Pre-installation tasks

Introduction

This checklist will help you to gather all the information that is needed for a successful installation. You need to provide the values during the installation process.

Warning:

This checklist is only to be considered complete if you do not deviate from the defaults. For some deviations from the default you will probably need other or more pieces of information.

Obtain the installation package

To obtain files required for upgrading IBM Industry Solutions Workbench:

  • Go to Passport Advantage Online
  • Search for IBM Industry Solutions Workbench
  • Download the presented file, e.g. ibm-industry-solutions-workbench-4.1.1-1-ocp-4.14.tgz. This file contains all container images and accompanying resource files needed for installation on OpenShift 4.14

Verify the installation package (Optional)

Use this section to verify that the IBM Passport Advantage file package is valid and signed by IBM. This step is optional, and if you decide not to verify the package, it will be fully functional.

Before verification, please download the following signature and public key files and place them together with the installation package in the folder where you want to run the shell commands for verification:

Please verify the downloaded installation package file against this signature file and the public key file by using the OpenSSL command. The signature file is first decoded into a new file using base64 before being passed to openssl for verification. In the following replace the placeholder <package filename> with "ibm-industry-solutions-workbench-4.1.1-ocp-4.14.tgz"

###  Convert the signature base64 to bytes
openssl enc -d -A -base64 -in <Package filename>.cosign.sig -out <Package filename>.cosign.sig.decoded

### Verify the signature bytes with openssl
openssl dgst -verify ibm-industry-solutions-workbench.cosign.key -keyform PEM -sha256 -signature <Package filename>.cosign.sig.decoded -binary <Package filename>

Ensure that the output includes the OK response:

Verified OK

Unpack the installation package

Unpack the installation file on the computer from which the installation commands are to be executed:

INSTALLDIR=~/install/
mkdir ${INSTALLDIR}
cd ${INSTALLDIR}
tar xzvf ibm-industry-solutions-workbench-4.1.1-1-ocp-4.14.tgz
cd ${INSTALLDIR}/ibm-industry-solutions-workbench-4.1.1-1-ocp-4.14

Checklist before installation

Keep OpenShift details available:

  • host_domain: The external hostname for the OpenShift cluster, which will be used as a base path for serving components, e.g. apps.openshift-cluster.mydomain.cloud

    • can be retrieved with executing:

      oc get ingresses.config/cluster -o jsonpath={.spec.domain}

Keep details of your private image registry available:

  • url
  • credentials
Tip:

You can either use your own private container image registry, or you can use the internal image registry on the cluster. In this case, a new namespace (project) should be created to host the container images. Both cases, you will need to take note of the registry URL and credentials

Tool Requirements:

  • oc command line tool needs to be installed on your machine

Clock Synchronization

The IBM Industry Solutions Workbench requires that you synchronize the clocks on each node in the cluster. The clocks must be within one second of each other. It is recommended that you use chrony to synchronize your clocks. For more information about setting up chrony, see the user documentation for your operating system.

Certificates

It is recommended to NOT use self-signed certificates. As a feasible solution it might be sufficient to use certificates that are signed by Let's encrypt.

Note:

The line length of the certificates must comply with the standard for PEM messages, with each line containing exactly 64 printable characters except the last line and 64 or fewer printable characters in the last line.