Setting Up OpenShift Local on Windows 11 with Hyper-V

In this set of articles, I will walk through the process of setting up an OpenShift Local environment on Windows 11 using Hyper-V. This setup will serve as a precursor to more advanced projects, such as creating and managing containerized applications within the same namespace. How the pods communicate in the namespace and how to setup ingress to the pods.

Hardware Requirements

To get started, OpenShift Local says you need 4 CPUs, 9Gbs of memory and 35Gb of storage space. This will not work.  Below is the virtual settings I used on my Hyper-V setup to get OpenShift Local to work.  You will need Windows 11 PRO because the Home edition is not supported.

• 4 virtual CPU
• 10.5 GB memory minimum – best to use at least 12GB
• 35 GB of storage space
  • This is the minimum.  I would recommend more space if you are going to do more than what I am demonstrating.
  • I would do this by issuing crc config commands before doing the ‘crc start’.

OpenShift Local Requirements

OpenShift Local is a minimal OpenShift Container Platform 4 cluster that you can run locally on your development workstation. It is perfect for development and testing use cases.

 Here are the steps to install and set up OpenShift Local:

1. Download OpenShift Local: Visit the Red Hat Developer website and download the OpenShift Local installer.
2. Install Hyper-V: Ensure Hyper-V is enabled on your Windows 11 system. You can do this by running the following PowerShell command:
   powershell
   ‘Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-Management-PowerShell’
3. Setup External Virtual Switch for your VMs
4. Run the Installer: Unzip the downloaded installer and run the setup. Follow the prompts to complete the installation3.
5. Start OpenShift Local: Use the crc start command to start the OpenShift Local cluster. This will take a few minutes to initialize4.

Creating and Managing Applications

Once your OpenShift Local setup is complete, you can start creating and managing applications. Here’s a high-level overview of the process:

1. Create Two Programs: Develop two separate programs that will reside on images in the same namespace.
2. Deploy the Programs: Use oc commands to deploy the programs as pods in the OpenShift Local cluster.
3. Set Up Ingress and Communication: Configure ingress to allow external access to your applications and set up communication between the pods.
   1. For the Ingress controller, I will be setting up the Nginx Operator

By following these steps, you can set up an OpenShift Local environment on Windows 11 with Hyper-V, creating a foundation for more advanced containerized applications. Stay tuned for future articles where we will dive deeper into creating and managing these applications.