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Prerequisites

Required skills

The labs assume you're comfortable working at the command line in a Linux-style shell (Bash, Zsh or similar). You should be able to:

  • Navigate directories and copy, move and rename files
  • Understand Linux file permissions
  • Edit text files with a terminal or graphical editor
  • Set environment variables and understand $PATH

If you need a refresher, try The Linux command line for beginners.

Windows users

Use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL 2) with an Ubuntu distribution. All commands in the bootcamp are written for a Bash-compatible shell, and they work unchanged in WSL.

Accounts

Account Used for
GitHub Forking the bootcamp repository in the Argo CD and Tekton labs, and hosting your own code
Quay.io Pushing container images in the container labs
Red Hat Developer OpenShift Local and the Developer Sandbox (free)

Tools

Tool Purpose Required?
Git Source control Yes
Podman or Podman Desktop Building and running containers. Docker also works. Yes
OpenShift CLI (oc) Working with OpenShift. It includes all kubectl functionality. Yes
Tekton CLI (tkn) Tekton Lab For the CI lab
Argo CD CLI (argocd) Argo CD Lab For the CD lab
Visual Studio Code Editing code and YAML. Add the Red Hat YAML extension for Kubernetes schema validation. Recommended
kubectl Only needed if you use a non-OpenShift cluster Optional

With Homebrew:

brew install git podman openshift-cli tektoncd-cli argocd
brew install --cask podman-desktop visual-studio-code
podman machine init && podman machine start

Install Git and Podman with your distribution's package manager, for example on Fedora or RHEL:

sudo dnf install -y git podman

Then download oc from the OpenShift mirror (openshift-client-linux-*.tar.gz), and tkn and argocd from their release pages linked in the table. Extract each binary into a directory on your PATH, such as ~/.local/bin.

Inside your WSL Ubuntu shell:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y git podman

Then download the Linux builds of oc, tkn and argocd, as described in the Linux tab. Alternatively, install Podman Desktop for Windows, which manages a Podman machine in WSL for you.

Check your setup

Download and run the system check script. It reports which tools are installed and where to get the missing ones:

Download System Check Script 

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

Get a cluster

The labs are written for Red Hat OpenShift 4.x. Lab Environments shows which environment each lab needs, and has a one-command local cluster for the Kubernetes labs. Choose one of these options:

OpenShift Local runs a single-node OpenShift cluster on your laptop. It supports macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), Windows and Linux.

  • Resources: 4 CPU cores, about 11 GB of free memory, and 35 GB of disk
  • Setup: download the installer and your pull secret from the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console, then run:
crc setup
crc start                  # paste your pull secret when prompted
eval $(crc oc-env)         # put the bundled oc on your PATH
crc console --credentials  # shows the oc login commands for developer and kubeadmin

Log in as kubeadmin to install the operators needed by the Tekton and Argo CD labs.

The Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift is a free, hosted OpenShift environment. It needs nothing but a browser and the oc CLI.

  1. Sign in with your Red Hat account and start the sandbox.
  2. In the web console, click your user name > Copy login command, then run the oc login command it shows.
  3. You get a pre-created project. Use it instead of running oc new-project in the labs.

You aren't a cluster administrator in the Sandbox, so you can't install operators or create extra projects.

Your instructor may provide a shared OpenShift cluster for the class.

  1. Open the web console URL you were given, click your user name > Copy login command, and run the oc login --token=... --server=... command.
  2. Create projects with your initials as a prefix to avoid name clashes, for example oc new-project jd-lab1.

Labs 1–10 and the container labs also work on upstream Kubernetes, for example kind running on Podman:

brew install kind            # or see the kind install docs
KIND_EXPERIMENTAL_PROVIDER=podman kind create cluster --name bootcamp

Use kubectl in place of oc, and kubectl create namespace in place of oc new-project. Lab 11 (Routes) and the OpenShift-specific parts of the Image Registry, Tekton and Argo CD labs need OpenShift.

Verify that you're connected:

oc whoami
oc version

Next steps

Once your setup is complete, start with Cloud Native concepts, or go straight to the labs.