In the previous post we discussed how the installation process changed from OpenShift 3 to OpenShift 4, with many tasks moved from being a part of the installer to being post-install or “day 2” tasks. OpenShift 4 also introduced Operators as the core management paradigm for many features and functionality. This means that a substantial amount of customization to the cluster is done after initial deployment.

This change provides some interesting benefits. For example, because the post-install configuration is done using standard Kubernetes YAML objects instead of Ansible playbooks, I can now revision control each aspect of my deployment in a very granular fashion and adopt a GitOps management philosophy if desired. Additionally, it is easy to have a single “standard” deployment for the initial install, but then I can quickly customize the cluster for a specific purpose by choosing which of the revision controlled YAML files to apply. Since the configuration is applied by Operators, I do not have to be aware of specific dependencies; instead, I can rely on OpenShift itself to manage that for me.

That being said, we understand that it is a change from before, and one of the most frequent requests is for a guide that helps to organize all of that configuration that might need to be done post-install. With that in mind, the list below is an incomplete collection of potential tasks. All of this information is sourced from the documentation, but it has been organized to make it easier for the admin team to discover and apply configuration that is relevant.

Very few, if any, of these are mandatory; rather, they are items that improve the usability, security, and functionality of your deployment so that you, and your applications, can use the full potential of OpenShift.

Compute

Network

Storage

Making Rational Changes

OpenShift has an almost dizzying number of features and capabilities, which can be configured, customized, adjusted, and otherwise “fiddled with” endlessly. Fortunately, the defaults are sane and safe for almost all instances, so you can choose which are the most important for you and your applications to adjust, while trusting that the others are working just fine.

This article has covered a large swath of the options, but they are changing and growing with each release. It is important to keep up with the changes using the release notes and to periodically review the documentation, as a whole, for new and interesting capabilities that are relevant to you.