Environment setup

This page covers machine provisioning, Kubernetes installation, cluster configuration, and infrastructure service deployment for the on-premise machines path.

If your infrastructure team has already prepared the Kubernetes cluster and infrastructure services, skip to Prerequisites to validate readiness, then proceed to Platform installation.

Machine preparation

Provision machines according to the Requirements. Plan for the following node roles:

Role	Purpose	Recommended spec
Master node	Cluster control plane and ingress entry point	Runs only Kubernetes system workloads for stability
Infrastructure node	Databases, Kafka, Redis	x86 architecture required for some database images
Worker nodes (2–3)	OpenLM Platform microservices	ARM or x86
Reporting nodes (2)	Spark workloads and Apache Superset	ARM or x86

note

ARM and x86 architectures can be mixed in the same cluster. The infrastructure node should be x86 to ensure compatibility with all database container images.

Network setup

Each machine needs:

• A private IP address for intra-cluster communication (no restrictions on the private network)
• Optionally, a public IP address for administration (restrict to SSH port 22 only)
• HTTP ports 80 and 443 open on the master node for ingress traffic
• Kubernetes API access over the network for cluster management

Kubernetes installation

The following example uses MicroK8s. Other distributions (kubeadm, k3s, RKE2) follow a similar pattern.

Install MicroK8s on each node

sudo apt update && sudo apt install snapd -y
sudo snap install microk8s --classic

Configure the advertise address

On each node, edit /var/snap/microk8s/current/args/kube-apiserver and set the private network IP:

--advertise-address=<PRIVATE_IP>

Restart MicroK8s after the change:

sudo snap restart microk8s

Join nodes to the cluster

On the master node, generate a join token:

microk8s add-node

Copy the output command and run it on each worker node:

microk8s join <MASTER_IP>:<PORT>/<TOKEN>

Repeat add-node on the master for each node you want to join. Verify all nodes are connected:

microk8s kubectl get nodes

Cluster topology and node labels

Apply labels to nodes so that workloads are scheduled to the correct machines using affinity rules:

kubectl label node <infra-node>     openlm.com/role=infrastructure-workload
kubectl label node <worker-node-1>  openlm.com/role=main-workload
kubectl label node <worker-node-2>  openlm.com/role=main-workload
kubectl label node <worker-node-3>  openlm.com/role=main-workload
kubectl label node <report-node-1>  openlm.com/role=reporting-workload
kubectl label node <report-node-2>  openlm.com/role=reporting-workload

Verify labels:

kubectl get nodes --show-labels

Infrastructure installation

After all nodes are connected, deploy the infrastructure services into a dedicated namespace:

kubectl create namespace openlm-infrastructure

Deploy services

The infrastructure services (MongoDB, MariaDB/PostgreSQL, Kafka, Redis) are deployed using Helm charts included in the deployment package.

For each service:

1. Configure values.yaml with your storage class name and storage sizes
2. If needed, add node selectors to schedule infrastructure pods to the infrastructure node
3. Install using Helm:

helm install <release-name> <chart>.tgz -f values.yaml -n openlm-infrastructure

Verify infrastructure

Confirm all infrastructure pods are running:

kubectl get pods -n openlm-infrastructure

Verify connectivity to each service (MongoDB, SQL database, Kafka, Redis) before proceeding.

Next steps

Once your cluster is running and infrastructure services are healthy:

1. Complete the Prerequisites checklist
2. Proceed to Platform installation