Red Hat OKP MCP Server¶
The Red Hat Offline Knowledge Portal (OKP) MCP server bridges LLM tool calls to a Solr index containing ~583K Red Hat knowledge base documents. AI models can search RHEL documentation, CVEs, errata, solutions, and technical articles via natural language.
Architecture¶
graph LR
AI["AI Model / GenAI Studio"] -->|"MCP protocol"| MCP["OKP MCP Server\n(port 8000)"]
MCP -->|"HTTP /solr/portal/select"| Solr["OKP Solr\n(port 8983)"]
Solr -->|"~583K docs"| Data["RHEL Docs, CVEs,\nErrata, Solutions"]Two containers work together:
- OKP Solr -- The indexed Red Hat knowledge base (
registry.redhat.io/offline-knowledge-portal/rhokp-rhel9), containing documentation, CVEs, errata, solutions, and articles in a Solr core - OKP MCP Server -- A Python FastMCP application (
quay.io/redhat-user-workloads/rhel-lightspeed-tenant/okp-mcp) that exposes search tools over the MCP protocol
What Gets Deployed¶
| Component | Resource | Description |
|---|---|---|
rhokp-solr |
Deployment + PVC (10Gi) | OKP Solr index with ~583K RHEL documents |
rhokp-mcp |
Deployment | MCP server exposing search tools on port 8000 |
rhokp-solr |
Service | In-cluster access to Solr on port 8983 |
rhokp-mcp |
Service + Route | In-cluster service and external TLS route for MCP |
okp-access-secret |
Secret | OKP access key for the Solr image |
rhokp-sa |
ServiceAccount | Dedicated service account |
MCP Tools¶
The OKP MCP server exposes 6 search tools:
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
search_documentation |
Search RHEL documentation with product/version boosting and deprecation detection |
search_solutions |
Search troubleshooting content, error messages, and known issues |
search_cves |
Search CVE security advisories with optional severity filter |
search_errata |
Search errata (security, bug fix, enhancement) with type/severity filters |
search_articles |
Search general technical articles and best practices |
get_document |
Fetch full document content by ID with BM25-scored passage extraction |
Prerequisites¶
| Requirement | Why |
|---|---|
| RHOAI platform (DSC Ready) | Namespace and dashboard integration |
registry.redhat.io pull access |
OKP Solr image requires Red Hat registry authentication |
| OKP access key | Required by the Solr image (OKP_ACCESS_KEY) |
dashboard-config instance |
Enables GenAI Studio in the RHOAI dashboard |
mcp-servers instance |
Registers OKP as an MCP server in the dashboard |
Secrets required
The included okp-access-secret.yaml contains a placeholder value (OKP_ACCESS_KEY: CHANGE_ME). Update usecases/services/rhokp/manifests/server/okp-access-secret.yaml with your OKP access key before deploying. For production, use SealedSecrets or ExternalSecrets.
Pull secret for registry.redhat.io
The OKP Solr image is pulled from registry.redhat.io. OpenShift clusters typically have a global pull secret configured for Red Hat registries. If not, create a pull secret in the rhokp namespace with your Red Hat registry credentials.
Deploy¶
OKP is auto-deployed by the cluster-services ApplicationSet when using the tier1-minimal profile.
After bootstrapping the cluster, the service-rhokp Application is created automatically. The instance-mcp-servers Application (auto-discovered by the cluster-instances AppSet) registers it in the RHOAI dashboard.
# 1. Update the OKP access key secret
# Edit usecases/services/rhokp/manifests/server/okp-access-secret.yaml
# 2. Deploy OKP (Solr + MCP server)
oc apply -k usecases/services/rhokp/profiles/tier1-minimal/
# 3. Wait for Solr to be ready (index loading takes a few minutes)
oc wait --for=condition=Available deployment/rhokp-solr \
-n rhokp --timeout=600s
# 4. Wait for MCP server to be ready
oc wait --for=condition=Available deployment/rhokp-mcp \
-n rhokp --timeout=300s
# 5. Register as MCP server in the RHOAI dashboard
oc apply -k components/instances/dashboard-config/
oc apply -k components/instances/mcp-servers/
Verify¶
# Check pods are running
oc get pods -n rhokp
# Check the route
oc get route rhokp-mcp -n rhokp
# Test the MCP endpoint
curl -s "https://$(oc get route rhokp-mcp -n rhokp -o jsonpath='{.spec.host}')/mcp" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"tools/list","id":1}'
Sync Wave Ordering¶
| Wave | Resources | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 0 (default) | Namespace, ServiceAccount, Secret, PVC, Solr Deployment, Solr Service | Solr infrastructure ready first |
| 1 | MCP Deployment, MCP Service | MCP server starts after Solr is available |
| 2 | Route | External access created after MCP service exists |
Customization¶
The OKP MCP server connects to Solr via the SOLR_URL environment variable. To point at a different Solr instance, update the SOLR_URL and MCP_SOLR_URL values in usecases/services/rhokp/manifests/server/mcp-deployment.yaml.
The Solr PVC defaults to 10Gi. Increase this if the OKP index grows beyond the default allocation by editing usecases/services/rhokp/manifests/server/solr-pvc.yaml.