Module 2: Container Connector in ActionΒΆ

This section of the lab will cover creating OpenShift resources that the F5 Container Connector will process and use to update the BIG-IP configuration and leverages the work you did in the previous sections.

The Container Connector watches for events being generated by the Openshift API server and takes action when it sees an OpenShift ConfigMap or Route resource that has an F5-specific label defined. The Container Connector parses the ConfigMap or Route resource and updates the BIG-IP configuration to match the desired state as defined by those resources.

In addition to watching and responding to events in real time, the Container Connector periodically queries the OpenShift API for the current status and updates the BIG-IP as needed. This interval (verify-interval) is 30 seconds by default but is a startup value that can be modified.

An instance of the Container Connector can watch for changes in all namespaces (projects), a single namespace or a discrete list of namespaces. Additionally, an instance of the Container Connector is configured to make configuration changes in a single non-Common BIG-IP partition.

OpenShift runs on top of Kubernetes and the same Container Connector works for both, but many of the Container Connector features apply to both while some apply only to OpenShift, like Routes, while others, like Ingress, apply only to Kubernetes.

You can find detailed information about configuring, deploying and using the F5 Container Connector as well as configuration options for ConfigMaps and Routes https://clouddocs.f5.com/containers/v2/#

Additionally, you can get more detailed information about an OpenShift command by using oc <command> -help. So, for example, if you wanted to find out more about the oc create command, you would do the following:

oc create -help

In the following labs, you will create the following OpenShift resource types: