Creating Kubernetes Cluster on vCloud Director with Kublr

Prerequisites

The Kublr Demo/Installer must be installed. If you haven’t done that yet, please refer to the Installation Guide for the Kublr Demo/Installer.

System requirements for the cluster nodes

1. x86 64-bit hardware
2. At least 4Gb of RAM per master node and per worker node
3. At least 32Gb in sum for worker nodes if you plan deploying Kublr Platform
4. Supported OS on nodes: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and above, RHEL 7.4 and above
5. Root access to each node
6. Nodes are connected in your network and Kublr-in-a-box configured IP is accessible from these nodes (ping)
7. 100Mb stable internet connection

Overview

Steps below describe how to use Kublr to create VMware vSphere Kubernetes cluster. The following steps are described:

1. Preparing virtual machine template in vCloud Director.
2. Creating Kubernetes cluster on vCloud Director with Kublr.

Preparing Virtual Machine Template in vCloud Director

Consider the following when preparing a VM template:

1. vAppTemplate must contain exactly one VM
2. It must be one of supported linux distributives (Ubuntu/Debian/RHEL/CentOS and etc)
3. open-vm-tools package must be installed
4. Guest OS Customization must be enabled in VM properties

More details are available in vCloud Director documentation

Creating VMware vCloud Director Cluster in Kublr

To add a new cluster:

1. On the left menu, click Clusters.

2. Click Add Cluster. The Select Installation Type dialog is displayed.

3. In the Select Installation Type dialog, select Platform or Cluster.

4. Click Continue Setup. The add cluster/platform dialog is displayed.

5. Set Provider to “VMware vCloud Director”.

6. Specify Cluster Name.

7. From the Credentials list, select previously created VMware vCloud Director credentials.

8. As credentials are selected, the Virtual Data Center parameter is populated automatically.

9. Select Kublr Agent.

10. Specify Kubernetes Version.

11. Optionally, set Advanced Options.

12. Scroll to the Network Configuration section.

13. Check automatically filled (on credentials selection) parameters:

    • Organization Network
    • Gateway CIDR
    • Static Pool IP Ranges (From … To)
    • Edge Gateway

14. In Load Balancer IP, type in the main Kublr cluster private IP address (must be from the network CIDR block).

15. If necessary, to create a new organization network, in the Organization Network field, type in the new name, then specify the corresponding parameters for the network.

    

    See detailed parameters description here.

16. Optionally, set network configuration Advanced Options.

    

17. Use the INSTANCES tab.

18. Use the Master Configuration section.

19. Specify the parameters of the master node(s) of your cluster as described below.

20. From the Masters list, select the number of master nodes.

21. Set Master X: IP for each node.

22. For 3 and 5 master nodes configuration, optionally specify Load Balancer Address.

23. Select VM Template from the list (If you don’t have template, please create one as specified here.)

24. Set:

    • Number of CPUs cores to use per VM.
    • Amount of RAM in GB to use per VM.

25. Optionally, set Advanced Options.

26. Scroll to the instance group section (default name group1).

27. Specify the parameters of the worker node(s) in your group as described below.

28. Select IP Address Allocation Mode.

29. Enter number of Nodes to be provisioned in the node group.

30. Select VM Template from the list (If you don’t have template, please create one as specified here.)

31. Set:

    • Number of CPUs cores to use per VM.
    • Amount of RAM in GB to use per VM.

32. If necessary, set your own name for the instance group.

    Note For your working nodes, you can have as many instance groups as you need (clone or delete the current instance group, or add another one). If necessary, give specific name to each group.

33. Optionally, set Advanced Options.

34. Use the FEATURES tab to select and configure FEATURES that you want to include into your cluster.

35. Click the REVIEW & CREATE step.

36. Review your cluster parameters.

37. At the bottom of the dialog, click CONFIRM AND INSTALL.

    A notification is displayed “Your cluster is being created. It might take a few minutes.”

38. In the notification window, click OK.

    Your new cluster page is displayed on the Events tab showing the cluster creation progress.

Congratulations! You’ve just deployed a vCloud Director cluster in Kublr.

Known Issues

When using images delivered by provider, in some cases you may face the problem of not working guest OS customization script until VM reboot. This is caused by template with open-vm-tools version in Ubuntu 18.04.x Server or Desktop and broken installation of the dbus service.

• For details on open-vm-tools problem, see the How to make guest customization work on Ubuntu 18.04.x Server and Desktop troubleshooting article in VMware knowledge base.

• For details on dbus service problem, see this Ubuntu question-answer thread: I can’t use the shutdown command because the system “Failes to Connect to bus: No such file or directory”

  In brief, reinstall dbus with: apt-get install --reinstall dbus.

See Also

• This documentation:
  • Search for “vCloud director” or alike, or anything you meet in the vSphere cluster ADD/EDIT dialog to find more information about using Kublr with vSphere, like:
  • VMware vCloud Director Deployment Scheme
• Kublr support portal: search for “vCloud”.