Installing base Nephio components

After installing the environment-specific dependencies, you can install the base Nephio components. There are two essential components: Porch, and Nephio Controllers.

This page is draft and the separation of the content to different categories is not clearly done.

Note

If you want to use a version other than that of v3.0.0 of Nephio catalog repo, then replace the @origin/v3.0.0 suffix on the package URLs on the kpt pkg get commands below with the tag/branch of the version you wish to use.

While using KPT you can either pull a branch or a tag from a git repository. By default it pulls the tag. In case, you have branch with the same name as a tag then to:

#pull a branch 
kpt pkg get --for-deployment <git-repository>@origin/v3.0.0
#pull a tag
kpt pkg get --for-deployment <git-repository>@v3.0.0

Porch

This “Package Orchestration” component provides the Kubernetes APIs for Repositories, PackageRevisions, PackageRevisionResources, PackageVariants, and PackageVariantSets. Nephio relies on it to inventory, clone, and mutate packages. It also provides the API layer that shields the Nephio components from direct interaction with the Git (or OCI) storage layer.

Fetch the package using kpt, and run any kpt functions, and then apply the package:

kpt pkg get --for-deployment https://github.com/nephio-project/catalog/nephio/core/porch@origin/v3.0.0
kpt fn render porch
kpt live init porch
kpt live apply porch --reconcile-timeout=15m --output=table

Nephio Operators

The Nephio Operators provide implementations of the Nephio-specific APIs. This includes the code that implements the various package specialization features - such as integration with IPAM and VLAN allocation, and NAD generation - as well as operators that can provision repositories and bootstrap new clusters into Nephio.

To install the Nephio Operators, repeat the kpt steps, but for that package:

kpt pkg get --for-deployment https://github.com/nephio-project/catalog.git/nephio/core/nephio-operator@origin/v3.0.0

The Nephio Operator package by default uses the Gitea instance at 172.18.0.200:3000 as the git repository. Change it to point to your git instance in
nephio-operator/app/controller/deployment-token-controller.yaml and nephio-operator/app/controller/deployment-controller.yaml

You also need to create a secret with your Git instance credentials:

kubectl apply -f  - <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
    name: git-user-secret
    namespace: nephio-system
type: kubernetes.io/basic-auth
stringData:
    username: <GIT_USER_NAME>
    password: <GIT_PASSWORD>
EOF

Now you can continue the installation process:

kpt fn render nephio-operator
kpt live init nephio-operator
kpt live apply nephio-operator --reconcile-timeout=15m --output=table

Management Cluster GitOps Tool

A GitOps tool (ConfigSync) is installed to allow GitOps-based application of packages on the management cluster itself. It is not needed if you only want to provision network functions, but it is used extensively in the cluster provisioning workflows.

Different GitOps tools may be used, but these instructions only cover ConfigSync. To install it on the management cluster, we again follow the same process. Later, we will configure it to point to the mgmt repository:

kpt pkg get --for-deployment https://github.com/nephio-project/catalog.git/nephio/core/configsync@origin/v3.0.0
kpt fn render configsync
kpt live init configsync
kpt live apply configsync --reconcile-timeout=15m --output=table

Nephio Stock Repositories

The repositories with the Nephio packages used in the exercises are available to be installed via a package for convenience. This will install repository resources pointing directly to the GitHub repositories, with read-only access.

kpt pkg get --for-deployment https://github.com/nephio-project/catalog.git/nephio/optional/stock-repos@origin/v3.0.0
kpt fn render stock-repos
kpt live init stock-repos
kpt live apply stock-repos --reconcile-timeout=15m --output=table

WebUI (Optional)

Nephio WebUI is optional and to install it you can follow this document