Prerequisites

Required skills

This activities contained here require you to be proficient in working from the command line with a linux shell (Bash, Zsh, etc.) Below is a partial list of activities you should be able to perform.

Copy, move, and rename files
Understand linux file permissions
Edit text files (vi, vim, emacs, etc)
Edit environment variables ($PATH)

Here is a course for learning (or brushing up) on working from the linux command line Linux Command Line Basics

Workstation Setup

Openshift (MacOS/Linux)Openshift (Windows)Kubernetes (MacOS/Linux)Kubernetes (Windows)

Create accounts

You'll need these accounts to use the Developer Tools environment.

GitHub account (public, not enterprise): Create one if you do not have one already. If you have not logged in for a while, make sure your login is working.
IBM Cloud Account: Create one if needed, make sure you can log in.
O'Reilly Account: The account is free and easy to create.
RedHat Account: Needed for OpenShift Local.

Install CLIs and tools

The following is a list of desktop tools required to help with installation and development.

Git Client: Needs to be installed in your development operating system, it comes as standard for Mac OS
IBM Cloud CLI: Required for management of IBM Cloud Account and management of your managed IBM Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift clusters
- Don't install just the IBM Cloud CLI, install the IBM Cloud CLI and Developer Tools
```
curl -sL https://ibm.biz/idt-installer | bash
```

Note

If you log in to the web UI using SSO, you'll need to create an API key for logging into the CLI.

Podman Desktop: Required for building and running container images.
- Installed and running on your local machine

Tekton CLI: Used to help control Tekton pipelines from the command line.

    brew tap tektoncd/tools
    brew install tektoncd/tools/tektoncd-cli

Visual Studio Code: A popular code editor
- You will be required to edit some files, having a good quality editor is always best practice
- Enabling launching VSCode from a terminal
JDK 17 or 21 LTS: Optional installed on your local machine
- Used for SpringBoot content

Create accounts

You'll need these accounts to use the Developer Tools environment.

GitHub account (public, not enterprise): Create one if you do not have one already. If you have not logged in for a while, make sure your login is working.
IBM Cloud Account: Create one if needed, make sure you can log in.
O'Reilly Account: The account is free and easy to create.
RedHat Account: Needed for OpenShift Local.

Cloud Native VM

Use the Cloud Native VM it comes pre-installed with kubernetes and all cloud native CLIs.

Is highly recommended for Windows users to use this VM.

Install CLIs and tools

The following is a list of desktop tools required to help with installation and development.

Git Client: Needs to be installed in your development operating system, it comes as standard for Mac OS
IBM Cloud CLI: Required for management of IBM Cloud Account and management of your managed IBM Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift clusters
- Don't install just the IBM Cloud CLI, install the IBM Cloud CLI and Developer Tools
```
curl -sL https://ibm.biz/idt-installer | bash
```

Note

If you log in to the web UI using SSO, you'll need to create an API key for logging into the CLI.

Podman Desktop: Required for building and running container images.
- Installed and running on your local machine
Tekton CLI: Used to help control Tekton pipelines from the command line.
Visual Studio Code: A popular code editor
- You will be required to edit some files, having a good quality editor is always best practice
- Enabling launching VSCode from a terminal
JDK 17 or 21 LTS: Optional installed on your local machine
- Used for SpringBoot content
OpenShift Local: For running a local OpenShift cluster

Warning

Make sure you have Cisco VPN turned off when using OpenShift Local.

Create accounts

You'll need these accounts to use the Developer Tools environment.

GitHub account (public, not enterprise): Create one if you do not have one already. If you have not logged in for a while, make sure your login is working.
IBM Cloud Account: Create one if needed, make sure you can log in.
O'Reilly Account: The account is free and easy to create.

Install CLIs and tools

The following is a list of desktop tools required to help with installation and development.

Git Client: Needs to be installed in your development operating system, it comes as standard for Mac OS
IBM Cloud CLI: Required for management of IBM Cloud Account and management of your managed IBM Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift clusters
- Don't install just the IBM Cloud CLI, install the IBM Cloud CLI and Developer Tools
```
curl -sL https://ibm.biz/idt-installer | bash
```

!!! Note If you log in to the web UI using SSO, you'll need to create an API key for logging into the CLI.

Podman Desktop: Required for building and running container images.
- Installed and running on your local machine

Tekton CLI: Used to help control Tekton pipelines from the command line.

    brew tap tektoncd/tools
    brew install tektoncd/tools/tektoncd-cli

Visual Studio Code: A popular code editor
- You will be required to edit some files, having a good quality editor is always best practice
- Enabling launching VSCode from a terminal
JDK 17 or 21 LTS: Optional installed on your local machine
- Used for SpringBoot content
Minikube: Follow the instructions for your Operating System.

Warning

Make sure you have Cisco VPN turned off when using minikube.

Create accounts

You'll need these accounts to use the Developer Tools environment.

GitHub account (public, not enterprise): Create one if you do not have one already. If you have not logged in for a while, make sure your login is working.
IBM Cloud Account: Create one if needed, make sure you can log in.
O'Reilly Account: The account is free and easy to create.

Cloud Native VM

Use the Cloud Native VM it comes pre-installed with kubernetes and all cloud native CLIs.

Is highly recommended for Windows users to use this VM.

Install CLIs and tools

The following is a list of desktop tools required to help with installation and development.

Git Client: Needs to be installed in your development operating system, it comes as standard for Mac OS
IBM Cloud CLI: Required for management of IBM Cloud Account and management of your managed IBM Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift clusters
- Don't install just the IBM Cloud CLI, install the IBM Cloud CLI and Developer Tools
```
curl -sL https://ibm.biz/idt-installer | bash
```

Note

If you log in to the web UI using SSO, you'll need to create an API key for logging into the CLI.

Podman Desktop: Required for building and running container images.
- Installed and running on your local machine

Tekton CLI: Used to help control Tekton pipelines from the command line.

    brew tap tektoncd/tools
    brew install tektoncd/tools/tektoncd-cli

Visual Studio Code: A popular code editor
- You will be required to edit some files, having a good quality editor is always best practice
- Enabling launching VSCode from a terminal
JDK 17 or 21 LTS: Optional installed on your local machine
- Used for SpringBoot content
Minikube: Follow the instructions for your Operating System.

Warning

Make sure you have Cisco VPN turned off when using minikube.

Check Your Setup

After installing the required CLIs and tools, you can run a system check script to verify which dependencies you have installed and which ones are missing.

Download System Check Script

Run the script after downloading:

chmod +x system-check.sh
./system-check.sh

Tip

The script checks for: IBM Cloud CLI, Git, OpenShift Local (crc), Minikube, Docker, Podman, kubectl, oc, Tekton CLI, and ArgoCD CLI. You don't need all of these - just the ones relevant to the labs you plan to complete.

Environment Setup

MiniKubeOpenShift LocalIKSOpenShift on IBM Cloud (4.x)

Verify your cluster has 4GB+ memory and Kubernetes 1.28+
```
minikube config view
```
Set the driver (use docker for most systems, or qemu for Apple Silicon Macs)
```
minikube config set driver docker
```

In case memory is not set, or need to increase set the memory and recreate the VM

minikube config set memory 4096
minikube config set kubernetes-version v1.31.0
minikube delete
minikube start

Kubernetes should be v1.28+
```
kubectl version
```

Make sure OpenShift Local is installed. Check out the OpenShift Local Page.

** Setup CRC **

crc setup

** Start CRC **

crc start

Login to IBM Cloud with your IBM ID.
Click "Create Resource" and search for "kubernetes service".
Select the tile for "Kubernetes Service" and do the following:
Select the "Free Cluster" plan.
Name your cluster.
Select "Create" at the bottom right of the screen.
Once the Cluster is provisioned, Click on the "Connect via CLI" in the top right corner.
Follow the instructions to connect and you are set to go.

In this approach you share an OpenShift cluster on IBM Cloud with other bootcamp attendees.
Considering 10-15 attendees we recommend a cluster with 3 worker nodes (each 8 vCPUs + 32GB RAM - b3c.8x32).
Ask your IBM cloud account owner to provide access to an OpenShift cluster.
In addition to the IBM Cloud CLI also install the OpenShift Origin CLI to be able to execute all commands.
Open your OpenShift web console from within your IBM cloud account, select your profile and choose "copy login command" to retrieve an access token for the login.

Login with your OpenShift Origin CLI.

oc login --token=<token> --server=<server-url>:<server-port>

Create your own project / namespace in OpenShift that you will leverage across all labs.
```
oc new-project <dev-your_initials>
```
Validate in the OpenShift web console that your project has been created (Administrator view -> Home -> Projects)

Next Steps

Once Setup is complete, you can now begin reading about Cloud Native by clicking the link, or the Next button below.