TKG 1.4 on AWS – Part 2: Deploy management cluster

Eknath -
Reading Time: 4 mins

Overview

A management cluster is the first Key component that you deploy when you create Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. The management cluster is a Kubernetes cluster that performs the role of the primary management and operational control plane for the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. This is where Cluster API runs to create the Tanzu Kubernetes clusters in which your application workloads run, and where you configure the shared and in-cluster services that the clusters use. This cluster manages the life-cycle of TKG workload clusters e.g., creating, scaling, upgrading, deleting, managing TKG workload clusters.

Deploy Management Cluster

# 

$ tanzu mc create --ui --bind 0.0.0.0:8080

Validating the pre-requisites...
Serving kickstart UI at http://[::]:8080
unable to open browser: exec: "xdg-open": executable file not found in $PATH

In your local browser, access the installer interface using http://<bootstrap machine public ip>:8080

  • Select Amazon EC2 Deploy

  • Select Credential Profile that is created in previous post
  • Select appropriate region > Connect
  • Next

  • Select Create new VPC for AWS and the CIDR is auto filled as below
  • If you want to use existing VPC to deploy management cluster, please refer to doc

  • click here to check various ec2 instance types
  • Provide instance type for management control plane, worker node
  • Provide Management cluster name and EC2 key Pair which we created in post
  • If this is your first deployment, then check the box AWS cloudformation stack 

  • Metadata (Optional) > Next
  • Kubernetes Network: You have the option to enable Proxy settings. I have disabled here, but you can refer to doc for more details > Next

  • Identity management: It is recommended to enable for production workloads, for more details refer to doc  > Next

  • Select the OS Image > Next

  • Register with Tanzu Mission Control (Optional ) > Next

  • CEIP Agreement > check the box Participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program > Next
  • Review Configuration
  • Deploy Management cluster
  • You can monitor the progress in terminal and it should take 15 mins for the complete process to complete.
mc cluster creation output 
# Can see this output in terminal 

Resource                  |Type                                                                |Status
AWS::IAM::InstanceProfile |control-plane.tkg.cloud.vmware.com                                  |CREATE_COMPLETE
AWS::IAM::InstanceProfile |controllers.tkg.cloud.vmware.com                                    |CREATE_COMPLETE
AWS::IAM::InstanceProfile |nodes.tkg.cloud.vmware.com                                          |CREATE_COMPLETE
AWS::IAM::ManagedPolicy   |arn:aws:iam::778018584600:policy/control-plane.tkg.cloud.vmware.com |CREATE_COMPLETE
AWS::IAM::ManagedPolicy   |arn:aws:iam::778018584600:policy/nodes.tkg.cloud.vmware.com         |CREATE_COMPLETE
AWS::IAM::ManagedPolicy   |arn:aws:iam::778018584600:policy/controllers.tkg.cloud.vmware.com   |CREATE_COMPLETE
AWS::IAM::Role            |control-plane.tkg.cloud.vmware.com                                  |CREATE_COMPLETE
AWS::IAM::Role            |controllers.tkg.cloud.vmware.com                                    |CREATE_COMPLETE
AWS::IAM::Role            |nodes.tkg.cloud.vmware.com                                          |CREATE_COMPLETE
  • In AWS console, navigate to Cloud Formation > Stacks
  • Can see the list of resources created during management cluster creation.

Verify the cluster

  • Login to AWS console > EC2
  • Once the management cluster is created, you can see EC2 vm’s deployed and running as below

  • Check the cluster status using kubectl command:
# Check the context

$ kubectl config get-contexts
CURRENT   NAME                                          CLUSTER              AUTHINFO                   NAMESPACE
*         tkg-mgmt-aws-admin@tkg-mgmt-aws               tkg-mgmt-aws         tkg-mgmt-aws-admin

$ tanzu mc get
  NAME          NAMESPACE   STATUS   CONTROLPLANE  WORKERS  KUBERNETES        ROLES
  tkg-mgmt-aws  tkg-system  running  1/1           1/1      v1.21.2+vmware.1  management


Details:

NAME                                                             READY  SEVERITY  REASON  SINCE  MESSAGE
/tkg-mgmt-aws                                                    True                     23h
├─ClusterInfrastructure - AWSCluster/tkg-mgmt-aws                True                     23h
├─ControlPlane - KubeadmControlPlane/tkg-mgmt-aws-control-plane  True                     23h
│ └─Machine/tkg-mgmt-aws-control-plane-rrdzt                     True                     23h
└─Workers
  └─MachineDeployment/tkg-mgmt-aws-md-0
    └─Machine/tkg-mgmt-aws-md-0-557c4b66d7-kq79h                 True                     23h


Providers:

  NAMESPACE                          NAME                   TYPE                    PROVIDERNAME  VERSION  WATCHNAMESPACE
  capa-system                        infrastructure-aws     InfrastructureProvider  aws           v0.6.6
  capi-kubeadm-bootstrap-system      bootstrap-kubeadm      BootstrapProvider       kubeadm       v0.3.23
  capi-kubeadm-control-plane-system  control-plane-kubeadm  ControlPlaneProvider    kubeadm       v0.3.23
  capi-system                        cluster-api            CoreProvider            cluster-api   v0.3.23

# To check the of pods in cluster

$ kubectl get pods -A