Using CRC

About presets

CRC presets represent a managed container runtime, and the lower bounds of system resources required by the instance to run it. Here are various supported presets for CRC along with their minimum system requirements:

Preset Name Description CPUs RAM Disk space

openshift

OpenShift Container Platform

4

10.5 GB

35 GB

okd

OKD

4

10.5 GB

35 GB

microshift

MicroShift

2

4 GB

35 GB

On Microsoft Windows and macOS, the CRC guided installer prompts you for your desired preset. On Linux, the OpenShift Container Platform preset is selected by default.

You can change this selection using the crc config command before running the crc setup command.
Only one preset can be active at a time.

Let’s take a look into each of these presets in detail:

OpenShift

openshift preset creates a minimal, single-node cluster for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform. This cluster is very similar to real Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform set up in cloud environments like AWS, GCP, Azure etc. It’s only meant to be used for development and testing purposes.

This preset is the default preset used by CRC if not explicit preset is configured.

If you want to configure this preset, you can do it like this:

$ crc delete # Remove previous cluster (if present)
$ crc config set preset openshift # Configure to use openshift preset
$ crc setup # Initialize environment for cluster
$ crc start # Start the cluster

OKD

OKD preset creates a minimal, single-node cluster for OpenShift Kubernetes Distribution. It is an upstream, community-driven project that provides the core components needed to run Kubernetes. It has similar requirements to the OpenShift Container Platform preset.

If you want to configure this preset, you can do it like this:

$ crc delete # Remove previous cluster (if present)
$ crc config set preset okd # Configure to use okd preset
$ crc setup # Initialize environment for cluster
$ crc start # Start the cluster

MicroShift

MicroShift is a lightweight Kubernetes container orchestration solution designed by Red Hat. It’s essentially a smaller, more resource-efficient version of Red Hat OpenShift, optimized for edge computing.

This preset shouldn’t be confused with OpenShift preset. It is tailored for environments with limited resources. OpenShift on the other hand, is a full-featured platform designed for larger-scale deployments and comprehensive management. For more details, please refer to MicroShift documentation.

If you want to configure this preset, you can do it like this:

$ crc delete # Remove previous cluster (if present)
$ crc config set preset microshift # Configure to use microshift preset
$ crc setup # Initialize environment for cluster
$ crc start # Start the cluster

Setting up CRC

The crc setup command performs operations to set up the environment of your host machine for the CRC instance.

The crc setup command creates the ~/.crc directory if it does not already exist.

If you are setting up a new version, capture any changes made to the instance before setting up a new CRC release.
Prerequisites

  • On Linux or macOS, ensure that your user account has permission to use the sudo command. On Microsoft Windows, ensure that your user account can elevate to Administrator privileges.

Do not run the crc executable as the root user or an administrator. Always run the crc executable with your user account.
Procedure

  1. Set up your host machine for CRC:

    $ crc setup
Additional resources

Starting the instance

The crc start command starts the CRC instance and configured container runtime.

Prerequisites

  • To avoid networking-related issues, ensure that you are not connected to a VPN and that your network connection is reliable.

  • You have set up CRC.

  • On Microsoft Windows, ensure that your user account can elevate to Administrator privileges.

  • For the OpenShift preset, ensure that you have a valid OpenShift user pull secret. Copy or download the pull secret from the Pull Secret section of the CRC page on the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console.

    Accessing the user pull secret requires a Red Hat account.
Procedure

  1. Start the CRC instance:

    $ crc start

  2. For the OpenShift preset, supply your user pull secret when prompted.

    The cluster takes a minimum of four minutes to start the necessary containers and Operators before serving a request.
Additional resources

Accessing the OpenShift cluster

Access the OpenShift Container Platform cluster running in the CRC instance by using the OpenShift Container Platform web console or OpenShift CLI (oc).

Accessing the OpenShift web console

Access the OpenShift Container Platform web console by using your web browser.

Access the cluster by using either the kubeadmin or developer user. Use the developer user for creating projects or OpenShift applications and for application deployment. Use the kubeadmin user only for administrative tasks such as creating new users or setting roles.

Prerequisites
Procedure

  1. To access the OpenShift Container Platform web console with your default web browser, run the following command:

    $ crc console

  2. Log in as the developer user with the password printed in the output of the crc start command. You can also view the password for the developer and kubeadmin users by running the following command:

    $ crc console --credentials

See Troubleshooting CRC if you cannot access the OpenShift Container Platform cluster managed by CRC.

Additional resources

Accessing the OpenShift cluster with the OpenShift CLI

Access the OpenShift Container Platform cluster managed by CRC by using the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Prerequisites
Procedure

  1. Run the crc oc-env command to print the command needed to add the cached oc executable to your $PATH:

    $ crc oc-env

  2. Run the printed command.

  3. Log in as the developer user:

    $ oc login -u developer https://api.crc.testing:6443

    The crc start command prints the password for the developer user. You can also view it by running the crc console --credentials command.

  4. You can now use oc to interact with your OpenShift Container Platform cluster. For example, to verify that the OpenShift Container Platform cluster Operators are available, log in as the kubeadmin user and run the following command:

    $ oc config use-context crc-admin
$ oc whoami
kubeadmin
$ oc get co

    CRC disables the Cluster Monitoring Operator by default.

See Troubleshooting CRC if you cannot access the OpenShift Container Platform cluster managed by CRC.

Additional resources

Accessing the internal OpenShift registry

The OpenShift Container Platform cluster running in the CRC instance includes an internal container image registry by default. This internal container image registry can be used as a publication target for locally developed container images. To access the internal OpenShift Container Platform registry, follow these steps.

Prerequisites
Procedure

  1. Check which user is logged in to the cluster:

    $ oc whoami

    For demonstration purposes, the current user is assumed to be kubeadmin.

  2. Log in to the registry as that user with its token:

    $ oc registry login --insecure=true

  3. Create a new project:

    $ oc new-project demo

  4. Mirror an example container image:

    $ oc image mirror registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/ubi:latest=default-route-openshift-image-registry.apps-crc.testing/demo/ubi8:latest --insecure=true --filter-by-os=linux/amd64

  5. Get imagestreams and verify that the pushed image is listed:

    $ oc get is

  6. Enable image lookup in the imagestream:

    $ oc set image-lookup ubi8

    This setting allows the imagestream to be the source of images without having to provide the full URL to the internal registry.

  7. Create a pod using the recently pushed image:

    $ oc run demo --image=ubi8 --command -- sleep 600s

Deploying a sample application with odo

You can use odo to create OpenShift projects and applications from the command line. This procedure deploys a sample application to the OpenShift Container Platform cluster running in the CRC instance.

Prerequisites
Procedure

  1. Log in to the running OpenShift Container Platform cluster managed by CRC as the developer user:

    $ odo login -u developer -p developer

  2. Create a project for your application:

    $ odo project create sample-app

  3. Create a directory for your components:

    $ mkdir sample-app
$ cd sample-app

  4. Clone an example Node.js application:

    $ git clone https://github.com/openshift/nodejs-ex
$ cd nodejs-ex

  5. Add a nodejs component to the application:

    $ odo create nodejs

  6. Create a URL and add an entry to the local configuration file:

    $ odo url create --port 8080

  7. Push the changes:

    $ odo push

    Your component is now deployed to the cluster with an accessible URL.

  8. List the URLs and check the desired URL for the component:

    $ odo url list

  9. View the deployed application using the generated URL.

Additional resources

Stopping the instance

The crc stop command stops the running CRC instance and container runtime. The stopping process takes a few minutes while the cluster shuts down.

Procedure

  • Stop the CRC instance and container runtime:

    $ crc stop

Restarting the instance

To restart CRC, stop the instance and start it again.

Procedure

  1. Stop the CRC instance:

    $ crc stop

  2. Start the CRC instance:

    $ crc start

Deleting the instance

The crc delete command deletes an existing CRC instance.

Procedure

  1. Save any desired information stored in your existing instance.

  2. Delete the existing CRC instance.

    $ crc delete