Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Adding kernel arguments to nodes

In some special cases, you can add kernel arguments to a set of nodes in your cluster to customize the kernel behavior to meet specific needs you might have.

You should add kernel arguments with caution and a clear understanding of the implications of the arguments you set.

Improper use of kernel arguments can result in your systems becoming unbootable.

Examples of kernel arguments you could set include:

nosmt: Disables symmetric multithreading (SMT) in the kernel. Multithreading allows multiple logical threads for each CPU. You could consider nosmt in multi-tenant environments to reduce risks from potential cross-thread attacks. By disabling SMT, you essentially choose security over performance.
enforcing=0: Configures Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) to run in permissive mode. In permissive mode, the system acts as if SELinux is enforcing the loaded security policy, including labeling objects and emitting access denial entries in the logs, but it does not actually deny any operations. While not supported for production systems, permissive mode can be helpful for debugging.

Disabling SELinux on RHCOS in production is not supported. After SELinux has been disabled on a node, it must be re-provisioned before re-inclusion in a production cluster.

See Kernel.org kernel parameters for a list and descriptions of kernel arguments.

In the following procedure, you create a MachineConfig object that identifies:

A set of machines to which you want to add the kernel argument. In this case, machines with a worker role.
Kernel arguments that are appended to the end of the existing kernel arguments.
A label that indicates where in the list of machine configs the change is applied.

Prerequisites

You have cluster-admin privileges.
Your cluster is running.

Procedure

List existing MachineConfig objects for your Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cluster to determine how to label your machine config:

$ oc get MachineConfig

Example output

NAME                                               GENERATEDBYCONTROLLER                      IGNITIONVERSION   AGE
00-master                                          52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
00-worker                                          52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
01-master-container-runtime                        52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
01-master-kubelet                                  52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
01-worker-container-runtime                        52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
01-worker-kubelet                                  52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
99-master-generated-registries                     52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
99-master-ssh                                                                                 3.2.0             40m
99-worker-generated-registries                     52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
99-worker-ssh                                                                                 3.2.0             40m
rendered-master-23e785de7587df95a4b517e0647e5ab7   52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
rendered-worker-5d596d9293ca3ea80c896a1191735bb1   52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m

Create a MachineConfig object file that identifies the kernel argument (for example, 05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive.yaml)
```
apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
kind: MachineConfig
metadata:
  labels:
    machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: worker
  name: 05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive
spec:
  kernelArguments:
    - enforcing=0
```
where:

machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role

Specifies a label to apply changes to specific nodes.

name

Specifies a name to identify where it fits among the machine configs (05) and what it does (adds a kernel argument to configure SELinux permissive mode).

kernelArguments

Specifies the exact kernel argument as enforcing=0.

Create the new machine config:

$ oc create -f 05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive.yaml

Check the machine configs to see that the new one was added:

$ oc get MachineConfig

Example output

NAME                                               GENERATEDBYCONTROLLER                      IGNITIONVERSION   AGE
00-master                                          52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
00-worker                                          52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
01-master-container-runtime                        52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
01-master-kubelet                                  52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
01-worker-container-runtime                        52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
01-worker-kubelet                                  52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
05-worker-kernelarg-selinuxpermissive                                                         3.5.0             105s
99-master-generated-registries                     52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
99-master-ssh                                                                                 3.2.0             40m
99-worker-generated-registries                     52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
99-worker-ssh                                                                                 3.2.0             40m
rendered-master-23e785de7587df95a4b517e0647e5ab7   52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m
rendered-worker-5d596d9293ca3ea80c896a1191735bb1   52dd3ba6a9a527fc3ab42afac8d12b693534c8c9   3.5.0             33m

Check the nodes:

$ oc get nodes

Example output

NAME                           STATUS                     ROLES    AGE   VERSION
ip-10-0-136-161.ec2.internal   Ready                      worker   28m   v1.35.4
ip-10-0-136-243.ec2.internal   Ready                      master   34m   v1.35.4
ip-10-0-141-105.ec2.internal   Ready,SchedulingDisabled   worker   28m   v1.35.4
ip-10-0-142-249.ec2.internal   Ready                      master   34m   v1.35.4
ip-10-0-153-11.ec2.internal    Ready                      worker   28m   v1.35.4
ip-10-0-153-150.ec2.internal   Ready                      master   34m   v1.35.4

You can see that scheduling on each worker node is disabled as the change is being applied.

Check that the kernel argument worked by going to one of the worker nodes and listing the kernel command-line arguments (in /proc/cmdline on the host):

$ oc debug node/ip-10-0-141-105.ec2.internal

Example output

Starting pod/ip-10-0-141-105ec2internal-debug ...
To use host binaries, run `chroot /host`

sh-4.2# cat /host/proc/cmdline
BOOT_IMAGE=/ostree/rhcos-... console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8
rootflags=defaults,prjquota rw root=UUID=fd0... ostree=/ostree/boot.0/rhcos/16...
coreos.oem.id=qemu coreos.oem.id=ec2 ignition.platform.id=ec2 enforcing=0

sh-4.2# exit

You should see the enforcing=0 argument added to the other kernel arguments.