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Split RHCOS into layers #1637

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jlebon
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@jlebon jlebon commented Jun 7, 2024

This enhancement describes improvements to the way RHEL CoreOS (RHCOS) is built so that it will better align with image mode for RHEL, all while also providing benefits on the OpenShift side. Currently, RHCOS is built as a single layer that includes both RHEL and OCP content. This enhancement proposes splitting it into three layers. Going from bottom to top:

  1. the (RHEL-versioned) bootc layer (i.e. the base rhel-bootc image shared with image mode for RHEL)
  2. the (RHEL-versioned) CoreOS layer (i.e. coreos-installer, ignition, afterburn, scripts, etc...)
  3. the (OCP-versioned) node layer (i.e. kubelet, cri-o, etc...)

The terms "bootc layer", "CoreOS layer", and "node layer" will be used throughout this enhancement to refer to these.

The details of this enhancement focus on doing the first split: creating the node layer as distinct from the CoreOS layer (which will not yet be rebased on top of a bootc layer). The two changes involved which most affect OCP are:

  1. bootimages will no longer contain OCP components (e.g. kubelet, cri-o, etc...)
  2. the rhel-coreos payload image will be built in Prow/Konflux (as any other)

Tracked at: https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPSTRAT-1190

@openshift-ci openshift-ci bot added the do-not-merge/work-in-progress Indicates that a PR should not merge because it is a work in progress. label Jun 7, 2024
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openshift-ci bot commented Jun 7, 2024

Skipping CI for Draft Pull Request.
If you want CI signal for your change, please convert it to an actual PR.
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Awesome work on this!

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openshift/kubernetes has a specific workflow where jobs will build a new kubelet to use during the job run. This helps with rebase work and validating new kubernetes versions coming into OpenShift. We should preserve this workflow when migrating to RHCOS layering.

/cc @soltysh

@openshift-ci openshift-ci bot requested a review from soltysh June 12, 2024 16:00
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jlebon commented Jun 12, 2024

openshift/kubernetes has a specific workflow where jobs will build a new kubelet to use during the job run. This helps with rebase work and validating new kubernetes versions coming into OpenShift. We should preserve this workflow when migrating to RHCOS layering.

/cc @soltysh

I don't expect any issues there. That workflow should keep working as is.

@jlebon jlebon force-pushed the pr/split-rhcos-into-layers branch from f79684b to a6a7438 Compare June 20, 2024 21:15
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zaneb commented Jun 24, 2024

/cc @cybertron @andfasano

@openshift-ci openshift-ci bot requested review from andfasano and cybertron June 24, 2024 11:59
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soltysh commented Jun 26, 2024

I don't expect any issues there. That workflow should keep working as is.

I believe this was the pre-req work done in openshift/kubernetes#1805, which ensured we won't have problems in o/k.

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jlebon commented Jul 16, 2024

OK, so let's resume the bootstrapping issue. Restating some of the things from above and from researching further:

  • We can't run the kubelet in a container because it's no longer supported.
  • The delta between kubelet and podman play is too large to make the latter a feasible replacement.
  • systemctl soft-reboot is not in RHEL9.
  • In the AI/ABI/SNO cases, bootstrapping happens in the live environment where e.g. rebooting is not possible.
  • I considered cobbling something around kexec, but in the limit, there are potential issues with kexec and hardware reliability, as well as how it meshes with Secure Boot.

What I'm playing with now is basically to have a special node-image-pivot.target that the node isolates to first. There, we pull the node image, unencapsulate it, check out its contents, and then mount over /usr and do a rough 3-way /etc merge. We then isolate back to multi-user.target to continue with the bootstrapping process.

This is in effect like a more aggressive bootc/rpm-ostree apply-live, though that doesn't currently work in live environments. (Though even in the non-live case, there are some issues there that would need to be resolved.) It's close to what OKD currently does when using FCOS live media today, though using the ostree stack and isolating targets should make this more robust.

WIP for this in openshift/installer#8742.

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@jlebon That sounds like it might work. Where will the Kubelet be coming from? An OpenShift built image?

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zaneb commented Jul 17, 2024

Won't doing systemctl isolate node-image-pivot.targethave the effect of stopping the assisted/agent services that we need to avoid stopping?

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jlebon commented Jul 17, 2024

@jlebon That sounds like it might work. Where will the Kubelet be coming from? An OpenShift built image?

From the node image (i.e. for OCP, the rhel-coreos image in the release payload).

Won't doing systemctl isolate node-image-pivot.targethave the effect of stopping the assisted/agent services that we need to avoid stopping?

No. The system boots into node-image-pivot.target first. Any other service hooked into multi-user.target aren't started until after we've finished the live pivot.

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The system boots into node-image-pivot.target first.

Via a generator overriding default.target?

"Open Questions" below).
- Work with ART to adjust how they determine if the RHCOS images are up to date.
Currently, they expect both RHEL and OCP content in those images, but that content will
be split across separate images now.
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wouldn't the node image built on top of the base image have all the contents?

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It would. I'm not sure on the details there of how the ART machinery works, but my understanding is that RHCOS builds currently get triggered as part of a larger pipeline that also builds e.g. the kubelet RPM. But with this change, there's no point in rebuilding RHCOS if just OCP packages changed. Instead, a new layered build should happen.

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mrunalp commented Dec 4, 2024

Left some nits but looking good overall.

jlebon added a commit to jlebon/release that referenced this pull request Dec 4, 2024
As part of openshift/enhancements#1637, we want
to start building the node image as a layered build on top of an RHCOS
base image.

For now, promote this image as `node`. In the future, when we're
ready to switch CI over to the node image, it'll take the place of
`rhel-coreos`.
This enhancement describes improvements to the way RHEL CoreOS (RHCOS)
is built so that it will better align with image mode for RHEL, all
while also providing benefits on the OpenShift side. Currently, RHCOS
is built as a single layer that includes both RHEL and OCP content. This
enhancement proposes splitting it into three layers. Going from bottom
to top:
1. the (RHEL-versioned) bootc layer (i.e. the base rhel-bootc image
   shared with image mode for RHEL)
2. the (RHEL-versioned) CoreOS layer (i.e. coreos-installer, ignition,
   afterburn, scripts, etc...)
3. the (OCP-versioned) node layer (i.e. kubelet, cri-o, etc...)

The terms "bootc layer", "CoreOS layer", and "node layer" will be used
throughout this enhancement to refer to these.

The details of this enhancement focus on doing the first split: creating
the node layer as distinct from the CoreOS layer (which will not yet be
rebased on top of a bootc layer). The two changes involved which most
affect OCP are:
1. bootimages will no longer contain OCP components (e.g. kubelet,
   cri-o, etc...)
2. the `rhel-coreos` payload image will be built in Prow/Konflux (as
   any other)

Tracked at: https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPSTRAT-1190
@jlebon jlebon force-pushed the pr/split-rhcos-into-layers branch from 0f934fb to 13ae158 Compare December 4, 2024 19:17
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jlebon commented Dec 4, 2024

Updated for comments!

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/lgtm

@openshift-ci openshift-ci bot added the lgtm Indicates that a PR is ready to be merged. label Dec 4, 2024
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[APPROVALNOTIFIER] This PR is APPROVED

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@jlebon: all tests passed!

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@openshift-merge-bot openshift-merge-bot bot merged commit bc9a6e5 into openshift:master Dec 4, 2024
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jlebon added a commit to jlebon/release that referenced this pull request Dec 5, 2024
As part of openshift/enhancements#1637, we want
to start building the node image as a layered build on top of an RHCOS
base image.

For now, promote this image as `node`. In the future, when we're
ready to switch CI over to the node image, it'll take the place of
`rhel-coreos`.
jlebon added a commit to jlebon/release that referenced this pull request Dec 5, 2024
These images are built as part of the CoreOS pipeline. They will be used
as bases for building the node images containing OCP-versioned content
for CI.

Part of openshift/enhancements#1637.
openshift-merge-bot bot pushed a commit to openshift/release that referenced this pull request Dec 11, 2024
These images are built as part of the CoreOS pipeline. They will be used
as bases for building the node images containing OCP-versioned content
for CI.

Part of openshift/enhancements#1637.
jlebon added a commit to jlebon/release that referenced this pull request Dec 11, 2024
As part of openshift/enhancements#1637, we want
to start building the node image as a layered build on top of an RHCOS
base image.

For now, promote this image as `node`. In the future, when we're
ready to switch CI over to the node image, it'll take the place of
`rhel-coreos`.
jlebon added a commit to jlebon/machine-config-operator that referenced this pull request Dec 16, 2024
Part of https://issues.redhat.com/browse/COS-3086.

Hopefully this is the last time we have to do this! (This should become
obsoleted by openshift/enhancements#1637).
jlebon added a commit to jlebon/machine-config-operator that referenced this pull request Dec 16, 2024
Part of https://issues.redhat.com/browse/COS-3086.

Hopefully this is the last time we have to do this! (This should become
obsoleted by openshift/enhancements#1637).
yingzhanredhat pushed a commit to yingzhanredhat/release that referenced this pull request Dec 18, 2024
These images are built as part of the CoreOS pipeline. They will be used
as bases for building the node images containing OCP-versioned content
for CI.

Part of openshift/enhancements#1637.
jlebon added a commit to jlebon/release that referenced this pull request Dec 19, 2024
As part of openshift/enhancements#1637, we want
to start building the node image as a layered build on top of an RHCOS
base image.

For now, promote this image as `node`. In the future, when we're
ready to switch CI over to the node image, it'll take the place of
`rhel-coreos`.
jlebon added a commit to jlebon/release that referenced this pull request Dec 19, 2024
As part of openshift/enhancements#1637, we want
to start building the node image as a layered build on top of an RHCOS
base image.

For now, don't promote this image. In the future, when we're ready to
switch CI over, it'll take the place of `rhel-coreos`.
openshift-merge-bot bot pushed a commit to openshift/release that referenced this pull request Dec 19, 2024
* openshift/os: start building node image

As part of openshift/enhancements#1637, we want
to start building the node image as a layered build on top of an RHCOS
base image.

For now, don't promote this image. In the future, when we're ready to
switch CI over, it'll take the place of `rhel-coreos`.

* openshift/os: add an e2e-aws test

Now that we're building the node image in CI, we can run cluster tests
with it. Let's start simple for now with just the standard e2e-aws test.
Note that it doesn't run by default. This means that we can request it
on specific PRs only using `/test`.
jlebon added a commit to jlebon/installer that referenced this pull request Dec 20, 2024
As per openshift/enhancements#1637, we're trying
to get rid of all OpenShift-versioned components from the bootimages.

This means that there will no longer be `oc`, `kubelet`, or `crio`
binaries for example, which bootstrapping obviously relies on.

Instead, now we change things up so that early on when booting the
bootstrap node, we pull down the node image, unencapsulate it (this just
means convert it back to an OSTree commit), then mount over its `/usr`,
and import new `/etc` content.

This is done by isolating to a different systemd target to only bring
up the minimum number of services to do the pivot and then carry on
with bootstrapping.

This does not incur additional reboots and should be compatible
with AI/ABI/SNO. But it is of course, a huge conceptual shift in how
bootstrapping works. With this, we would now always be sure that we're
using the same binaries as the target version as part of bootstrapping,
which should alleviate some issues such as AI late-binding (see e.g.
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/MGMT-16705).

The big exception of course being the kernel. Relatedly, note we do
persist `/usr/lib/modules` from the booted system so that loading kernel
modules still works.

To be conservative, the new logic only kicks in when using bootimages
which do not have `oc`. This will allow us to ratchet this in more
easily.

Down the line, we should be able to replace some of this with
`bootc apply-live` once that's available (and also works in a live
environment). (See containers/bootc#76.)

For full context, see the linked enhancement and discussions there.
jlebon added a commit to jlebon/assisted-installer that referenced this pull request Dec 21, 2024
As per openshift/enhancements#1637, we're trying
to get rid of all OpenShift-versioned components from the bootimages.

This means that there will no longer be oc, kubelet, or crio
binaries for example, which bootstrapping obviously relies on.

To adapt to this, the OpenShift installer now ships a new
`node-image-overlay.service` in its bootstrap Ignition config. This
service takes care of pulling down the node image and overlaying it,
effectively updating the system to the node image version.

Here, we accordingly also adapt assisted-installer so that we run
`node-image-overlay.service` before starting e.g. `kubelet.service` and
`bootkube.service`.

See also: openshift/installer#8742
yingzhanredhat pushed a commit to yingzhanredhat/release that referenced this pull request Dec 24, 2024
These images are built as part of the CoreOS pipeline. They will be used
as bases for building the node images containing OCP-versioned content
for CI.

Part of openshift/enhancements#1637.
yingzhanredhat pushed a commit to yingzhanredhat/release that referenced this pull request Dec 24, 2024
* openshift/os: start building node image

As part of openshift/enhancements#1637, we want
to start building the node image as a layered build on top of an RHCOS
base image.

For now, don't promote this image. In the future, when we're ready to
switch CI over, it'll take the place of `rhel-coreos`.

* openshift/os: add an e2e-aws test

Now that we're building the node image in CI, we can run cluster tests
with it. Let's start simple for now with just the standard e2e-aws test.
Note that it doesn't run by default. This means that we can request it
on specific PRs only using `/test`.
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