OpenShift CLI

Good to know

Deleting the HPECSIDriver instance and uninstalling the CSI Operator does not affect any running workloads, PersistentVolumeClaims, StorageClasses or other API resources created by the CSI Operator. In-flight operations and new requests will be retried once the new HPECSIDriver has been instantiated.

Prerequisites

The HPE CSI Driver needs to run in privileged mode and needs access to host ports, host network and should be able to mount hostPath volumes. Hence, before deploying HPE CSI Operator on OpenShift, please create the following SecurityContextConstraints (SCC) to allow the CSI driver to be running with these privileges.

Download the SCC to where you have access to oc and the OpenShift cluster:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hpe-storage/co-deployments/master/operators/hpe-csi-operator/deploy/scc.yaml > hpe-csi-scc.yaml

Change my-hpe-csi-operator to the name of the project (e.g. hpe-csi-driver below) where the CSI Operator is being deployed.

oc new-project hpe-csi-driver --display-name="HPE CSI Driver for Kubernetes"
sed -i'' -e 's/my-hpe-csi-driver-operator/hpe-csi-driver/g' hpe-csi-scc.yaml

Deploy the SCC:

oc create -f hpe-csi-scc.yaml
securitycontextconstraints.security.openshift.io/hpe-csi-scc created

Important

Make note of the project name as it's needed for the Operator deployment in the next steps.

OpenShift web console

Once the SCC has been applied to the project, login to the OpenShift web console as kube:admin and navigate to Operators -> OperatorHub.

Search for HPE Search for 'HPE CSI' in the search field and select the non-marketplace version.

Click Install Click 'Install'.

Click Install Select the Namespace where the SCC was applied, select 'Manual' Update Approval, click 'Install'.

Click Approve Click 'Approve' to finalize installation of the Operator

Operator installed The HPE CSI Operator is now installed, select 'View Operator'.

Create a new instance Click 'Create Instance'.

Configure instance Normally, no customizations are needed, click 'Create'.

By navigating to the Developer view, it should now be possible to inspect the CSI driver and Operator topology.

Operator Topology

The CSI driver is now ready for use. Next, an HPE storage backend needs to be added along with a StorageClass.

See Caveats below for information on creating StorageClasses in Red Hat OpenShift.

OpenShift CLI

This provides an example Operator deployment using oc. If you want to use the web console, proceed to the previous section.

It's assumed the SCC has been applied to the project and have kube:admin privileges. As an example, we'll deploy to the hpe-csi-driver project as described in previous steps.

First, an OperatorGroup needs to be created.

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1
kind: OperatorGroup
metadata:
  name: hpe-csi-driver-for-kubernetes
  namespace: hpe-csi-driver
spec:
  targetNamespaces:
  - hpe-csi-driver

Next, create a Subscription to the Operator.

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: hpe-csi-operator
  namespace: hpe-csi-driver
spec:
  channel: stable
  installPlanApproval: Manual
  name: hpe-csi-operator
  source: certified-operators
  sourceNamespace: openshift-marketplace

Next, approve the installation.

oc -n hpe-csi-driver patch $(oc get installplans -n hpe-csi-driver -o name) -p '{"spec":{"approved":true}}' --type merge

The Operator will now be installed on the OpenShift cluster. Before instantiating a CSI driver, watch the roll-out of the Operator.

oc rollout status deploy/hpe-csi-driver-operator -n hpe-csi-driver
Waiting for deployment "hpe-csi-driver-operator" rollout to finish: 0 of 1 updated replicas are available...
deployment "hpe-csi-driver-operator" successfully rolled out

The next step is to create a HPECSIDriver object.

---
apiVersion: storage.hpe.com/v1
kind: HPECSIDriver
metadata:
  name: csi-driver
spec:
  disable:
    nimble: false
    primera: false
    alletra6000: false
    alletra9000: false
  imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
  logLevel: info
  disableNodeConformance: false
  iscsi:
    chapUser: ''
    chapPassword: ''
  registry: quay.io
  kubeletRootDir: "/var/lib/kubelet/"
  disableNodeGetVolumeStats: false
  controller:
    affinity: {}
    labels: {}
    nodeSelector: {}
    tolerations: []
  csp:
    affinity: {}
    labels: {}
    nodeSelector: {}
    tolerations: []
  node:
    affinity: {}
    labels: {}
    nodeSelector: {}
    tolerations: []

The CSI driver is now ready for use. Next, an HPE storage backend needs to be added along with a StorageClass.

Additional information

At this point the CSI driver is managed like any other Operator on Kubernetes and the life-cycle management capabilities may be explored further in the official Red Hat OpenShift documentation.

Uninstall the HPE CSI Operator

When uninstalling an operator managed by OLM, a Cluster Admin must decide whether or not to remove the CustomResourceDefinitions (CRD), APIServices, and resources related to these types owned by the operator. By design, when OLM uninstalls an operator it does not remove any of the operator’s owned CRDs, APIServices, or CRs in order to prevent data loss.

Important

Do not modify or remove these CRDs or APIServices if you are upgrading or reinstalling the HPE CSI driver in order to prevent data loss.

The following are CRDs installed by the HPE CSI driver.

hpecsidrivers.storage.hpe.com
hpenodeinfos.storage.hpe.com
hpereplicationdeviceinfos.storage.hpe.com
hpesnapshotgroupinfos.storage.hpe.com
hpevolumegroupinfos.storage.hpe.com
hpevolumeinfos.storage.hpe.com
snapshotgroupclasses.storage.hpe.com
snapshotgroupcontents.storage.hpe.com
snapshotgroups.storage.hpe.com
volumegroupclasses.storage.hpe.com
volumegroupcontents.storage.hpe.com
volumegroups.storage.hpe.com

The following are APIServices installed by the HPE CSI driver.

v1.storage.hpe.com
v2.storage.hpe.com

Please refer to the OLM Lifecycle Manager documentation on how to safely Uninstall your operator.

Unsupported Helm Chart Install

In the event Red Hat releases a new release of OpenShift between HPE CSI driver releases or if interest arises to run the HPE CSI Driver on an uncertified version of OpenShift, it's possible to install the CSI driver using the Helm chart instead.

It's not recommended to install the Helm chart unless it's listed as "Field Tested" in the support matrix above.

Steps to install.

  • Follow the steps in the prerequisites to apply the SCC in the Namespace (Project) you wish to install the driver.
  • Install the Helm chart with the steps provided on ArtifactHub. Pay attention to which version combination has been field tested.

Unsupported

Understand that this method is not supported by Red Hat and not recommended for production workloads or clusters.