Deploying OpenShift on Proxmox with Terraform Automation

This gist is a companion to the blogpost published at: https://carlosedp.medium.com/deploying-openshift-on-proxmox-with-terraform-automation-86f888c8d483

Cluster Specifications

Component	Masters	Workers
CPU Cores	10	8
RAM	18 GB	16 GB
Main Disk	100 GB	100 GB
Extra Disk	-	50 GB (for LVM storage for application data)

Network Layout

Hostname	IP Address	MAC Address	Role
ocp-master-1	192.168.1.32	BC:24:11:44:22:32	Master
ocp-master-2	192.168.1.33	BC:24:11:44:22:33	Master
ocp-master-3	192.168.1.34	BC:24:11:44:22:34	Master
ocp-worker-1	192.168.1.35	BC:24:11:44:22:35	Worker
ocp-worker-2	192.168.1.36	BC:24:11:44:22:36	Worker

• API VIP: 192.168.1.31
• Ingress VIP: 192.168.1.30

DNS Configuration

Configure your DNS server with the following records pointing to your cluster:

Here I defined that my cluster will be published at the domain ocp.internal.example.com. Adjust accordingly to your domain.

; API and API-INT records (point to API VIP)
api.ocp.internal.example.com.     A    192.168.1.31
api-int.ocp.internal.example.com. A    192.168.1.31

; Wildcard for applications (point to Ingress VIP)
*.apps.ocp.internal.example.com.  A    192.168.1.30

; Individual node records
ocp-master-1.ocp.internal.example.com. A 192.168.1.32
ocp-master-2.ocp.internal.example.com. A 192.168.1.33
ocp-master-3.ocp.internal.example.com. A 192.168.1.34
ocp-worker-1.ocp.internal.example.com. A 192.168.1.35
ocp-worker-2.ocp.internal.example.com. A 192.168.1.36

Creating API Users for Terraform

Connect to your Proxmox host via SSH or console and create the required users and roles:

# Create a role with necessary privileges for Terraform
pveum role add terraform-role -privs "VM.Allocate VM.Clone VM.Config.CDROM VM.Config.CPU VM.Config.Cloudinit VM.Config.Disk VM.Config.HWType VM.Config.Memory VM.Config.Network VM.Config.Options VM.Audit VM.PowerMgmt Datastore.AllocateSpace Datastore.Audit Sys.Audit Pool.Allocate Sys.Console Sys.Modify VM.Migrate SDN.Use VM.GuestAgent.Audit VM.GuestAgent.Unrestricted Pool.Audit"

# Create the Terraform user and assign the role
pveum user add terraform@pve
pveum aclmod / -user terraform@pve -role terraform-role

# Create an API token for Terraform (save the output!)
pveum user token add terraform@pve terraform-token --privsep=0

Deployment

Step 1: Initialize and Apply Terraform

# Set your install directory
export INSTALL_DIR=ocp-proxmox

# Initialize Terraform
terraform init

# Review the plan
terraform plan -out plan

# Apply the configuration
terraform apply plan

Terraform will:

1. Check that all required tools are installed
2. Generate the agent ISO from your configuration
3. Upload the ISO to Proxmox
4. Create and start all VMs

Step 2: Monitor Installation Progress

In a separate terminal, monitor the installation so the installer can do the cluster setup and finalization:

export KUBECONFIG=$INSTALL_DIR/auth/kubeconfig
./openshift-install agent wait-for install-complete --dir=$INSTALL_DIR

Make Masters Schedulable (Optional)

If you want to run workloads on master nodes (useful for smaller clusters):

oc patch schedulers.config.openshift.io cluster --type merge \
  --patch '{"spec":{"mastersSchedulable": true}}'