Installing Knative serving on Google Cloud

Learn how to install Knative serving in your GKE clusters on Google Cloud. Knative serving now uses Cloud Service Mesh and GKE Enterprise fleets. Learn what's new and changed with Knative serving fleet installations.

Warning: Performing the steps on this page will perform a new installation of Knative serving and irreversibly overwrite your previous non-fleet installation. Do not proceed with the following steps in your clusters for which you previously enabled Knative serving.

For previous "free-trial" installations of Knative serving, you must first upgrade Knative serving to use GKE Enterprise fleets.

Use this page to install the default components of Knative serving on your GKE clusters in Google Cloud with the following configuration:

  • Knative serving on Google Cloud is configured for public clusters by default.

  • Cloud Monitoring metrics for GKE Enterprise on Google Cloud clusters are enabled by default.

Before you begin

  • To install Knative serving in private clusters on Google Cloud, you must perform a custom installation.

  • You must ensure that you meet the installation prerequisites.

  • If Knative serving is installed in your cluster, you must ensure that the "GKE add-on" does not exist before you perform these fleet component installation steps. If you have the "add-on" installed, you must instead follow the steps for upgrading to GKE Enterprise fleets.

    Check if the "GKE add-on" is installed.

    To check if your installation of Knative serving is the "GKE add-on", run the following command: 

    gcloud container clusters describe \
CLUSTER_NAME \
--region CLUSTER_LOCATION \
--project PROJECT_ID --format='get(addonsConfig.cloudRunConfig)'

    Replace:

    • CLUSTER_NAME with the name of your cluster.
    • CLUSTER_LOCATION with the location where your cluster is located.
    • PROJECT_ID with the ID of your Google Cloud project.

    Results:

    • "GKE add-on" not installed:
      • Nothing is returned to your terminal if the add-on was never installed.
      • disabled=true is returned if the add-on was previously uninstalled.
    • "GKE add-on" is installed: If the add-on is installed in your cluster, the configuration details for the add-on are returned. Example: loadBalancerType=LOAD_BALANCER_TYPE_EXTERNAL
    Example:
    The following example demonstrates that Knative serving was installed in the my-addon-cluster cluster through the "GKE add-on", which is configured to handle external traffic: 
    gcloud container clusters describe my-addon-cluster \
--region us-central1-c --project my-gcp-project \
--format='get(addonsConfig.cloudRunConfig)'

    Response: 

    loadBalancerType=LOAD_BALANCER_TYPE_EXTERNAL

Installing Knative serving

To install the default components of Knative serving:

  1. Enable Knative serving in your fleet:

    gcloud container fleet cloudrun enable --project=PROJECT_ID

    Replace PROJECT_ID with the ID of your Google Cloud project.

    For details and additional options, see the gcloud container fleet cloudrun enable reference.

  2. Optional: Verify that the Knative serving feature component is enabled:

    Console

    View if the Knative serving component is Enabled in the Google Cloud console:

    Go to Feature Manager

    Command line

    View if the appdevexperience state is ACTIVE:

    gcloud container fleet features list  --project=PROJECT_ID

    Replace PROJECT_ID with the ID of your Google Cloud project.

    For details and additional options, see the gcloud container fleet features list reference.

    Result:

    NAME               STATE
appdevexperience   ACTIVE

  3. For each GKE Enterprise cluster where you want to install Knative serving, run the corresponding command: 

    gcloud container fleet cloudrun apply --gke-cluster=CLUSTER_LOCATION/CLUSTER_NAME

    Replace the following:

    • CLUSTER_LOCATION with the region or zone in which your cluster is located.
    • CLUSTER_NAME with the ID of your cluster or the fully qualified identifier for the cluster.

    For details and additional options, see the gcloud container fleet cloudrun apply reference.

  4. Verify that Knative serving has been enabled in your cluster:
    1. Open the Google Cloud console:

      Go to GKE clusters

    2. Click on the name of your cluster to open the details pane.

    3. Run this command to check if you can see the Knative serving version details: kubectl get namespace knative-serving -o 'go-template={{index .metadata.labels "serving.knative.dev/release"}}'
    4. Verify that all Knative serving specific deployments are in running status under knative-serving and appdevexperience namespaces.

What's next

Set up your installation of Knative serving.