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Create an admin cluster (quickstart)

This document shows how to create an admin cluster for Google Distributed Cloud.

The instructions here are part of a quickstart. For full instructions on how to create an admin cluster, see Creating an admin cluster.

Before you begin

Create an Admin workstation (quickstart)

Prepare to create a Seesaw load balancer (quickstart)

Get an SSH connection to your admin workstation

Get an SSH connection to your admin workstation.

Recall that gkeadm activated your component access service account on the admin workstation.

Do all the remaining steps in this topic on your admin workstation in the home directory.

Specify static IPs for your admin cluster

To specify the static IP addresses that you want to use for your admin cluster, create an IP block file named admin-cluster-ipblock.yaml.

You need five IP addresses for the following nodes in your admin cluster:

Three nodes to run the admin cluster control plane and add-ons
An additional node to be used temporarily during upgrades
One node to run the control plane for the user cluster that you will create later

Here is an example of an IP block file with five hosts:

blocks:
  - netmask: 255.255.252.0
    gateway: 172.16.23.254
    ips:
    - ip: 172.16.20.10
      hostname: admin-host1
    - ip: 172.16.20.11
      hostname: admin-host2
    - ip: 172.16.20.12
      hostname: admin-host3
    - ip: 172.16.20.13
      hostname: admin-host4
    - ip: 172.16.20.14
      hostname: admin-host5

The ips field is an array of IP addresses and hostnames. These are the IP addresses and hostnames that Google Distributed Cloud will assign to your admin cluster nodes.

In the IP block file, you also specify a subnet mask and a default gateway for the admin cluster nodes.

Credentials configuration file

When you used gkeadm to create your admin workstation, you filled in a credentials configuration file named credential.yaml. This file holds the username and password for your vCenter server.

Admin cluster configuration file

When gkeadm created your admin workstation, it generated a configuration file named admin-cluster.yaml. This configuration file is for creating your admin cluster.

Fill in your admin cluster configuration file

Several fields in your admin cluster configuration file are already filled in with default values, generated values, or values that you provided when you created your admin workstation. You can leave those fields unchanged.

Fill in the following fields. For instructions on how to fill in the fields, see Admin cluster configuration file.

  dataDisk: "Fill in"
network:
  hostConfig:
    dnsServers:
    - "Fill in"
    ntpServers:
    - "Fill in"
    searchDomainsForDNS:
    - "Fill in"
  ipMode:
    type: Fill in. Set to "static".
    ipBlockFilePath: "Fill in"
loadBalancer:
  vips:
    controlPlaneVIP: "Fill in"
  seesaw:
    ipBlockFilePath: "Fill in"
    vrid: Fill in
    masterIP: "Fill in"

Validate the admin cluster configuration file

Verify that the your admin cluster configuration file is valid and can be used for cluster creation:

gkectl check-config --config admin-cluster.yaml

Prepare your vSphere environment

Run gkectl prepare to initialize your vSphere environment:

gkectl prepare --config admin-cluster.yaml --skip-validation-all

Create a load balancer for your admin cluster

Create and configure the VM for your Seesaw load balancer:

gkectl create loadbalancer --config admin-cluster.yaml

Create the admin cluster

Create the admin cluster:

gkectl create admin --config admin-cluster.yaml

What's next

Create a user cluster (quickstart)