Assisted on-prem deprecation

The Assisted Installer's on-premises deployment feature in the DCI Agent has been removed. This feature previously allowed deploying Assisted Installer components within a pod on a local server. Users can continue using the Assisted Installer SaaS through the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console. This document outlines the changes, their impact, and steps to adapt your deployments.

This removal represents a breaking change that may significantly impact DCI users. The ABI is the recommended method to continue the deployments and the inventory files are almost compatible.

What changed

Setting assisted as the install_type is deprecated.
The use_agent_based_installer: true configuration is deprecated.
boot_iso_url must now be specified in the inventory.
Support for provisioning infrastructure (VMs, networking) in KVM-libvirt environments has been removed.
The assisted pod on the bastion host is no longer required.

Identifying Affected Deployments

Your deployments may be affected if: 1. Jobs fail early with the error: "Assisted on-prem is deprecated." 1. Your cluster inventory includes the following: yaml install_type: assisted use_agent_based_installer: false

Fixing the Jobs

Update the inventory files:
Set install_type: abi in the inventory files.
Remove use_agent_based_installer: true from the inventory files
Clean up unused pods and containers: Shell $ sudo podman rm http_store -f $ sudo podman pod rm http_store_pod -f $ sudo podman rm -f assisted-db service next-step-runner assisted-installer $ sudo podman pod rm assisted-installer
Add the following variable to the inventory: yaml boot_iso_url: "{{ discovery_iso_server }}:{{ hostvars['http_store']['http_port'] }}/{{ discovery_iso_name }}"`
For KVM-libvirt deployments, provision infrastructure manually or via a playbook like shown below. You can use the inventory_playbook variable to customize the target infrastructure using existing settings.

provision-abi-vms.yml ```yaml
- name: Process KVM nodes hosts: bastion tasks:
  - name: Process KVM nodes block:
    - name: Process kvm nodes ansible.builtin.include_role: name: redhatci.ocp.process_kvm_nodes when: (setup_vms | default(true))
- name: Provision VMS hosts: vm_hosts vars: SETUP_VMS: "{{ setup_vms | default((kvm_nodes | default([])) | length | int >= 1) }}" tasks:
  - name: Provision VMS block:
    - name: Destroy vms ansible.builtin.include_role: name: redhatci.ocp.destroy_vms when: SETUP_VMS | bool tags:
      - destroy_vms
    - name: Setup vm host network ansible.builtin.include_role: name: redhatci.ocp.setup_vm_host_network when: (SETUP_VM_BRIDGE | default(SETUP_VMS)) | bool
    - name: Configure firewall for vm_bridge_zone when:
      - (SETUP_VM_BRIDGE | default(SETUP_VMS)) | bool
      - vm_bridge_zone is defined become: true block:
      - name: Move bridge to designated firewall zone community.general.nmcli: conn_name: "{{ vm_bridge_name }}" state: present zone: "{{ vm_bridge_zone }}"
      - name: Create Iptables NAT chain ansible.builtin.iptables: table: nat chain: POSTROUTING source: '{{ machine_network_cidr }}' destination: '! {{ machine_network_cidr }}' jump: MASQUERADE protocol: all comment: Ansible NAT Masquerade
      - name: Manage IPv4 forwarding ansible.posix.sysctl: name: net.ipv4.ip_forward value: '1' state: present reload: true
    - name: Create vms vars: create_vms_disable_secure_boot: "{{ disable_secure_boot | default(false) | bool }}" ansible.builtin.include_role: name: redhatci.ocp.create_vms when: SETUP_VMS | bool tags:
      - setup_vms
- name: Setup DNS Records hosts: dns_host gather_facts: "{{ (setup_dns_service | default(true)) | bool }}" vars: SETUP_DNS_SERVICE: "{{ setup_dns_service | default(true) }}" domain: "{{ cluster_name + '.' + base_dns_domain }}" tasks:
  - name: Setup DNS Records block:
    - name: Insert DNS records ansible.builtin.include_role: name: redhatci.ocp.insert_dns_records when: SETUP_DNS_SERVICE | bool
    - name: Use /etc/hosts ansible.builtin.copy: content: | # /etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d/02-add-hosts.conf # By default, the plugin does not read from /etc/hosts. # This forces the plugin to slurp in the file. # # If you didn't want to write to the /etc/hosts file. This could # be pointed to another file. # addn-hosts=/etc/hosts dest: /etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d/02-add-hosts.conf mode: '0644' become: true
    - name: Remove expand-hosts entry ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d/dnsmasq.{{ cluster_name }}.conf state: absent regexp: ^expand-hosts become: true
    - name: "Restart NetworkManager" ansible.builtin.service: name: NetworkManager state: restarted become: true
    - name: Validate dns records ansible.builtin.include_role: name: redhatci.ocp.validate_dns_records
- name: Setup NTP hosts: ntp_host gather_facts: "{{ (setup_ntp_service | default(true)) | bool }}" vars: SETUP_NTP_SERVICE: "{{ setup_ntp_service | default(true)}}" tasks:
  - name: Setup NTP block:
    - name: Setup NTP ansible.builtin.include_role: name: redhatci.ocp.setup_ntp when: SETUP_NTP_SERVICE | bool
- name: Deploy sushy tools hosts: vm_hosts vars: SETUP_SUSHY_TOOLS: "{{ setup_sushy_tools | default(setup_vms | default(true)) }}" tasks:
  - name: Setup sushy tools block:
    - name: Setup sushy tools vars: fetched_dest: "{{ '~/clusterconfigs' | expanduser }}-{{ cluster_name }}" ansible.builtin.include_role: name: redhatci.ocp.setup_sushy_tools when: SETUP_SUSHY_TOOLS | bool
- name: Clean-up nodes - Mainly Baremetal use cases hosts: bastion tasks:
  - name: Clean-up nodes block:
    - name: Erase bootloader to prevent old OS to boot delegate_to: "{{ item }}" ansible.builtin.shell: | if grep 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS' /etc/os-release; then for disk in /dev/sd?; do dd if=/dev/zero of=$disk bs=512 count=1 done fi when:
      - dci_erase_bootloader_on_disk|default(False)|bool
      - dci_main is not defined or dci_main == 'install' with_items: "{{ groups['masters'] + groups['workers'] | default([]) }}" ignore_unreachable: true ignore_errors: true
    - name: Empty Console log files if present ansible.builtin.command: dd if=/dev/null of="{{ item }}" with_fileglob:
      - "/var/consoles/{{ cluster }}/{{ cluster }}*" when:
      - cluster is defined ignore_errors: true become: true ... ```