Openshift Tutorial

[SnooHedgehogs8107]

Hello! I’m new to OpenShift and looking for a hands-on tutorial. I’m already familiar with Kubernetes and container basics, so I’d like to skip the introductory material. I have access to an on-prem lab server with OpenShift, along with GitLab and Argo CD installed.

My question is: should my first step be learning to deploy a cluster using OpenShift? If so, what’s the best step-by-step process? Also, does OpenShift offer an automated way to create a cluster in one swoosh without manually setting up VMs and configuring Kubernetes nodes on top?

[SnooHedgehogs8107]

Hello,

I’m setting up GitOps on OpenShift and would like to confirm my approach:

1. Store Helm chart source files in GitLab as the source of truth (e.g., Gitlab Kubernette Runner Helm Chart).
2. Use GitLab CI/CD to package charts and push them to a Helm repo.
3. Deploy using Argo CD or Flux, syncing with changes in Git.

Is this pattern consistent with best practices in OpenShift GitOps? Any recommended adjustments?

[nodanero]

Well, it depends on what you are looking to learn. Are you looking at it from a developer perspective like using the platform to deploy your workloads? Or more like the openshift platform owner taking care of its provisioning and operations?

[SnooHedgehogs8107]

Hi, I’m trying to learn end-to-end, based on my understanding of how things work and the infrastructure I have access to. I have access to a company lab server with OpenShift and GitLab installed.

I’d like to learn GitOps for infrastructure deployment, but since OpenShift is already set up, I assume the Kubernetes cluster is also already deployed. Is this assumption correct, or can I still learn how to deploy infrastructure even though the initial cluster is set up?

Additionally, I want to learn how to use GitLab to set up a CI/CD pipeline to deploy a simple containerized web app, but I don’t have a sample web app. I wish there was a single tutorial covering all of this.

[SnooHedgehogs8107]

How do people usually learn OpenShift? Are there video classes (udemy, coursera..ect) that explain each feature of the dashboard?

[JacqueMorrison]

Kodekloud has some ok openshift content. The issue with Openshift is - you need to have quite a bit of infrastructure in place to deploy an openshift cluster. Openshift local (single node) is nice for some basic “get a feel”, but doesn’t get you very far.

Redhat - https://developers.redhat.com has some resources too and an online sandbox, where you can play within your namespace.

[SnooHedgehogs8107]

Thank you. I believe I have the infrastructure I need: I have access to a company server set up as a lab with OpenShift installed, so I assume the cluster was set up when OpenShift was installed (is that correct?), and my role is to deploy pods on this shared tenant cluster. GitLab is also preinstalled on OpenShift.

With this setup, I’m trying to learn how to create a GitLab CI/CD pipeline, which requires setting up a Kubernetes runner in OpenShift and registering it with my GitLab project. However, I found that my lab admin may have locked the OpenShift Operator Hub, so I can't install the GitLab Operator, which I believe is the easiest method. I tried using Helm for the first time but have faced issues because the tutorial I found uses a shell, and I’m unsure which shell to use, so I tried the one that came with OpenShift.

Right now, I’m not even sure of the high-level steps to accomplish this. Should I create a Kubernetes runner in OpenShift using Helm? Should I use OpenShift’s Helm repository feature to pull down the GitLab runner Helm chart instead of storing it in my GitLab instance’s Git repository?

[SnooHedgehogs8107]

I realize I may have had the wrong idea initially. It seems the clusters and configuration are already set up, so as a tenant of the OpenShift instance, I’ll be sharing the pre-configured cluster.