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OpenShift Development | Create custom release

Openshift installation (installer) will retrieve a release image to install different components on the cluster.

By default the installer will retrieve the default release image based on the installer version.

It's possible to override the release image used by installer, and also possible to create your owns - used to test specific components.

The steps below will cover:

  • steps to create a custom release
  • steps to override a release image when installing a cluster

Create custom release

Visit the public mirror and choose the release you want to use:

In this example we will use the release latest-4.10 dev-preview on arch x86_64. You can see the manifest here.

Set the release image digest:

RELEASE_IMAGE="registry.ci.openshift.org/ocp/release"
RELEASE_VERSION="4.13.0-0.nightly-2023-03-11-033820"
RELEASE_DIGEST=$(oc adm release info -a ${PULL_SECRET} "${RELEASE_IMAGE}:${RELEASE_VERSION}" -o json | jq -r .digest)
OCP_RELEASE_BASE="${RELEASE_IMAGE}@${RELEASE_DIGEST}"

CUSTOM_IMAGE_NAMESPACE="quay.io/mrbraga"
NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE="docker.io/mtulio/ocp-release"

Before proceed you should have those environment variables set:

  • PULL_SECRET : credentials obtained on Red Hat OpenShift portal.
  • OCP_RELEASE_BASE : base release image (with digest) obtained on the step above
  • CUSTOM_IMAGE_NAMESPACE : base repository that will be saved new release. Eg: quay.io/mtulio
  • NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE : image that will be saved new release. Example: quay.io/mtulio/release-image
cat <<-EOF
  PULL_SECRET=${PULL_SECRET}
  OCP_RELEASE_BASE=${OCP_RELEASE_BASE}
  CUSTOM_IMAGE_NAMESPACE=${CUSTOM_IMAGE_NAMESPACE}
  NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE=${NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE}
EOF

Create the custom release overriding the machine-api-operator image with yours*.

This step is considering that you already build and upload the custom image for machine-api-operator to ${NEW_RELEASE_REGISTRY}/machine-api-operator:latest. See more to build custom components here.

oc adm release new \
  -a ${PULL_SECRET} \
  --from-release ${OCP_RELEASE_BASE} \
  --to-image-base=${NEW_RELEASE_REGISTRY}/origin-cluster-version-operator:latest \
  --to-image "${NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE}:latest" \
    machine-config-operator=${NEW_RELEASE_REGISTRY}/machine-config-operator:latest \
    cluster-kube-controller-manager-operator=${NEW_RELEASE_REGISTRY}/cluster-kube-controller-manager-operator:latest

$(which time) -v oc adm release new -n origin \
  --server https://api.ci.openshift.org \
  -a ${PULL_SECRET} \
  --from-release ${OCP_RELEASE_BASE} \
  --to-image "${NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE}:latest" \
  machine-config-operator=${CUSTOM_IMAGE_NAMESPACE}/machine-config-operator:latest \
  cluster-kube-controller-manager-operator=${CUSTOM_IMAGE_NAMESPACE}/cluster-kube-controller-manager-operator:latest \
  cluster-cloud-controller-manager-operator=${CUSTOM_IMAGE_NAMESPACE}/cluster-cloud-controller-manager-operator:latest


podman pull "${NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE}:latest"
TS=$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)
podman tag "${NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE}:latest" "${NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE}:${RELEASE_VERSION}-custom-$TS" &&\
  podman push "${NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE}:${RELEASE_VERSION}-custom-$TS"

podman tag "${NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE}:latest" "${NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE}:${RELEASE_VERSION}_platexternal-kcmo-mco-3cmo" &&\
  podman push "${NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE}:${RELEASE_VERSION}_platexternal-kcmo-mco-3cmo"

Done, the new release with image for `` is available to be used by installer. Check the payload:

oc adm release info -a ${PULL_SECRET} "${NEW_RELEASE_IMAGE}:latest"

The set the OPENSHIFT_INSTALL_RELEASE_IMAGE_OVERRIDE with image digest and run the installer.

Steps to override installer release image

To override the installer release image, just set the environment variable `` and run the installer:

export OPENSHIFT_INSTALL_RELEASE_IMAGE_OVERRIDE="quay.io/<repo>/origin-release@<digest>"
${INSTALLER} create cluster --log-level debug --dir ${INSTALL_DIR}

The warning message should be displayed: 

WARNING Found override for release image. Please be warned, this is not advised