Update Portworx file system dependencies

The Portworx Enterprise container ships with an archive containing precompiled modules for the kernels which were available at the time the container was released. If a kernel is released after a Portworx release, a pre-compiled version of the modules will not exist in the container. If Portworx is deployed in a setup which does not have access to mirrors.portworx.com to download the latest modules (i.e. an air-gapped deployment), then Portworx will fail to come up.

Alternatively, in such deployments, you can publish the updated containers to internal container repositories where Portworx can download the new kernel modules.

Regardless of whether your cluster accesses the updated container through mirrors.portworx.com or an internal container registry, you can use that container to update your nodes’ Portworx installation to include the latest batch of precompiled modules. Perform the update by running a DaemonSet in the cluster where Portworx has been installed.

Instructions below will allow you to get a manifest that installs a Daemonset in the cluster for this.

portworx/px-lib:pxfslibs-updater

If using an internal registry the image should be pulled from the external registry, tagged and push to the internal registry:

docker pull portworx/px-lib:pxfslibs-updater
docker tag portworx/px-lib:pxfslibs-updater <internal registry>/portworx/px-lib:pxfslibs-updater
docker push <internal registry>/portworx/px-lib:pxfslibs-updater

In the above command “podman” can be used instead of “docker”.

curl -fsL -o pxlibupdate-spec.yaml "https://install.portworx.com?comp=pxlibupdate"

If using an internal registry the curl command above, used to generated/download the update spec can be modified to include a parameter to specify the internal registry name. This will pre-append the internal registry to image name in the spec. So the URL: “https://install.portworx.com?comp=pxlibupdate&reg=” will set the spec to download the image “/portworx/px-lib:pxfslibs-mver10-update”.

Then apply the spec.

kubectl apply -f pxlibupdate-spec.yaml

The update is deployed as a daemonset. Once it is successfully started, a restart of Portworx will be required, and it will use the updated archive.

To restart PX, label all your Kubernetes nodes as below.

kubectl label nodes --all px/service=restart --overwrite

The DaemonSet above will update the pre-compiled module archives within the Portworx install location on the node (for example, /opt/pwx).

Note that this process assumes that Portworx is already installed since it will only update an existing installation. The existing installation’s version will be checked for compatibility with the update container, and if it is not compatible, then the update will not be done.

Update on an IBM Cloud environment

To update Portworx filesystem dependencies on an IBM Cloud environment, perform the following steps:

1. Download the pxlibupdate-spec.yaml file:

   curl -fsL -o pxlibupdate-spec.yaml "https://install.portworx.com?comp=pxlibupdate"

2. Edit the downloaded YAML file:

   sed -i -e "s#image: portworx/px-lib:pxfslibs-updater#image: icr.io/ext/portworx/px-lib:pxfslibs-updater#g" pxlibupdate-spec.yaml
   sed -i -e '/- key: node-role.kubernetes.io/master/d' pxlibupdate-spec.yaml
   sed -i -e '/operator: DoesNotExist/d' pxlibupdate-spec.yaml

   NOTE: If you are using the Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud (IBM ROKS) environment, append the following additional environmental variable:

   sed -i -e MIRRORS_SERVER=https://px-mirror.storage.cloud.ibm.com

3. Apply the edited YAML file:

   kubectl apply -f pxlibupdate-spec.yaml

4. Verify that all pxlibupdate pods are running:

   kubectl get pods -nkube-system -lname=px-libs-update

   NAME                   READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   px-libs-update-m8jvs   1/1     Running   0          42s
   px-libs-update-mgmcp   1/1     Running   0          42s
   px-libs-update-qt44w   1/1     Running   0          42s

5. Run the following command to restart all Portworx pods:

   kubectl label nodes --all px/service=restart --overwrite 

   Wait for a few minutes for the Portworx pods to restart. You will notice that Portworx is deployed with the latest kernel version.