Getting Started

For prerequisites, check the respective sections for VPC and PowerVS

Now that we’ve got all the prerequisites in place, let’s create a Kubernetes cluster and transform it into a management cluster using clusterctl.

Provision local boostrap management cluster:

1. Create simple, local bootstrap cluster with a control-plane and worker node

   Using kind:

   ~ kind create cluster --name my-bootstrap --config bootstrap.yaml
   

   Example bootstrap.yaml:

   kind: Cluster
   apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
   nodes:
      - role: control-plane
      - role: worker
   

   Make sure the nodes are in Ready state before moving on.

   ~ kubectl get nodes
   NAME                         STATUS   ROLES                  AGE   VERSION
   my-bootstrap-control-plane   Ready    control-plane,master   46h   v1.20.2
   my-bootstrap-worker          Ready    <none>                 46h   v1.20.2
   

2. Set workload cluster environment variables

   Make sure these value reflects your API Key for your target VPC environment or PowerVS environment in IBM Cloud.

   export IBMCLOUD_API_KEY=<YOUR_API_KEY>
   

3. To deploy workload cluster with Custom Service Endpoint, Set SERVICE_ENDPOINT environmental variable in semi-colon separated format:

   ${ServiceRegion1}:${ServiceID1}=${URL1},${ServiceID2}=${URL2};${ServiceRegion2}:${ServiceID1}=${URL1...}.

   Supported ServiceIDs include - vpc, powervs, rc, cos, transitgateway

    export SERVICE_ENDPOINT=us-south:vpc=https://us-south-stage01.iaasdev.cloud.ibm.com,powervs=https://dal.power-iaas.test.cloud.ibm.com,rc=https://resource-controller.test.cloud.ibm.com
   

   Note: Refer Regions-Zones Mapping for more information.

4. For enabling debug level logs for the controller, set the LOGLEVEL environment variable(defaults to 0).

   export LOGLEVEL=5
   

5. Initialize local bootstrap cluster as a management cluster

   When executed for the first time, the following command accepts the infrastructure provider as an input to install. clusterctl init automatically adds to the list the cluster-api core provider, and if unspecified, it also adds the kubeadm bootstrap and kubeadm control-plane providers, thereby converting it into a management cluster which will be used to provision a workload cluster in IBM Cloud.

   ~ clusterctl init --infrastructure ibmcloud:<TAG>
   

   Note: If the latest release version of the provider is available, specifying TAG can be avoided. In other cases, you can specify any prerelease version compatible with the supported API contract as the TAG.
   Example: clusterctl init –infrastructure ibmcloud:v0.2.0-alpha.5

   Output:

   Fetching providers
   Installing cert-manager Version="v1.5.3"
   Waiting for cert-manager to be available...
   Installing Provider="cluster-api" Version="v0.4.4" TargetNamespace="capi-system"
   Installing Provider="bootstrap-kubeadm" Version="v0.4.4" TargetNamespace="capi-kubeadm-bootstrap-system"
   Installing Provider="control-plane-kubeadm" Version="v0.4.4" TargetNamespace="capi-kubeadm-control-plane-system"
   Installing Provider="infrastructure-ibmcloud" Version="v0.1.0-alpha.2" TargetNamespace="capi-ibmcloud-system"
   
   Your management cluster has been initialized successfully!
   
   You can now create your first workload cluster by running the following:
   
   clusterctl generate cluster [name] --kubernetes-version [version] | kubectl apply -f -
   

6. Once the management cluster is ready with the required providers up and running, proceed to provisioning the workload cluster. Check the respective sections for VPC and PowerVS to deploy the cluster.

7. For deploying with your workload cluster with Cloud Controller manager or Cluster Class template, refer to deploy with cloud controller manager and deploy PowerVS cluster with cluster class template sections respectively.

Deploy with Cloud Controller manager

To deploy VPC workload cluster with IBM cloud controller manager, or with PowerVS cloud controller manager, set the PROVIDER_ID_FORMAT environmental variable to v2.

   export PROVIDER_ID_FORMAT=v2
   export EXP_CLUSTER_RESOURCE_SET=true

Note: EXP_CLUSTER_RESOURCE_SET should be set for deploying workload cluster with Cloud Controller manager.

Deploy PowerVS cluster or VPC cluster with ClusterClass template

To deploy workload cluster with PowerVS clusterclass-template or VPC clusterclass-template. Set the following environmental variables.

export PROVIDER_ID_FORMAT=v2
export EXP_CLUSTER_RESOURCE_SET=true
export CLUSTER_TOPOLOGY=true

Note: Currently, both ClusterClass and ClusterResourceSet are experimental feature so we need to enable the feature gate by setting EXP_CLUSTER_RESOURCE_SET, CLUSTER_TOPOLOGY environmental variables.