Kubernetes: Anthos GKE on-prem 1.10 on nested VMware environment

Anthos GKE on-prem is a managed platform that brings GKE clusters to on-premise datacenters. This product offering brings best practice security measures, tested paths for upgrades, basic monitoring, platform logging, and full enterprise support.

Setting up a platform this extensive requires many steps as officially documented here. However, if you want to practice in a lab or home environment this is possible using an Ubuntu host with 48Gb physical RAM running a nested version of ESXi 7.1U1+ on KVM.

Multiple networks are required for: ESX management, Anthos Admin clusters, and Anthos User clusters. But this can be emulated with KVM routed networks using virtual bridges. Below is a logical diagram of our target Anthos on-prem build.

Google Cloud Prerequisites

Create a Google cloud project and subscribe to Anthos per the documentation.

  • Login to the cloud console https://console.cloud.google.com with your Google Id
  • Enable billing for the GCP project, Hamburger menu > Billing
  • Enable the Anthos API, Hamburger menu > Anthos, click ‘Start Trial’
  • Click ‘Enable’


This enablement can also be done with gcloud.

gcloud services enable anthos.googleapis.com

Install Ansible (on Host)

There are many commands and templating steps in this article, I have used Ansible to simplify those commands.

Install Ansible using my article here.

Install KVM (on Host)

Install KVM on your Ubuntu host, see my article here.

This provides a type 1 Hypervisor on your bare metal Ubuntu host where we will virtualize multiple networks and a nested ESXi server.

Install Terraform (on Host)

The VM and networking infrastructure is setup with Terraform wherever possible.

Install Terraform using my article here.

Install dnsmasq service (on Host)

As described in one of my articles, use an independent host instance of dnsmasq so that all the KVM routed networks can point at it for upstream DNS resolution. The routed networks we are going to create with KVM in later steps are be able to reach your KVM Host at is primary NIC as shown below.

Install dnsmasq service on KVM host

# is the host dnsmasq service already installed?
sudo systemctl status dnsmasq.service --no-pager

# if not, then install
sudo apt install dnsmasq -y

Use the following lines in “/etc/dnsmasq.conf”, which will limit the binding to the local (lo) and public interface so it does not interfere with the private libvirt bindings.

listen-address=127.0.0.1
# you want a binding to the loopback
interface=lo
# and additional binding to public interface (e.g. br0,ens192)
# I've seen 'unrecognized interface' errors when using interface name
# use listen-address as an alternative
#interface=ens192
listen-address=<yourNIC_IP>

bind-interfaces
server=<yourUpstreamDNSIPAddress>
log-queries

# does not go upstream to resolve addresses ending in 'home.lab'
local=/home.lab/

And although you could add custom hostname mappings directly to dnsmasq.conf, dnsmasq also reads “/etc/hosts” as part of its lookup logic, so this is a nice way to easily add entries. Go ahead and add the following entries to “/etc/hosts”.

echo 192.168.140.236 esxi1.home.lab | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts
echo 192.168.140.237 vcenter.home.lab | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts
echo 192.168.142.253 anthos.home.lab | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

# restart dnsmasq
sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq

# make sure there are no errors
sudo systemctl status dnsmasq

Configure host to use local dnsmasq service

To have your host use this local dnsmasq service, configure your resolv configuration. In older versions of Ubuntu, this typically meant modifying “/etc/resolv.conf”.

However, in newer versions of Ubuntu modifying this file is not the correct method because resolv is managed by Systemd. Instead, you want to modify “/etc/systemd/resolved.conf”.

# view current resolv for each interface
resolvectl dns

# change 'DNS' to 127.0.0.1
sudo vi /etc/systemd/resolved.conf

# restart systemd resolv and then check status
sudo systemctl restart systemd-resolved
sudo systemctl status systemd-resolved

# global DNS should now be '127.0.0.1' pointing to local dnsmasq
resolvectl dns

# check full settings
sudo systemd-resolve --status

Validate

This should allow you to use nslookup or dig against the local dnsmasq service to do either a name resolution or reverse lookup.

$ dig @127.0.0.1 esxi1.home.lab +short
192.168.140.236
$ dig @127.0.0.1 -x 192.168.140.236 +short
esxi1.home.lab.

$ dig @127.0.0.1 vcenter.home.lab +short
192.168.140.237
$ dig @127.0.0.1 -x 192.168.140.237 +short
vcenter.home.lab.

This lookup and reverse lookup is mandatory in order for the vCenter installation to perform correctly.

Tail the syslog to see the most recent DNS queries made.

sudo tail /var/log/syslog -n1000 | grep dnsmasq

Pull github project

In order to start the Anthos installation, go ahead and pull my project code from github.

# required packages
sudo apt install git make -y

# clone project
git clone https://github.com/fabianlee/anthos-nested-esx-manual.git

# go into project, save directory into 'project_path' variable
cd anthos-nested-esx-manual
export project_path=$(realpath .)

We will use the files and scripts in this directory throughout the rest of the article as we step through the deployment.

Generate environment specific files

There are certain variables such as GCP project name/id, and host IP address that need to be inserted in the Anthos configuration files. We will use Ansible to define the variables and generate environment specific files from jinja2 templates.

First, modify the Ansible variables per your specific environment, then call the playbook that will generate the local environment specific files.

cd $project_path

# modify GCP project Id
# the rest of the variables will be default if you have
# been following my articles
vi group_vars/all

# generate environment specific files
ansible-playbook playbook_generate_local_files.yml

Create 3 routed KVM networks (on host)

Create KVM routed networks for use by esxi host: esxmgmt140, admin141, user142. Do this with the terraform libvirt provider.

cd $project_path/tf-create-local-kvm-routed-networks

# should only have 'default' kvm nat, 192.168.122.0/24
virsh net-list

# run terraform to create 3 routed KVM networks
make

Viewing the host routing table should now show the below

$ route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
...
192.168.140.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 virbr3
192.168.141.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 virbr2
192.168.142.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 virbr1

And listing the KVM networks should show you the default KVM network at 192.168.122 as well as the 140, 141, and 142 networks you defined.

$ virsh net-list
Name State Autostart Persistent
------------------------------------------------
default active yes yes
esxmgmt140 active yes yes 
admin141     active yes yes
user142      active yes yes

These are routed KVM networks, which means the responsibility for routing these networks falls to you. The easiest way is typically to add 3 static routes on your upstream router that points these subnets back to the public interface of this host server.

Adding these static routes on your upstream router is unfortunately something I cannot show you how to do exactly, because some of you will be in lab environments using commercial routers while others are on consumer routers from varying manufacturers. As an example, below is a screenshot of the static routes of the upstream OpenWRT router in my lab environment.

This points all traffic on 192.168.140, .141, and .142 back to my KVM host network public interface at 192.168.2.239, which knows how to handle these CIDR blocks because of its host routing table shown earlier. The method you use to route these networks is dependent on your network topology and devices.

This is complex enough that I think it’s important to validate that these KVM routed networks have connectivity between them and have the ability to do nslookup properly. I’ve provided a terraform file that can create an Ubuntu instance in each KVM routed network and run a connectivity test.

cd $project_path/tf-test-routed-networks-kvm

# show guest hosts currently available
virsh list

# create 3 KVM Ubuntu guests, each in different network
make

# show 3 guest hosts now available
# creates 'kvm140', 'kvm141', 'kvm142'
virsh list 

# test connectivity to each other, 
# and forward+reverse resolution to [esxi1,vcenter].home.lab
./run-tests.sh

# tear down test vms
make destroy

The test goes into each of these guest VMs, and does:

  • netcat to port 22 of all the other VMs to prove it can make a connection
  • DNS lookups and reverse lookups to verify the ‘esxi1.home.lab’ entries from previous dnsmasq section are valid
  • DNS lookup and ping to ‘archive.ubuntu.com’ to prove outside connectivity

You do not have to immediately tear these VM down and delete them. They are helpful when troubleshooting any routing issues between these virtual networks and your upstream router at the KVM level.

Deploy nested ESXi 7.0 server (from Host)

Use my article on nested ESXi 7.0 lab installation as your guide, but instead of using a single NIC on the default KVM network (192.168.122.0/24), add 3 NIC to the KVM host, all of type vmxnet3 for: esxmgmt140, admin141, and user142.

Use at least a 1500Gb sparse disk. If your default pool location will not accommodate that much space, create another pool.

# show location of 'default' disk pool
virsh pool-dumpxml default | grep path

# if you need to put this large esxi disk in another location
virsh pool-define-as kvmpool --type dir --target /data/kvm/pool

Reserve as much cpu as possible and overallocate your RAM (use more than your host, allow KVM to use OS swap). This nested ESXi will be running a significant load: vCenter, the Anthos Workstation, the Admin Cluster master nodes and its seesaw LB, and the User Cluster worker nodes and its seesaw LB.

With a 1500Gb sparse disk, 72Gb RAM overcommitted on a 64Gb host, and 24 vcpu overcommited on a 16 cpu host (2 threads/core,4 cores/socket), the screenshot below shows the resources used when the build is complete. CPU is adequate, but it is using 61Gb of RAM.

 

NOTE: you will need at least 48Gb RAM on your KVM host to deploy this full solution. I see performance hiccups from file swapping even at 48Gb RAM with swap on a different SSD than the KVM qcow2 backing file.

Below is the command from my article, modified for 3 NIC on our routed networks, larger vcpu/RAM allocations, and using a custom disk pool named “data”.

iso=~/Downloads/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0U3-18644231.x86_64.iso

# use pool that has enough capacity for sparse 1500Gb
disk_pool=data

# even though disk is sparse, takes a couple of minutes to create
virt-install --virt-type=kvm --name=esxi1 
--cpu host-passthrough
--ram 73728 --vcpus=24 
--virt-type=kvm --hvm 
--cdrom $iso
--network network:esxmgmt140,model=vmxnet3 
--network network:admin141,model=vmxnet3 
--network network:user142,model=vmxnet3
--graphics vnc --video qxl 
--disk pool=$disk_pool,size=1500,sparse=true,bus=ide,format=qcow2 
--boot cdrom,hd,menu=on --noautoconsole --force

That article also shows how to use the latest UEFI firmware, which can only be changed before ESXi installation.

Create Seed VM (from Host)

The seed vm is a KVM Guest VM (a peer of the ESXi server) that we will use to install vCenter as well as the Anthos Admin Workstation.

Let’s use KVM to create a VM in the same subnet as ESXi, 192.168.124.0/22.

# create Ubuntu seed vm at 192.168.124.220
cd $project_path/tf-kvm-seedvm

# list of current kvm guests
virsh list

# create KVM seed VM
make

# run basic set of ping and outside connectivity tests
./run-tests.sh

# now shows 'seedVM'
virsh list

Now install basic utilities on the seed VM: gcloud, kubectl, terraform, etc.

# run prequisite ansible scripts
cd $project_path

# ansible has local dependencies to galaxy modules
ansible-playbook install_ansible_dependencies.yml

# now install basic utilities needed on seed
ansible-playbook playbook_seedvm.yml

Copy additional files to seed (from Host)

Copy the vcsa-esxi.json file used to install vCenter and a convenience script for govc to the seed VM.

# copy additional files needed from host to seed VM
cd $project_path 
ansible-playbook playbook_generate_vcenter_files.yml

Prepare seed for vCenter install (from Host)

The KVM domain name of the seed vm is ‘seedvm-192.168.140.220’.

Using my article on vCenter 7.0 installation as a reference, let’s insert the CD for the vCenter installer. You may need to reboot the seed VM.

# all commands below OR script
# cd $project_path/needed_on_vcenter_installer
# ./insert-vcenter-installer-iso.sh ~/Downloads/VMware-VCSA-all-7.0.3-18778458.iso

seedvm=seedvm-192.168.140.220

# get current device and ISO file being used
cdrom=$(virsh domblklist $seedvm --details | grep cdrom | awk '{print $3}') 
currentISO=$(virsh domblklist $seedvm --details | grep cdrom | awk '{print $4}')

# eject current disk
virsh change-media $seedvm $cdrom --eject $currentISO

# insert vcenter installer iso
virsh change-media $seedvm $cdrom --insert ~/Downloads/VMware-VCSA-all-7.0.3-18778458.iso

Install vCenter (from seed)

Now login to the seed VM and mount the cdrom from the OS level.

# ssh into seed vm 
ssh -i $project_path/tf-kvm-seedvm/id_rsa ubuntu@192.168.140.220

# check nslookup and reverse (MUST work or vcenter will fail!)
nslookup esxi1.home.lab
nslookup 192.168.140.236
nslookup vcenter.home.lab
nslookup 192.168.140.237

# mount vcenter iso
sudo mkdir -p /media/iso
sudo mount -t iso9660 -o loop /dev/cdrom /media/iso

# do installation, takes about 15 min
cd /media/iso/vcsa-cli-installer
sudo lin64/vcsa-deploy install --no-ssl-certificate-verification --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip ~/vcsa-esxi.json

Validate the vcenter installation as described in my vCenter 7.0 article, and configure the datacenter, cluster, and then add the esxi host. You can use govc to create these object instead of through the GUI.

source ~/source-govc-vars.sh

# create datacenter
govc datacenter.create mydc1

# create cluster with DRS enabled (for res pools)
govc cluster.create mycluster1
govc cluster.change -drs-enabled mycluster1

# add esxi1 host to cluster
# would have used 'host.add' if we wanted it added directly to DC
govc cluster.add -cluster mycluster1 -hostname esxi1.home.lab -username root -password ExamplePass@456 -noverify=true -connect=true

Add vCenter service account for Anthos (from seed)

Using govc commands:

source ~/source-govc-vars.sh

# show all current sso users
govc sso.user.ls

# create anthos@vsphere.local
govc sso.user.create -p 'ExamplePass@456' -R Administrators anthos

# add anthos user to Administrators groups
govc sso.group.update -a anthos Administrators

OR if you prefer to do it from the web GUI.

  • Login to https://vcenter.home.lab (user/pass=Administrator@vsphere.local/ExamplePass@456)
  • Menu > Administration
  • Single Sign On > Users and Groups > Users tab
  • Domain “vsphere.local”, press “Add”; Username = anthos, first name=anthos, Press Add
  • Single Sign On > Users and Groups > Groups tab
  • Right click ‘Administrators’ group, select “Edit”. Enter “anthos” in member search, press <enter> to place in group listing. Press “Save”

Expose routed networks from vCenter

Each of the routed networks needs its own Port group associated with a Virtual Switch. The virtual switch is associated with a different physical NIC. There is only a single vmkernel nic ‘vmk0’.

To do this manually in vcenter, login to vcenter and go to ‘Hosts and Clusters’. Right-click on ‘esxi1.home.lab’ and select ‘Add Networking’.

  • Select ‘Virtual Machine Port group for a standard switch’
  • new standard switch with 1500 MTU
  • Add active adapter ‘vmnic1’
  • Network label ‘admin141’, vlan=0
  • Finish

Manually repeat for ‘vmnic2’ on ‘user142’. Or you can use add these from the seed VM using govc, as shown below.

# list current switches
govc host.vswitch.info

# for vmnic1, create switch and add port group 'admin141'
govc host.vswitch.add -mtu 1500 -nic vmnic1 vSwitch1 
govc host.portgroup.add -vswitch vSwitch1 -vlan 0 admin141

# for vmnic2, create switch and add port group 'user142'
govc host.vswitch.add -mtu 1500 -nic vmnic2 vSwitch2
govc host.portgroup.add -vswitch vSwitch2 -vlan 0 user142

When completed successfully, the “Networking” section from the esxi web UI (https://esxi1.home.lab.ui, user=root) should look like below. With three physical NIC.

 

A single VMkernel NIC.

Three total virtual switches: vSwitch0 (default),vSwitch1,vSwitch2

And two additional Port Group names (admin141,user142)

From the vCenter client (https://vcenter.home.lab, user=Administrator@vsphere.local), these same port group names (admin141,user142) will now be shown in the network list.

 

Testing vsphere networks (from host)

In a previous section we tested the KVM routed networks (esxmgmt140,admin141,user142) by using guests VMs running in the KVM hypervisor. They were all able to communicate freely and use DNS properly.

We should do the same type of test, but with guest VMs provisioned nested inside the nested vSphere hypervisor. One in each of the three vSphere networks below.

Create Ubuntu 20 Focal template needed for testing

But first we need an Ubuntu Focal 20 template, which I provide instructions for building in this article. This takes about 30 minutes to put together, and when done you should have a vSphere template named “ubuntu-focal”.

When done, you should be able to see the “ubuntu-focal” VM template listed using govc from the seed VM.

# find template type vms
govc find -type m

Or from vCenter in the “templates” folder.

Create guest VMs using template

You can now build an Ubuntu VM in each network and run validations to be sure we have the same connectivity for VMs running inside the nested ESXi host.

cd $project_path/tf-test-routed-networks-vsphere

# create 3 VMs, one in each vsphere network
# named 'vsphere140', 'vsphere141', 'vsphere142'
make

# test that each can reach the others
# and that 'esxi1.home.lab' is dns resolvable
./run-tests.sh

Each of these vms should be able to reach each other as well as the outside world.

They can also reach their own dnsmasq instance at the .1 address of their network. However, they cannot reach the dnsmasq .1 of the other bridged networks. So, if you want a common DNS for them, you must use the IP address of the dnsmasq instance on the KVM host.

Copy files to Seed VM (from Host)

Copy the admin-ws-config.yaml used for installing the Admin Workstation and a set of convenience scripts to the seed VM.

# generate files from templates
cd $project_path
ansible-playbook playbook_generate_seedvm_files.yml

Configuring GCP project (from seed VM)

Login to the seed VM and setup the GCP project.

# ssh into seed vm
ssh -i $project_path/tf-kvm-seedvm/id_rsa ubuntu@192.168.140.220

Now from the Google Cloud Console, if you select the project pulldown you can gather the GCP project name and project Id (these are often different values).

Use this project name to set a Bash variable per below and prepare your GCP project to register an Anthos on-prem cluster.

# ssh into seed vm
ssh -i $project_path/tf-kvm-seedvm/id_rsa ubuntu@192.168.140.220

# use your own GCP project name (not project id)
# based on the screenshot above this would be 'anthos1'
export project=anthos1

cd ~/seedvm

# do all of the below, OR just the 2 scripts directly below
# source ./source-gcp-login.sh $project
# ./enable-gcp-services.sh


gcloud auth login --no-launch-browser

# get project id
# based on screenshot above this evaluates to 'clever-circlet-330611'
projectId=$(gcloud projects list --filter="name=$project" --format='value(project_id)') 

# set project 
gcloud config set project $projectId


# enable GCP services required for Anthos on-prem
gcloud services enable \
anthos.googleapis.com \
anthosgke.googleapis.com \
cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com \
container.googleapis.com \
gkeconnect.googleapis.com \
gkehub.googleapis.com \
serviceusage.googleapis.com \
stackdriver.googleapis.com \
monitoring.googleapis.com \
logging.googleapis.com


# also need for pulling from private gcr.io registry
gcloud services enable containerregistry.googleapis.com

# needed starting in 1.9
gcloud service enable opsconfigmonitoring.googleapis.com

GCP Service Account (from seed)

As described in the documentation, you must create a GCP service account referred to as the ‘Component Access‘ service account (it was called the ‘Allow Listed’ account in Anthos 1.4).

cd ~/seedvm

# do all of the commands below, OR just the script directly below
# ./create-anthos-allowlisted-sa.sh

# list current service accounts
gcloud iam service-accounts list

# create service account
newServiceAccount="anthos-allowlisted"
gcloud iam service-accounts create $newServiceAccount --display-name "anthos allowlisted" --project=$projectId

# wait for service account to be fully consistent
sleep 45
# get email address form
accountEmail=$(gcloud iam service-accounts list --project=$projectId --filter=$newServiceAccount --format="value(email)")

# download key
gcloud iam service-accounts keys create $newServiceAccount.json --iam-account $accountEmail

# path used in admin-ws-config.yml
realpath $newServiceAccount.json

This created the file “anthos-allowlisted.json”, which is a key that will be used to gain access to this account in the Anthos configuration files.

Set roles for this Component Access service account.

cd ~/seedvm 

# do all of the commands below, OR just the script directly below
# ./set-roles-anthos-allowlisted-sa.sh

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding $projectId --member "serviceAccount:$accountEmail" --role "roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageViewer"

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding $projectId --member "serviceAccount:$accountEmail" --role "roles/iam.serviceAccountCreator"

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding $projectId --member "serviceAccount:$accountEmail" --role "roles/iam.roleViewer"

# was not asked for in docs, but am having problems with back-off pulling image during admin cluster creation so trying
gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding $projectId --member "serviceAccount:$accountEmail" --role "roles/storage.objectViewer"

There are 2 more service accounts neeed during the Anthos installation (connect-agent is only created for Anthos < 1.7).

  • connect-register service account (connect-register-sa.json)
    • roles/gkehub.admin
  • logging-monitoring service account (log-mon-sa.json)
    • roles/stackdriver.resourceMetadata.writer
    • roles/logging.logWriter
    • roles/monitoring.metricWriter

But we do not have to create them manually, because during the admin worktation creation, the ‘–auto-create-service-accounts’ flag will have gkeadm create them.

GCP Current Context roles

The logged in GCP user must have these roles to auto create the other service accounts (which is needed by gkeadm).

cd ~/seedvm

# all commands below or just script directly below
# ./set-gcp-current-user-iam-roles.sh

gcpUser=$(gcloud config get-value account)

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding $projectId --member="user:${gcpUser}" --role="roles/resourcemanager.projectIamAdmin"

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding $projectId --member="user:${gcpUser}" --role="roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageAdmin"

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding $projectId --member="user:${gcpUser}" --role="roles/iam.serviceAccountCreator"

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding $projectId --member="user:${gcpUser}" --role="roles/iam.serviceAccountKeyAdmin"

Create and set vcenter role (from seed)

As described in the documentation, create an ‘anthos’ role and assign it to the ‘anthos’ vcenter service account created earlier.

cd ~
source ~/source-govc-vars.sh

# show available resource pools
# will only show default '/mydc1/host/mycluster1/Resources'
govc find / -type p

# create resource pools for admin and user clusters
govc pool.create /mydc1/host/mycluster1/admin
govc pool.create /mydc1/host/mycluster1/user

# show folders
govc find / -type f
# create vcenter folder for admin workstation
govc folder.create /mydc1/vm/admin-ws

# set roles for anthos service account in on-prem vcenter
seedvm/set-vcenter-roles-for-anthos.sh 

Get gkeadmin utility (from seed)

Download the latest 1.10 release.

# copy down gkeadm utility
cd ~/seedvm

gsutil cp gs://gke-on-prem-release/gkeadm/1.10.0-gke.194/linux/gkeadm ./

chmod +x gkeadm
./gkeadm version

Do not use gkeadm to ‘create config’, because will be creating a tailored ‘admin-ws-config.yaml’ to this directory in a later step.

Get vcenter CA cert (from seed)

cd ~/seedvm

# all commands below, OR script directly below
# ./get-vcenter-ca.sh

# get vcenter certs
wget --no-check-certificate https://vcenter.home.lab/certs/download.zip
unzip download.zip
find certs

# smoke test cert to ensure validity
openssl x509 -in certs/lin/139b6ea5.0 -text -noout | grep Subject


# copy file to standardized name
cp certs/lin/139b6ea5.0 vcenter.ca.pem

Create Admin Workstation VM (from seed)

The Anthos admin and user cluster will not be deployed from this seed VM. Instead, Anthos requires us to create a guest VM called the “Admin Workstation”.

It is from this standardized “Admin Workstation” that we do the work of creating admin and user clusters. Below is the ‘gkeadm’ command that checks local and GCP prerequisites, and then uses the vCenter API to create the Admin Workstation.

cd ~/seedvm

# remove any older AdminWS keys before starting
rm -f ~/.ssh/gke-admin-workstation*
truncate -s0 ~/.ssh/known_hosts

# create admin workstation
# needs to download 8G OVA and upload to vSphere
$ ./gkeadm create admin-workstation --config admin-ws-config.yaml -v 3 --auto-create-service-accounts

Using config file "admin-ws-config.yaml"...
Running preflight validations...
- Validation Category: Tools
    - [SUCCESS] gcloud
    - [SUCCESS] ssh
    - [SUCCESS] ssh-keygen
    - [SUCCESS] scp

- Validation Category: Config Check
    - [SUCCESS] Config

- Validation Category: SSH Key
    - [SUCCESS] SSH key path

- Validation Category: Internet Access
    - [SUCCESS] Internet access to required domains

- Validation Category: GCP Access
    - [SUCCESS] Read access to GKE on-prem GCS bucket

- Validation Category: vCenter
    - [SUCCESS] Credentials
    - [SUCCESS] vCenter Version
    - [SUCCESS] ESXi Version
    - [SUCCESS] Datacenter
    - [SUCCESS] Datastore
    - [SUCCESS] Resource Pool
    - [SUCCESS] Folder
    - [SUCCESS] Network
    - [SUCCESS] Datadisk

All validation results were SUCCESS.

Downloading OS image "gs://gke-on-prem-release/admin-appliance/1.10.0-gke.194/gke-on-prem-admin-appliance-vsphere-1.10.0-gke.194.ova"...
 [==================================================>]  8.779GB/8.779GB
Image saved to /home/ubuntu/seedvm/gke-on-prem-admin-appliance-vsphere-1.10.0-gke.194.ova
Verifying image gke-on-prem-admin-appliance-vsphere-1.10.0-gke.194.ova...  
DONE
Setting up OS image as a VM template in vSphere...
...
[07-01-22 01:22:13] Uploading OS image "gke-on-prem-admin-appliance-vsphere-1.10.0-gke.194" to vSphere...OK
Creating admin workstation VM "gke-admin-ws"... \
Creating admin workstation VM "gke-admin-ws"...  DONE
Waiting for admin workstation VM "gke-admin-ws" to be assigned an IP....  
DONE

******************************************
Admin workstation VM successfully created:
- Name:    gke-admin-ws
- IP:      192.168.140.221
- SSH Key: /home/ubuntu/.ssh/gke-admin-workstation
******************************************

Printing gkectl and docker versions on admin workstation...
gkectl version
gkectl 1.10.0-gke.194 (git-764a8477a)
Add --kubeconfig to get more version information.

docker version
Client:
 Version:           20.10.7
 API version:       1.41
 Go version:        go1.13.8
 Git commit:        20.10.7-0ubuntu5~20.04.2~anthos1
 Built:             Fri Nov 12 18:37:13 2021
 OS/Arch:           linux/amd64
 Context:           default
 Experimental:      true

Server:
 Engine:
  Version:          20.10.7
  API version:      1.41 (minimum version 1.12)
  Go version:       go1.13.8
  Git commit:       20.10.7-0ubuntu5~20.04.2~anthos1
  Built:            Fri Nov 12 16:42:06 2021
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
  Experimental:     false
 containerd:
  Version:          1.5.8-0ubuntu0~20.04.1~anthos1
  GitCommit:        
 runc:
  Version:          1.0.0~rc95-0ubuntu1~20.04.1~anthos1
  GitCommit:        
 docker-init:
  Version:          0.19.0
  GitCommit:        


Checking NTP server on admin workstation...
timedatectl
               Local time: Fri 2022-01-07 01:50:44 UTC
           Universal time: Fri 2022-01-07 01:50:44 UTC
                 RTC time: Fri 2022-01-07 01:50:45    
                Time zone: Etc/UTC (UTC, +0000)       
System clock synchronized: yes                        
              NTP service: active                     
          RTC in local TZ: no           

Getting component access service account...

Creating other service accounts and JSON key files...
    - connect-register-sa-2110301846
    - log-mon-sa-2110301846

Preparing "credential.yaml" for gkectl...

Copying files to admin workstation...
    - vcenter.ca.pem
    - anthos-allowlisted.json 
    - connect-register-sa-2110301846.json
    - log-mon-sa-2110301846.json 
    - /tmp/gke-on-prem-vcenter-credentials835637309/credential.yaml

Preparing "admin-cluster.yaml" for gkectl...
Preparing "user-cluster.yaml" for gkectl...

********************************************************************
Admin workstation is ready to use.

Admin workstation information saved to /home/ubuntu/seedvm/gke-admin-ws
This file is required for future upgrades
SSH into the admin workstation with the following command:
ssh -i /home/ubuntu/.ssh/gke-admin-workstation ubuntu@192.168.140.221
********************************************************************

If you examine the output, you can see the json files for the service accounts were copied directly over to the Admin Workstation.

...

Copying files to admin workstation...
 - vcenter.ca.pem
 - anthos-allowlisted.json 
 - connect-register-sa-2110301846.json
 - log-mon-sa-2110301846.json 
 - /tmp/gke-on-prem-vcenter-credentials835637309/credential.yaml 

...

And if you look in vcenter, the ‘admin-ws’ folder now contains the vm ‘gke-admin-ws’. And the vm template ‘gke-on-prem-admin-appliance-vsphere-<major>.<minor>-gke.<build>’.

Manually cat the private key of the admin workstation so we can use it from our host, and not just the seed vm.

# cat private key then exit seed vm
cat /home/ubuntu/.ssh/gke-admin-workstation

# exit ssh, go back to host
exit

Copy files to Admin Workstation (from host)

Now back at our host, paste the Admin Workstation private key so we can reach it directly (instead of needing to go through the seed VM). Then take the template files and use ansible to generate environment specific files on the Admin Workstation.

# put adminws ssh key so we can ssh directly to admin ws
cd $project_path/needed_on_adminws

# paste in content manually
vi gke-admin-workstation

# place stricter key permissions
chmod 400 gke-admin-workstation

# generate environment specific files 
cd $project_path
ansible-playbook playbook_generate_adminws_files.yml

Login to Admin Workstation (from host)

Now that we have the adminws ssh private key available on our host, ssh directly to the Admin WS. The seed VM served its purpose, and we will not use it in this article again.

cd $project_path/needed_on_adminws

# login to admin ws
ssh -i $project_path/needed_on_adminws/gke-admin-workstation ubuntu@192.168.140.221

# standardize json key names, so they work with prepared files
mv connect-register-sa-*.json connect-register-sa.json
mv log-mon-sa-*.json log-mon-sa.json

# look at file listing on admin ws
ls -l

You will find a listing that looks similiar to below, where many of the files were copied over from the seed VM.

  • ‘admin-cluster.yaml’ for creating admin cluster
  • ‘admin-block.yaml’ IP addresses for admin cluster
  • ‘admin-seesaw-block.yaml’ IP addresses for admin seesaw
  • ‘user-cluster.yaml’ for creating user cluster
  • ‘user-block.yaml’ IP addresses for seesaw
  • ‘user-seesaw-block.yaml’ IP addresses for user seesaw
  • ‘vcenter-ca.pem’ vcenter CA cert
  • ‘anthos-allowlisted.json’ anthos -allowlisted service account json
  • ‘connect-register-sa.json’ gcp service account key
  • ‘log-mon-sa.json’ gcp service account key for stackdriver
  • ‘credential.yaml’ – vCenter and private registry credentials

Finally, increase the ssh timeout for the Admin Workstation, or else you will get timeouts on long-runnng gkectl commands. This does not change the current ssh session settions, just subsequent ones.

# all commands below or script directly below
#./adminws_ssh_increase_timeout.sh

# change the ssh timeout for long running gke operations
sudo sed -i 's/^ClientAliveInterval.*/ClientAliveInterval 60/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
sudo sed -i 's/^ClientAliveCountMax.*/ClientAliveCountMax 240/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config

# restart ssh service
sudo systemctl reload sshd

Validate configuration files for Admin Cluster (from Admin WS)

# run config check
# takes 20+ minutes even in fast mode because initial bundle decompression
$ gkectl check-config --config admin-cluster.yaml -v 3

- Validation Category: Config Check
    - [SUCCESS] Config

- Validation Category: Internet Access
    - [SUCCESS] Internet access to required domains

- Validation Category: GCP
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service account

- Validation Category: Container Registry
    - [SUCCESS] Docker registry access

- Validation Category: VCenter
    - [SUCCESS] Credentials
    - [SUCCESS] vCenter Version
    - [SUCCESS] ESXi Version
    - [SUCCESS] Datacenter
    - [SUCCESS] Datastore
    - [SUCCESS] Resource pool
    - [SUCCESS] Folder
    - [SUCCESS] Network
    - [SUCCESS] Data disk

- Validation Category: Seesaw LB
    - [SUCCESS] Seesaw validation

- Validation Category: Network Configuration
    - [SUCCESS] CIDR, VIP and static IP (availability and overlapping)

- Validation Category: DNS
    - [SUCCESS] DNS (availability)

- Validation Category: TOD
    - [SUCCESS] Local TOD (availability)

- Validation Category: VIPs
    - [SUCCESS] Ping (availability)

- Validation Category: Node IPs
    - [SUCCESS] Ping (availability)

Now running slow validation checks. Press ctrl-c twice to cancel. Use flag --fast to disable. Use flag --cleanup=false to keep the test VMs for debugging afterwards.

Using image file: "/tmp/gke-on-prem-bundle-cache/770011/gke-on-prem-ubuntu-1.10.0-gke.194.ova"
Setting up OS image as a VM template in vSphere...
[05-12-21 01:54:19] Uploading OS image "gke-on-prem-ubuntu-1.10.0-gke.194" to vSphere...OK
Creating test VMs with admin cluster configuration...  DONE
Waiting to get IP addresses from Linux test VMs...  DONE
Waiting for test VMs to become ready...  DONE

- Validation Category: Internet Access on Test VMs
    - [SUCCESS] Internet access to required domains

- Validation Category: VCenter on Test VMs
    - [SUCCESS] Test VM: VCenter access and permission

- Validation Category: DNS on Test VMs
    - [SUCCESS] Test VM: DNS availability

- Validation Category: TOD on Test VMs
    - [SUCCESS] Test VM: TOD availability

- Validation Category: Docker Registry on Test VMs
    - [SUCCESS] Docker registry access
    - [SUCCESS] gcr.io/gke-on-prem-release access

Deleting test VMs with admin cluster configuration...  DONE
All validation results were SUCCESS.

The check-config can take a while (20 minutes), you can tail the logs from another session to monitor progress in more detail. During the processing you will see a temporary “check-config-static-xxx” vm created in vcenter.

# tail from another session to monitor progress of gkectl
tail -f logs/*

Upload OS image (from Admin WS)

Prepares for the admin cluster install by doing prerequisite checks and uploading the seesaw ova images.

# takes about 10 minutes to upload OVA
$ gkectl prepare --config admin-cluster.yaml -v 3

Reading config with version "v1"
- Validation Category: Config Check
    - [SUCCESS] Config

- Validation Category: Internet Access
    - [SUCCESS] Internet access to required domains

- Validation Category: GCP
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service account

- Validation Category: Container Registry
    - [SUCCESS] gcr.io/gke-on-prem-release access
    - [SKIPPED] Docker registry access: No registry config specified

- Validation Category: VCenter
    - [SUCCESS] Credentials
    - [SUCCESS] vCenter Version
    - [SUCCESS] ESXi Version
    - [SUCCESS] Datacenter
    - [SUCCESS] Datastore
    - [SUCCESS] Resource pool
    - [SUCCESS] Folder
    - [SUCCESS] Network

Some validations were SKIPPED. Check the report above.
Logging in to gcr.io/gke-on-prem-release
Reusing VM template "gke-on-prem-ubuntu-1.10.0-gke.194" that already exists in vSphere.
Using image file: "/tmp/gke-on-prem-bundle-cache/770011/gke-on-prem-cos-1.10.0-gke.194.ova"
Setting up OS image as a VM template in vSphere...
[05-12-21 02:08:33] Uploading OS image "gke-on-prem-cos-1.10.0-gke.194" to vSphere...OK
Finished preparing the OS images.
Successfully prepared the environment.

If you look in vcenter, two additional VM templates now exist:

  • gke-on-prem-ubuntu-<major>.<minor>-gke.<build>
  • gke-on-prem-cos-<major>.<minor>-gke.<build>

Create load balancer for admin cluster (from Admin WS)

# takes about 6 minutes
$ gkectl create loadbalancer --config admin-cluster.yaml -v 3

Reading config with version "v1"
- Validation Category: OS Images
    - [SUCCESS] Admin cluster OS images exist

- Validation Category: Admin Cluster VCenter
    - [SUCCESS] Credentials
    - [SUCCESS] vCenter Version
    - [SUCCESS] ESXi Version
    - [SUCCESS] Datacenter
    - [SUCCESS] Datastore
    - [SUCCESS] Resource pool
    - [SUCCESS] Folder
    - [SUCCESS] Network

- Validation Category: Bundled LB
    - [SUCCESS] Seesaw validation

- Validation Category: Network Configuration
    - [SUCCESS] CIDR, VIP and static IP (availability and overlapping)

- Validation Category: GCP
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service account

All validation results were SUCCESS.

Creating 1 LB VMs in group "seesaw-for-gke-admin"...  DONE
Saved Seesaw group information of "seesaw-for-gke-admin" to file: seesaw-for-gke-admin.yaml
Waiting LBs in group "seesaw-for-gke-admin" to become healthy...  DONE

A vm “seesaw-for-gke-admin-xxxxx-y” is created in vCenter. And the seesaw group file “seesaw-for-gke-admin.yaml” is generated that contains info and keys on its deployment.

Create admin cluster (from Admin WS)

It is now time to create your Anthos Admin Cluster that will manage all the user clusters as well as serve as the control plane for all user clusters.

# takes about 35 minutes
$ gkectl create admin --config admin-cluster.yaml -v 3

Reading config with version "v1"
- Validation Category: Config Check
    - [SUCCESS] Config

- Validation Category: OS Images
    - [SUCCESS] Admin cluster OS images exist

- Validation Category: Internet Access
    - [SUCCESS] Internet access to required domains

- Validation Category: GCP
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service account

- Validation Category: Docker Registry Credential
    - [SUCCESS] Docker registry access

- Validation Category: vCenter
    - [SUCCESS] Credentials
    - [SUCCESS] vCenter Version
    - [SUCCESS] ESXi Version
    - [SUCCESS] Datacenter
    - [SUCCESS] Datastore
    - [SUCCESS] Resource pool
    - [SUCCESS] Folder
    - [SUCCESS] Network
    - [SUCCESS] Data disk

- Validation Category: Seesaw LB
    - [SUCCESS] Seesaw validation

- Validation Category: Network Configuration
    - [SUCCESS] CIDR, VIP and static IP (availability and overlapping)

- Validation Category: DNS
    - [SUCCESS] DNS (availability)

- Validation Category: TOD
    - [SUCCESS] Local TOD (availability)

- Validation Category: VIPs
    - [SUCCESS] Ping (availability)

- Validation Category: Node IPs
    - [SUCCESS] Ping (availability)

All validation results were SUCCESS.
Creating cluster "gkectl" ...
DEBUG: docker/images.go:67] Pulling image: gcr.io/gke-on-prem-release/kindest/node:v0.11.1-gke.25-v1.21.5-gke.1200 ...
 ✓ Ensuring node image (gcr.io/gke-on-prem-release/kindest/node:v0.11.1-gke.25-v1.21.5-gke.1200) 🖼 
 ✓ Preparing nodes 📦  
 ✓ Writing configuration 📜 
 ✓ Starting control-plane 🕹️ 
 ✓ Installing CNI 🔌 
 ✓ Installing StorageClass 💾 
 ✓ Waiting ≤ 5m0s for control-plane = Ready ⏳ 
 • Ready after 28s 💚
    Waiting for external cluster control plane to be healthy... |
    Waiting for external cluster control plane to be healthy...  DONE
    Creating data disk for internal cluster....  DONE
Applying admin bundle to external cluster
    Applying Bundle CRD YAML...  DONE
    Applying Bundle CRs...  DONE

....

    Waiting for external cluster cluster-api to be ready...  DONE
    Waiting for cluster to be ready for external cluster...  DONE
Provisioning master vm for internal cluster via external cluster
    Creating cluster object gke-admin-6lwlw on external cluster...  DONE
Applying admin master bundle components... |


...
Applying admin master bundle components...  DONE
    Creating master...  DONE
    Updating admin cluster checkpoint...  DONE
    Updating external cluster object with master endpoint...  DONE
Creating internal cluster
    Getting internal cluster kubeconfig...  DONE
    Waiting for internal cluster control plane to be healthy... \
    Waiting for internal cluster control plane to be healthy... \
    Waiting for internal cluster control plane to be healthy...  DONE
Applying admin bundle to internal cluster
    Applying Bundle CRD YAML...  DONE
    Applying Bundle CRs...  DONE

...

    Waiting for internal cluster cluster-api to be ready...  DONE
    Pivoting Cluster API objects from external to internal cluster...  DONE
    Waiting for control plane to be ready...  DONE
    Waiting for kube-apiserver VIP to be configured on the internal cluster...  DONE
Applying admin node bundle components...  DONE
Creating node Machines in internal cluster...  DONE
Pruning unwanted admin node bundle components... |

...

Upgrading onprem user cluster controller... |
Upgrading onprem user cluster controller...  DONE
    Waiting for admin cluster system workloads to be ready...  DONE
Waiting for admin cluster machines and pods to be ready...  DONE
Pruning unwanted admin base bundle components... /

...

Pruning unwanted admin addon bundle components...  DONE
    Waiting for admin cluster system workloads to be ready...  DONE
Waiting for admin cluster machines and pods to be ready...  DONE
Cleaning up external cluster...  DONE
Creating dashboards in Cloud Monitoring
Skipping admin cluster backup since clusterBackup section is not set in admin cluster seed config
Done provisioning Admin Control Plane cluster. You can access it with `kubectl --kubeconfig kubeconfig`

At the end, you will have these vms in vcenter:

  • gke-admin-master-xxxx
  • gke-admin-node-yyy-zzz
  • gke-admin-node-yyy-zzz

And a file ‘kubeconfig’ in the directory. Try a kubectl command:

$ kubectl --kubeconfig kubeconfig get nodes

NAME          STATUS   ROLES    AGE   VERSION
admin-host1   Ready    control-plane,master   39m   v1.21.5-gke.1200
admin-host2   Ready                     27m   v1.21.5-gke.1200
admin-host3   Ready                     26m   v1.21.5-gke.1200

# do same but shows IP addresses
$ kubectl --kubeconfig kubeconfig get nodes -o wide
NAME          STATUS   ROLES    AGE   VERSION           INTERNAL-IP       EXTERNAL-IP       OS-IMAGE             KERNEL-VERSION     CONTAINER-RUNTIME
admin-host1   Ready    control-plane,master   39m   v1.21.5-gke.1200   192.168.141.222   192.168.141.222   Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS   5.4.0-1027-gkeop   containerd://1.5.8
admin-host2   Ready                     27m   v1.21.5-gke.1200   192.168.141.223   192.168.141.223   Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS   5.4.0-1027-gkeop   containerd://1.5.8
admin-host3   Ready                     26m   v1.21.5-gke.1200   192.168.141.224   192.168.141.224   Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS   5.4.0-1027-gkeop   containerd://1.5.8

Notice the IP addresses in the wide listing are the IP from the admin-block.yaml.

Now ssh into an Admin Cluster master node. Use kubectl to get the secret and decode it.

# create key
kubectl --kubeconfig kubeconfig get secrets -n kube-system sshkeys -o jsonpath='{.data.vsphere_tmp}' | base64 -d > ~/.ssh/admin-cluster.key && chmod 600 ~/.ssh/admin-cluster.key

# get list of docker images on master node
ssh -i ~/.ssh/admin-cluster.key 192.168.141.222 "sudo docker images; hostname"

To ssh into the admin Cluster seesaw LB [1]

# seesaw for admin cluster
kubectl --kubeconfig kubeconfig get -n  kube-system secret seesaw-ssh -o jsonpath='{@.data.seesaw_ssh}' | base64 -d | base64 -d > /tmp/admin-seesaw-ssh-key && chmod 400 /tmp/admin-seesaw-ssh-key

# use IP from admin-seesaw-block.yaml
ssh -i /tmp/admin-seesaw-ssh-key ubuntu@192.168.141.252 "hostname;uptime"

Configure CoreDNS for the Admin Cluster

Starting in Anthos 1.9, CoreDNS replaced KubeDNS. You will need to configure the Kubernetes ‘ClusterDNS’ object on the Admin Cluster so that internal DNS entries in the ‘home.lab’ domain are resolvable.

# from the AmdminWS
export KUBECONFIG=/home/ubuntu/kubeconfig

# apply DNS settings to 'ClusterDNS' object
kubectl apply -f configure-clusterdns.yaml

# deploy dns test pod, wait for deployment to settle
kubectl apply -f k8s/dns-troubleshooting.yaml
sleep 30

# this internal name should resolve to internal 10.100 IP
kubectl exec -i -t dnsutils -- nslookup kubernetes.default

# this public address should resolve to Google public IP
kubectl exec -i -t dnsutils -- nslookup www.google.com

# 'home.lab' domain should resolve to 192.168.140.237
# can take a minute or two for DNS to resolve correctly
kubectl exec -i -t dnsutils -- nslookup vcenter.home.lab

If these name resolutions do not work, the User Cluster will not deploy properly.

Check config file for User Cluster

With the Admin Cluster now built, it is time to switch over to the User Cluster build.

This will use the prepared files: user-cluster.yaml, user-block.yaml, user-seesaw-block.yaml

NOTE: the loadBalancer.vips.controlPlaneVIP in user-cluster.yaml sits in the admin141 network and is where the kubeapi for the User Cluster is exposed. All other IP addresses related to User Cluster are in the user142 network.

# takes about 7 minutes
$ gkectl check-config --kubeconfig ./kubeconfig --config user-cluster.yaml -v 3

- Validation Category: Config Check
    - [SUCCESS] Config

- Validation Category: Internet Access
    - [SUCCESS] Internet access to required domains

- Validation Category: GCP
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service account

- Validation Category: GKEHub
    - [SUCCESS] GKEHub membership

- Validation Category: Docker Registry Credential
    - [SUCCESS] Docker registry access

- Validation Category: User Cluster VCenter
    - [SUCCESS] Credentials
    - [SUCCESS] VSphere CSI Driver
    - [SUCCESS] vCenter Version
    - [SUCCESS] ESXi Version
    - [SUCCESS] Datacenter
    - [SUCCESS] Datastore
    - [SUCCESS] Resource pool
    - [SUCCESS] Folder
    - [SUCCESS] Network
    - [SUCCESS] Datastore
    - [SUCCESS] VSphere Datastore FreeSpace

- Validation Category: Seesaw LB
    - [SUCCESS] Seesaw validation

- Validation Category: Network Configuration
    - [SUCCESS] CIDR, VIP and static IP (availability and overlapping)

- Validation Category: DNS
    - [SUCCESS] DNS (availability)

- Validation Category: TOD
    - [SUCCESS] Local TOD (availability)

- Validation Category: VIPs
    - [SUCCESS] Ping (availability)

- Validation Category: Node IPs
    - [SUCCESS] Ping (availability)

- Validation Category: HSM Secrets Encryption
    - [SKIPPED] HSM Secrets Encryption: No HSM secrets encryption config specified
- Validation Category: NodePool Autoscale
    - [SUCCESS] User cluster nodepool autoscale config for a user cluster

Now running slow validation checks. Press ctrl-c twice to cancel. Use flag --fast to disable. Use flag --cleanup=false to keep the test VMs for debugging afterwards.

Creating Linux test VMs with user cluster configuration...  DONE
Waiting to get IP addresses from Linux test VMs...  DONE
Waiting for test VMs to become ready...  DONE

- Validation Category: Internet Access on Test VMs
    - [SUCCESS] Internet access to required domains

- Validation Category: VCenter on Test VMs
    - [SUCCESS] Test VM: VCenter access and permission

- Validation Category: DNS on Test VMs
    - [SUCCESS] Test VM: DNS availability

- Validation Category: TOD on Test VMs
    - [SUCCESS] Test VM: TOD availability

- Validation Category: Docker Registry
    - [SUCCESS] Docker registry access

Deleting test VMs with user cluster configuration...  DONE
Some validations were SKIPPED. Check the report above.

Create seesaw LB for User Cluster

# takes about 4 minutes
$ gkectl create loadbalancer --kubeconfig ./kubeconfig --config user-cluster.yaml -v 3

Reading config with version "v1"
- Validation Category: OS Images
    - [SUCCESS] User cluster OS images exist

- Validation Category: User Cluster VCenter
    - [SUCCESS] Credentials
    - [SUCCESS] VSphere CSI Driver
    - [SUCCESS] vCenter Version
    - [SUCCESS] ESXi Version
    - [SUCCESS] Datacenter
    - [SUCCESS] Datastore
    - [SUCCESS] Resource pool
    - [SUCCESS] Folder
    - [SUCCESS] Network

- Validation Category: Seesaw LB
    - [SUCCESS] Seesaw validation

- Validation Category: Network Configuration
    - [SUCCESS] CIDR, VIP and static IP (availability and overlapping)

- Validation Category: GCP
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service account

All validation results were SUCCESS.

Creating 1 LB VMs in group "seesaw-for-user1"...  DONE
Saved Seesaw group information of "seesaw-for-user1" to file: seesaw-for-user1.yaml
Waiting LBs in group "seesaw-for-user1" to become healthy...  DONE

A vm “seesaw-for-user1-xxxxx-y” is created in vCenter. And the seesaw group file “seesaw-for-user1.yaml” is generated that contains info and keys on the deployment.

Create User Cluster

# takes about 35 minutes
$ gkectl create cluster --kubeconfig ./kubeconfig --config user-cluster.yaml -v 3

Reading config with version "v1"
- Validation Category: Config Check
    - [SUCCESS] Config

- Validation Category: OS Images
    - [SUCCESS] User cluster OS images exist

- Validation Category: Reserved IPs
    - [SUCCESS] Admin cluster reserved IP for new user master

- Validation Category: Internet Access
    - [SUCCESS] Internet access to required domains

- Validation Category: GCP
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service
    - [SUCCESS] GCP service account

- Validation Category: GKE Hub
    - [SUCCESS] GKEHub membership

- Validation Category: Container Registry
    - [SUCCESS] Docker registry access

- Validation Category: VCenter
    - [SUCCESS] Credentials
    - [SUCCESS] VSphere CSI Driver
    - [SUCCESS] vCenter Version
    - [SUCCESS] ESXi Version
    - [SUCCESS] Datacenter
    - [SUCCESS] Datastore
    - [SUCCESS] Resource pool
    - [SUCCESS] Folder
    - [SUCCESS] Network
    - [SUCCESS] VSphere Datastore FreeSpace
    - [SUCCESS] Datastore
    - [SKIPPED] Tags: no vsphere tag will be attached to VMs

- Validation Category: Seesaw LB
    - [SUCCESS] Seesaw validation

- Validation Category: Network Configuration
    - [SUCCESS] CIDR, VIP and static IP (availability and overlapping)

- Validation Category: DNS
    - [SUCCESS] DNS (availability)

- Validation Category: TOD
    - [SUCCESS] Local TOD (availability)

- Validation Category: VIPs
    - [SUCCESS] Ping (availability)

- Validation Category: Node IPs
    - [SUCCESS] Ping (availability)

- Validation Category: HSM Secrets Encryption
    - [SKIPPED] HSM Secrets Encryption: No HSM secrets encryption config specified

- Validation Category: NodePool Autoscale
    - [SUCCESS] User cluster nodepool autoscale config for a user cluster

Some validations were SKIPPED. Check the report above.
Skipping admin cluster backup since clusterBackup section is not set in admin cluster seed config
Waiting for user cluster "user1" to be ready... /
Waiting for user cluster "user1" to be ready... |
    Creating or updating master node: hasn't been seen by controller yet...
    Creating or updating master node: 0/1 replicas are ready...
    Creating or updating master node...
    Creating or updating user cluster control plane workloads: deploying 
user-control-plane-base, user-control-plane-clusterapi-vsphere, 
user-control-plane-etcddefrag, user-kube-apiserver-base: 0/1 statefulsets are 
ready...
    Creating or updating user cluster control plane workloads...
    Creating or updating user cluster control plane workloads: 14/15 pods are ready...
    Creating or updating node pools: pool-1: 0/3 replicas are ready...
    Creating or updating addon workloads: 5/33 pods are ready...

...
    Registering cluster...
    Cluster is running...
Skipping admin cluster backup since clusterBackup section is not set in admin cluster seed config
Done provisioning user cluster "user1". You can access it with `kubectl --kubeconfig user1-kubeconfig`

You will see 3 new VMS representing the User Cluster worker nodes: “pool-1-xxx.yyy” and one additional VM on the Admin Cluster which is the control plane for the user1 cluster: “user1-x-yyyy”

And a new file ‘user1-kubeconfig’, which can be used to reach the User Cluster with kubectl.

# export user cluster kubeconfig
$ export KUBECONFIG=$(realpath user1-kubeconfig)

$ kubectl get nodes

NAME         STATUS   ROLES    AGE     VERSION
user-host1   Ready       21m   v1.21.5-gke.1200
user-host2   Ready       21m   v1.21.5-gke.1200
user-host3   Ready       21m   v1.21.5-gke.1200



$ kubectl get nodes -o wide

NAME         STATUS   ROLES    AGE   VERSION           INTERNAL-IP       EXTERNAL-IP       OS-IMAGE             KERNEL-VERSION     CONTAINER-RUNTIME
user-host1   Ready       21m   v1.21.5-gke.1200   192.168.142.230   192.168.142.230   Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS   5.4.0-1027-gkeop   containerd://1.5.8
user-host2   Ready       21m   v1.21.5-gke.1200   192.168.142.231   192.168.142.231   Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS   5.4.0-1027-gkeop   containerd://1.5.8
user-host3   Ready       21m   v1.21.5-gke.1200   192.168.142.232   192.168.142.232   Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS   5.4.0-1027-gkeop   containerd://1.5.8

The IP addresses match the range from user-block.yaml.

Now ssh into a user node. Use kubectl to get the secret and decode it.

# create key for user cluster
kubectl --kubeconfig kubeconfig get secrets -n user1 ssh-keys -o jsonpath='{.data.ssh\.key}' | base64 -d > ~/.ssh/user1.key && chmod 600 ~/.ssh/user1.key

# get list of docker images on user1 worker node
ssh -i ~/.ssh/user1.key 192.168.142.230 "sudo docker images; hostname"

To ssh into the user cluster seesaw LB [1]

# seesaw for user cluster
kubectl --kubeconfig user1-kubeconfig get -n  kube-system secret seesaw-ssh -o jsonpath='{@.data.seesaw_ssh}' | base64 -d | base64 -d > /tmp/user1-seesaw-ssh-key && chmod 400 /tmp/user1-seesaw-ssh-key

# use IP from user-seesaw-block.yaml
ssh -i /tmp/user1-seesaw-ssh-key ubuntu@192.168.142.248 "hostname;uptime"

Register cluster with GCP

Now that the cluster is created and registered with GCP, you should go into the web console, console.cloud.google.com and establish a login context so you have visibility into cluster health and details.

Click on the hamburger menu > Kubernetes Engine > Clusters. And click into the ‘users1’ cluster just created.

If you click into the cluster link, it is going to prompt you to authenticate with a list of several methods. While you could use your personal Google identity, this is not an ideal solution and you should use a token which is not tied to your personal identity.

Generating a token (from Admin Workstation)

This procedure is documented on the official page here. From the Admin Workstation:

$ cd ~/k8s

# run all commands below OR just ./register-user-cluster-with-gcp.sh

# verify that gke connect agent is running
# this is using 'connect-agent-sa-xxx.json' service account
$ kubectl get pods -n gke-connect

NAME                                               READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
gke-connect-agent-20210827-01-00-657b965c57-j5f4b   1/1     Running   0          12m

# create the 'cloud-console-reader' Kubernetes role
$ kubectl apply -f cloud-console-reader.yaml
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/cloud-console-reader created

# create the Kubernetes service account (KSA).
$ KSA_NAME=remote-cloud-console-reader
$ kubectl create serviceaccount $KSA_NAME
serviceaccount/remote-cloud-console-reader created

# create bindings
$ kubectl create clusterrolebinding VIEW_BINDING_NAME --clusterrole view --serviceaccount default:$KSA_NAME

clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/VIEW_BINDING_NAME created


$ kubectl create clusterrolebinding CLOUD_CONSOLE_READER_BINDING_NAME  --clusterrole cloud-console-reader --serviceaccount default:$KSA_NAME

clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/CLOUD_CONSOLE_READER_BINDING_NAME created

# get bearer token that can be used in the console for login
$ SECRET_NAME=$(kubectl get serviceaccount $KSA_NAME -o jsonpath='{$.secrets[0].name}')

# get decoded token
$ kubectl get secret ${SECRET_NAME} -o jsonpath='{$.data.token}' | base64 --decode

This decoded token is the value you should use after you press “Login” at the web console and authenticate with a token type. Once done, it will take you to a screen showing the cluster details like below.

 

Validate User Cluster service (from admin workstation)

Per the documentation here we will create a deployment of the Hello application. And then create a service which will expose it via the User Cluster seesaw load balancer.

$ cd ~/k8s

# create deployment and pods
$ kubectl apply -f my-deployment.yaml 
deployment.apps/my-deployment created

# view status of deployment
$ kubectl get deployment my-deployment

NAME            READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
my-deployment   3/3     3            3           20s

# view status of pods
$ kubectl get pods
NAME                             READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
my-deployment-5d7b664866-5r264   1/1     Running   0          48s
my-deployment-5d7b664866-ncccf   1/1     Running   0          48s
my-deployment-5d7b664866-qzrwr   1/1     Running   0          48s

# existing set of services
$ kubectl get services
NAME         TYPE        CLUSTER-IP    EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)   AGE
kubernetes   ClusterIP   10.101.0.1           443/TCP   12m


# create a service for our deployment
# loadBalancerIP set to '192.168.142.17'
$ kubectl apply -f my-service.yaml 
service/my-service created

# view service and external IP
$ kubectl get services

NAME         TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP      PORT(S)        AGE
kubernetes   ClusterIP      10.101.0.1                 443/TCP        12m
my-service   LoadBalancer   10.101.14.121   192.168.142.17   80:31554/TCP   30s

# do HTTP request against service IP
$ curl -k http://192.168.142.17:80/hello
Hello, world!
Version: 2.0.0
Hostname: my-deployment-75d45b64f9-sgdjn

You can also see this new 192.168.142.17 VIP exposed on the user cluster seesaw LB. Which makes it available from the host browser at http://192.168.142.17/hello

 

Explaining VIP exposed by seesaw

The number of references to the seesaw loadbalancers in ‘admin-cluster.yaml’, ‘admin-seesaw-block.yaml’, ‘user-cluster.yaml’, and ‘user-seesaw-block.yaml’ can be confusing. But if you start by looking at the seesaw IPs from vCenter and work backwards, it makes more sense.

Below are the IP addresses on the seesaw-for-gke-admin VM.

  • 192.168.141.252 – static block of IP, open to ssh (admin-seesaw-block.yaml)
  • 192.168.141.250 – ‘masterIP’ advertised IP (admin-cluster.yaml)
  • controlPlaneVIP – admin cluster ‘controlPlaneVIP’ kubectl endpoint (admin-cluster.yaml)
  • addonsVIP – used for multi-cluster features (admin-cluster.yaml)
  • 192.168.141.245 – user cluster ‘controlPlaneVIP’ kubectl endpoint (user-cluster.yaml)

Adding additional user clusters would add new ConrolPlaneVIP kubectl endpoints to the Admin Cluster SeeSaw.

Below are the IP addresses on the seesaw-for-user1 VM.

 

  • 192.168.142.248 – static block of IP, open to ssh (user-seesaw-block.yaml)
  • 192.168.142.247 – ‘masterIP’ advertised IP (user-cluster.yaml)
  • 192.168.142.17 – ‘loadBalancerIP’ from custom my-service (my-service.yaml)
  • 192.168.142.253 – ‘ingressVIP’ LB ingress, where istio ingress gateway is exposed (user-cluster.yaml)

Deregister User Cluster

If you delete and then want to rebuild the User Cluster, you need to be sure to first deregister the original one. Deleting the user cluster does break the connection, but the registration entry is still there until you go to the Hamburger Menu>Kubernetes Engine>Clusters, then select the user cluster and select the “Deregister” action which can be found by scrolling to the right-most part of the row.

The User Cluster recreation of the user cluster will fail until you delete this older registration.

 

REFERENCES

Anthos, 1.10 on-prem documentation

Anthos 1.10, release notes, ESX6.7 U3+ only

Anthos, 1.10 known issues

Anthos 1.9, configure DNS

Anthos, seesaw fields explained

Anthos, vsphere requirements

Kubernetes, debug DNS

GCP, IAM permissions list

netapp docs, step-by-step deploying anthos admin and user cluster with F5 LB and Trident

thebackroomtech, If you need more space on your esxi datastore, add another sparse IDE disk, then go into the esxi1 web interface and ‘add an extent’

rotelok.com, enabling KSM on Ubuntu

github fabianlee, link to diagrams in this blog post (edit on diagrams.net)

CoreDNS administration

NOTES

If you need to delete the Admin workstation

delete the VM from vCenter UI, “gke-admin-ws”. If you use the ESXi web admin, it might show as orphaned in vCenter still.

If in admin-ws-config.yaml the ‘dataDiskName’ is prefixed with a folder path, then you need to manually recreate the “datastore1/<folder>” vcenter datastore folder.

# delete current ssh key from seedVM
rm ~/.ssh/gke-admin-workstation*

# clear known fingerprint for AdminWS
ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/known_hosts -R 192.168.140.221
# or clear known_hosts completely
truncate -s 0 ~/.ssh/known_hosts

# remove file noting details on adminWS
rm ~/seedvm/gke-admin-ws-*

And if you recreate the admin ws with ‘gkeadm create’, do not use the flag ‘auto-create-service-accounts’ because they already exist.

If you need to delete an admin cluster [1]

The instructions for cluster deletion are basically to clean out the objects in the cluster, then delete the vms from vcenter. That would mean you would just delete the seesaw from vcenter the same way.

# from the admin workstation, you may need to delete the bootstrap cluster
sudo docker stop gkectl-control-plane
sudo docker rm gkectl-control-plane

Follow the instructions in docs, then delete the “dataDisk” referenced from admin-cluster.yaml which is on the vcenter datastore. Which in our case is “datstore1/admin-disk.vmdk”

If you need to delete a user cluster [1]

cp seesaw-for-user1.yaml seesaw-for-user1.yaml.old
cp user-cluster.yaml user-cluster.yaml.old

# delete the user cluster
# notice how the kubeconfig must be for the admin cluster 
# add '--force' if necessary 
$ gkectl delete cluster --kubeconfig kubeconfig --cluster user1
Deleting user cluster "user1"... DONE
Cluster is running...
Terminating cluster...
Terminating node pools: wait for node pools (pool-1) to be deleted...
Terminating cluster...
Terminating master node...
User cluster "user1" is deleted.

# notice how the kubeconfig must be for the admin cluster
$ gkectl delete loadbalancer --config user-cluster.yaml --seesaw-group-file seesaw-for-user1.yaml --kubeconfig kubeconfig
Reading config with version "v1"
About to delete Seesaw group "seesaw-for-user1". Please make sure it's not being used.
Do you want to proceed? [Y/n]: 
Deleting LB VMs in group seesaw-for-user1...  DONE
Seesaw group file: "seesaw-for-user1.yaml" is deleted.
Succesfully deleted Seesaw group "seesaw-for-user1"

If you recreate this exact cluster, use the ‘–fast’ and –skip-validation-load-balancer’ on check-config to avoid errors.

If you need to delete the seesaw load balancer [1]

# for admin seesaw
gkectl delete loadbalancer --config admin-cluster.yaml --seesaw-group-file seesaw-for-gke-admin.yaml
# for user seesaw
# use admin kubeconfig
gkectl delete loadbalancer --kubeconfig kubeconfig --config user-cluster.yaml --seesaw-group-file seesaw-for-user1.yaml

# move old seesaw store file
mv seesaw-for-gke-admin.yaml seesaw-for-gke-admin.yaml.bak

If your user cluster is only partially created, you will have to delete the hub membership either in the web console or cli

gcloud container hub memberships unregister user1

govc to find available entities

# res pools, folders, datastores
govc find / -type p
govc find / -type f
govc find / -type s

Delete Istio components

Out-of-the-box, the Anthos installer puts a small istio deployment into the ‘gke-system’ namespace. Let’s delete this so we can use the full-fledged Istio operator in later sections.

The order below is important. We have to delete the horizontal pod autoscalers before the deployments.

# run all the commands below OR ~/k8s/istio-ootb/delete-istio-ootb-components.sh
#
# show istio components
$ kubectl get all -n gke-system

# show horizontal pod autoscalers
$ kubectl get hpa -n gke-system

# delete hpa
$ kubectl delete hpa/istio-ingress-hpa -n gke-system
$ kubectl delete hpa/istio-pilot-hpa -n gke-system

# show pod disruption budgets
$ kubectl get pdb -n gke-system

# delete pdb
$ kubectl delete pdb/istio-ingress -n gke-system
$ kubectl delete pdb/istio-pilor -n gke-system
# delete deployments
$ kubectl delete deployment/istio-pilot -n gke-system
$ kubectl delete deployment/istio-ingress -n gke-system

# delete services
$ kubectl delete service/istio-pilot -n gke-system
$ kubectl delete service/istio-ingress -n gke-system

# show components now
$ kubectl get all -n gke-system

Then delete the istio service accounts and secrets from the gke-system namespace.

# show secrets
$ kubectl get secrets -n gke-system
# show service account which use secrets
$ kubectl get sa -n gke-system

# delete service accounts
$ kubectl delete sa/istio-ingressgateway-service-account -n gke-system
$ kubectl delete sa/istio-pilot-service-account -n gke-system

# now delete all secrets starting with 'istio'
$ for name in $(kubectl get secrets -n gke-system -o=jsonpath="{.items[*].metadata.name}"); do [[ $name != istio* ]] || kubectl delete secret/$name -n gke-system; done

# show secrets
$ kubectl get secrets -n gke-system

Finally, delete the namespace.

$ kubectl delete ns gke-system
namespace "gke-system" deleted

If you have issues with the namespace not deleting, you may have to empty the finalizers array.

If esxi hangs on esxi “nfs41client loaded” then goes to paused state

check for disk full on KVM host pool location

check cqow2 sparse disk size when VM is powered on

sudo qemu-img info seedvm.qcow2 --force-share

Creating resource pools directly under datacenter (if you do not have cluster)

govc find / -type p 

# create resource pools for admin and user clusters
govc pool.create */Resources/admin
govc pool.create */Resources/user