Option 1a: Mirroring catalogs to a private registry with a bastion server

You can use a bastion host to mirror the catalogs to a private registry for an airgap deployment.

About this task

The bastion host must be connected to both the private registry and the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cluster. When you mirror the images, you must run the oc mirror commands on the bastion host. The IBM Catalog Management plug-in or ibm-pak uses File-based catalogs (FBC) to mirror all the catalogs. The FBC is in JSON or YAML format that contains information that is needed to install an operator into the OpenShift Container Platform .

Note: Releases with interim fixes are packaged in archives with a new minor version. The version numbers follow the release.major.minor standard. For example, the first interim fix for 23.0.2 is packaged in the archive ibm-cp-automation-5.1.1.tgz.

Procedure

Set the environment variables and authenticate the registries.
1. Set the environment variable $TARGET_REGISTRY by running the following command.
```
export TARGET_REGISTRY=<target-registry>
```
  The <target-registry> refers to the registry (fully qualified hostname and port) where the images are mirrored to and accessed by the OpenShift Container Platform cluster. For example: localhost.localdomain:5000 or 172.16.0.10:5000.
2. Set the following environment variables with the installer image name and the version.
```
export CASE_NAME=ibm-cp-automation
export CASE_VERSION=5.1.0
```
3. Run the following command to set the preferred tool parameter in the YAML file to oc-mirror.
```
oc ibm-pak config mirror-tools --enabled oc-mirror
```
4. Authenticate the registries.
  You must store authentication credentials for all the Cloud Pak for Business Automation source Docker registries. The following registries require authentication:
  - cp.icr.io
  - registry.redhat.io
  - registry.access.redhat.com
  If you plan to run Podman as the non-root user, see Basic Setup and Use of Podman in a Rootless environment.
  Set the environment variable XDG_RUNTIME_DIR by running the following commands:
```
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/${UID}
export REGISTRY_AUTH_FILE=$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/containers/auth.json
```
  where ${UID} is the user id of the current user. Make sure that the directory /run/user/${UID} exists and the current user must have write permission.
  Note: Run the following command as the non-root user if you do not want to use sudo podman:
  mkdir -p /run/user/<ID of non-root> && chown <non-root-user>:<non-root-group> /run/user/<ID of non-root>
  If you are using Podman, run the following command to configure credentials for all target registries that require authentication. You must run the command separately for each registry.
```
export REGISTRY_AUTH_FILE=<path to the file that has the auth credentials generated on podman login>
podman login cp.icr.io
podman login <TARGET_REGISTRY>
```
  If you are using docker, run the following command to configure credentials for all target registries that require authentication. You must run the command separately for each registry.
```
export REGISTRY_AUTH_FILE=<path to the file that has the auth credentials generated on docker login>
docker login cp.icr.io
docker login <TARGET_REGISTRY>
```
  Important: When you log in to cp.icr.io, you must specify the user as cp and the IBM entitlement key as the password. For example:
```
podman login cp.icr.io
Username: cp
Password: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Login Succeeded!
```
  The password can be copied from the IBM container library. You can add --tls-verify=false to the command, if you see "cert error" messages.
  If you export REGISTRY_AUTH_FILE=~/.ibm-pak/auth.json, and then run the podman login command, you can see that the file is populated with registry credentials.
  If you use docker login, the authentication file is typically located in $HOME/.docker/config.json on Linux or %USERPROFILE%/.docker/config.json on Windows. After you run the docker login command, you can export REGISTRY_AUTH_FILE to point to that location. For example, on Linux you can run the following command:
```
export REGISTRY_AUTH_FILE=$HOME/.docker/config.json
```

Run the following command to generate mirror manifests to be used when mirroring the catalog to the target registry. The $TARGET_REGISTRY refers to the registry where the catalogs are mirrored to and accessed by the OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

oc ibm-pak generate mirror-manifests $CASE_NAME $TARGET_REGISTRY \
  --version $CASE_VERSION

Important: The generate mirror-manifests command provides an output that lists the command for mirroring. Save the command for later use in step 3.

The following example shows sample output.

oc ibm-pak generate mirror-manifests ibm-cp-automation --version 5.1.0 docker-na-public.artifactory.swg-devops.com/ecm-containerization-docker-local/cp4ba-2302
ibm-cloud-native-postgresql-4.14.0+20230614.093000  done
ibm-licensing-4.2.0  done
ibm-cp-common-services-4.2.0  done
ibm-cs-flink-1.3.14  done
ibm-cs-mongodb-4.2.0  done
ibm-cs-elastic-1.3.14  done
ibm-cp-automation-5.1.0  ●∙∙  13s
ibm-events-operator-4.8.0  done
ibm-cert-manager-4.2.0  done
ibm-cs-iam-4.2.0  done
ibm-zen-3.0.2+20230922.110438  done
ibm-cs-commonui-4.2.0  done
ibm-bts-bundle-1.0.20  done
ibm-cp-fncm-case-1.8.0  done
Generating mirror manifests of CASE: ibm-cp-automation, version: 5.1.0 is complete

Next steps

- To mirror the catalog:

oc mirror --config /root/airgap-3.0/.ibm-pak/data/mirror/ibm-cp-automation/5.1.0/image-set-config.yaml docker://docker-na-public.artifactory.swg-devops.com/ecm-containerization-docker-local/cp4ba-2302 --dest-skip-tls --max-per-registry=6

A new directory $IBMPAK_HOME/.ibm-pak/mirror is created when you issue the oc ibm-pak generate mirror-manifests command. The mirror directory stores the catalog-sources.yaml, image-content-source-policy.yaml, and image-set-config.yaml files.

Tip: If you are using a Red Hat® Quay.io registry and need to mirror the images to a specific organization in the registry, you can set the target to that organization. Specify the organization name in the generate mirror-manifests command:

export ORGANIZATION=<your-organization> \
oc ibm-pak generate mirror-manifests $CASE_NAME $TARGET_REGISTRY/$ORGANIZATION \
   --version $CASE_VERSION

Restriction: Currently, you cannot select the images to mirror by their target architecture because image registries do not support sparse manifests (manifests that reference image digests outside of the package).

However, you can use image groups for the mirror-images action to mirror a subset of the images. You can use the --filter option to limit what images are mirrored for Cloud Pak for Business Automation capability specific images. By selecting any specified filter all the dependency foundational services images and other dependencies are also mirrored.

The following table provides the image groups for each capability.

Table 1. Groups for mirroring a subset of images
Target capabilities	Image groups, including operator-related images
Automation Decision Services	ibmcp4baProd,ibmcp4baADSImages,ibmcp4baBANImages,ibmcp4baBASImages,ibmcp4baAAEImages,ibmEdbStandard
Automation Document Processing	ibmcp4baProd,ibmcp4baADPImages,ibmcp4baFNCMImages,ibmcp4baBANImages,ibmcp4baBASImages,ibmcp4baAAEImages,ibmEdbStandard
Automation Workstream Services	ibmcp4baProd,ibmcp4baBAWImages,ibmcp4baPFSImages,ibmcp4baFNCMImages,ibmcp4baBANImages,ibmcp4baBASImages,ibmcp4baAAEImages,ibmEdbStandard
Business Automation Application	ibmcp4baProd,ibmcp4baBASImages,ibmcp4baAAEImages,ibmEdbStandard
Business Automation Workflow	ibmcp4baProd,ibmcp4baBAWImages,ibmcp4baFNCMImages,ibmcp4baBANImages,ibmcp4baBASImages,ibmcp4baAAEImages,ibmEdbStandard,ibmcp4baUMSImages Note: To install Process Federation Server with Business Automation Workflow, add ibmcp4baPFSImages to the list of groups.
Process Federation Server	ibmcp4baProd,ibmcp4baPFSImages,ibmcp4baAAEImages Note: To enable Workplace in the Common UI console, add ibmcp4baBANImages,ibmEdbStandard to the list of groups.
IBM FileNet® Content Manager	ibmcp4baProd,ibmcp4baFNCMImages,ibmcp4baBANImages,ibmcp4baAAEImages,ibmEdbStandard
Operational Decision Manager	ibmcp4baProd,ibmcp4baODMImages,ibmcp4baBASImages,ibmcp4baAAEImages,ibmEdbStandard
Workflow Process Service	ibmcp4baProd,ibmcp4baAAEImages,ibmcp4baBASImages,ibmcp4baWFPSImages,ibmEdbStandard Note: To install Process Federation Server with Workflow Process Service Runtime, add ibmcp4baPFSImages to the list of groups. To enable Workplace in the Common UI console, add ibmcp4baBANImages to the list of groups.
Business Automation Insights standalone	ibmcp4baProd,ibmcp4baBAIImages,ibmEdbStandard

Note:

If Business Automation Insights (BAI) is needed for FileNet Content Manager, Operational Decision Manager, Business Automation Workflow, or Workflow Process Service, then add ibmcp4baBAIImages and ibmEdbStandard to the list of groups.
All the images in the groups are pulled irrespective of architecture.

For example, to download FNCM images from CP4BA, and all the dependent product images, run the following command.

oc ibm-pak generate mirror-manifests $CASE_NAME $TARGET_REGISTRY \
  --version $CASE_VERSION \
  --filter ibmcp4baProd,ibmcp4baFNCMImages,ibmcp4baBANImages,ibmcp4baAAEImages,ibmEdbStandard

The $IBMPAK_HOME/.ibm-pak directory structure is built over time as you save CASEs and mirror. The following tree shows an example of the $IBMPAK_HOME/.ibm-pak directory structure:

tree ~/.ibm-pak
/root/.ibm-pak
├── config
│   └── config.yaml
├── data
│   ├── cases
│   │   └── ibm-cp-automation
│   │       └── 5.1.x
│   │           ├── XXXXX
│   │           ├── XXXXX
│   └── mirror
│       └── ibm-cp-automation
│           └── 5.1.x
│               ├── catalog-sources.yaml
│               ├── image-content-source-policy.yaml
│               └── image-set-config.yaml
└── logs
    └── oc-ibm_pak.log

Run the command generated in step 2 to mirror the catalogs.

Note: By default the oc mirror command mirrors all the images from all channels in the CP4BA multi-pattern catalog and CP4BA FNCM catalog. You can edit the $IBMPAK_HOME/.ibm-pak/data/mirror/ibm-cp-automation/5.1.0/image-set-config.yaml file to remove the OLM channels and keep only the v23.2 channel. This is only applicable for new installations.

The following is a sample of image-set-config.yaml:

- name: ibm-cp4a-operator
      channels:
      - name: v21.3
      - name: v22.1
      - name: v22.2
      - name: v23.1
      - name: v23.2

The following is an example command.

oc mirror --config /root/cp4ba/.ibm-pak/data/mirror/ibm-cp-automation/5.1.0/image-set-config.yaml docker://$TARGET_REGISTRY/cp4ba --dest-skip-tls --max-per-registry=6

You must run the command on the host that is connected to both the local Docker registry and the OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

The command does not produce any console logs for about 6 - 8 minutes as it prepares the list from the CASE package. If you want, you can add verbose (-v) to the command with possible values of 1 to 9.

The following command can be used to see all the available options.

oc mirror --help

Based on the number and size of the images to mirror, the oc mirror command can take a considerable amount of time. If you are running the command on a remote system, run the command in the background with the nohup POSIX command so that it does not stop if the user logs out. The following command starts the mirroring process in the background and writes the log to a cp4ba-510.txt file.

nohup oc mirror --config /root/cp4ba/.ibm-pak/data/mirror/$CASE_NAME/$CASE_VERSION/image-set-config.yaml docker://$TARGET_REGISTRY/cp4ba-2301 --dest-skip-tls --max-per-registry=6 > /opt/cp4ba-510.txt 2>&1 &

The following example shows sample output.

nohup: ignoring input
Logging to .oc-mirror.log
Checking push permissions for docker-na-public.artifactory.swg-devops.com
Creating directory: oc-mirror-workspace/src/publish
Creating directory: oc-mirror-workspace/src/v2
Creating directory: oc-mirror-workspace/src/charts
Creating directory: oc-mirror-workspace/src/release-signatures
No metadata detected, creating new workspace
1145 related images processed in 1m2.231903162s
Writing image mapping to oc-mirror-workspace/operators.1697865931/manifests-ibm-cp-automation-catalog/mapping.txt
57 related images processed in 6.853202235s
Writing image mapping to oc-mirror-workspace/operators.1697865931/manifests-ibm-fncm-catalog/mapping.txt
--
--
--
info: Mirroring completed in 1h11m19.09s (4.185MB/s)
Rendering catalog image "docker-na-public.artifactory.swg-devops.com/ecm-containerization-docker-local/cp4ba510-1025/root/ibm-cp-automation-catalog:9c5d8c" with file-based catalog
Rendering catalog image "docker-na-public.artifactory.swg-devops.com/ecm-containerization-docker-local/cp4ba510-1025/root/ibm-fncm-catalog:c54f63" with file-based catalog
Writing image mapping to oc-mirror-workspace/results-1698276172/mapping.txt
Writing CatalogSource manifests to oc-mirror-workspace/results-1698276172
Writing ICSP manifests to oc-mirror-workspace/results-1698276172

Update the global image pull secret for your Red Hat OpenShift cluster to have authentication credentials in place to pull images from your $TARGET_REGISTRY as specified in the image-content-source-policy.yaml file. For more information, see Updating the global cluster pull secret.

Run the following command to create ImageContentsourcePolicy.

oc apply -f $IBMPAK_HOME/.ibm-pak/data/mirror/$CASE_NAME/$CASE_VERSION/image-content-source-policy.yaml

Verify that the ImageContentsourcePolicy resource is created.
```
oc get imageContentSourcePolicy
```
Verify your cluster node status.
```
oc get MachineConfigPool -w
```
After the ImageContentsourcePolicy and global image pull secret are applied, the configuration of your nodes is updated sequentially. Wait until all the MachineConfigPools are updated before you move on to the next step.
Create a project for the CASE commands (cp4ba is an example) by running the following commands. Before you run the command in this step, you must be logged in to your OpenShift cluster.
```
export NAMESPACE=cp4ba
oc new-project $NAMESPACE
```

Optional: If you use an insecure registry, you must add the target registry to the cluster insecureRegistries list.

oc patch image.config.openshift.io/cluster \
  --type=merge -p '{"spec":{"registrySources":{"insecureRegistries":["'${TARGET_REGISTRY}'"]}}}'

What to do next

You can now go ahead and install the Cloud Pak operator. For more information, see Option 2: Installing the Cloud Pak catalog and an operator instance.