TKG-S Setup with vCenter Server Network - Part 2

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Namespace

Go to Namespaces menu

Click CREATE NAMESPACE then select the Cluster. Set a Name for the namespace and select the Network. Add a Description if needed and click CREATE

Create Namespace

TKG-S Setup with vCenter Server Network - Part 1

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With the new vCenter 7.0.1 it is possible to deploy the Workload Management feature using the vCenter Server Network instead of NSX-T. I wanted to try it out immediately and this is my experience.

Prerequisites

A VMware vCenter 7.0.1 installed
A VMware ESXi 7.0.1 installed
Distributed Switch with the Distributed Port Group configured for:
- Management Network
- Workload Network
- Frontend Network
Every Network MUST have its Gateway
vSAN configured

Network Configurations

Management:
- subnet: 192.168.1.0/24
- gateway: 192.168.1.254
- dns: 192.168.1.254
- ntp: 192.168.1.254
- HAproxy management ip: 192.168.1.245
- dataplane API port: 5556
- SupervisorControlPlanes starting IP: 192.168.1.140
Workload:
- subnet: 192.168.140.0/24
- gateway: 192.168.140.254
- dns: 192.168.1.254
- workload IPs range: 192.168.140.2-192.168.140.253
- HAproxy workload IP: 192.168.140.1
Frontend
- subnet: 192.168.150.0/24
- gateway: 192.168.150.254
- dns: 192.168.1.254
- frontend IPs range: 192.168.150.1-192.168.150.253
- frontend IPs ranges with CIDR: 192.168.150.0/25,192.168.150.128/26,192.168.150.192/27,192.168.150.224/28,192.168.150.240/29,192.168.150.248/30,192.168.150.252/31
- HAproxy frontend IP: 192.168.150.1

Procedures

Content Library

Go to the Content Libraries menu

and create a new one

Create Library

Kubernetes Library

Select Subscribed content library and select when you prefer to download the content.
Use https://wp-content.vmware.com/v2/latest/lib.json as subscription url.

Configure content library

Select the storage and click NEXT

add storage

Check if all the data are correct and then click FINISH

Finish

Storage Policy

Go to the Policies and Profiles menu

Policies and Profiles

Click on VM Storage Policies

VM Storage Policies

and click CREATE. Select the right vCenter Server and choose a Name for the policy. Add a Description if needed. Then click NEXT

Create the Storage Policies

Click *Enable rules for “vSAN” storage and click NEXT

Policy Structure

Select the vSAN policies. My setup is a single vSAN node.

vSAN Policy

Click on Advanced Policy Rules and configure what it’s needed. Then click NEXT

vSAN Advanced Policies

Check in the Storage compatibility page if the vsanDatastore is compatible with the choseb policies, then click NEXT

Storage compatibility

Review all the configurations, then click FINISH

Finish

VMware-HAproxy OVA as LoadBalancer

Without NSX-T there is the need to use something which manages the LoadBalancing configuration. We’ll use HAproxy. The HAproxy OVA is going to be deployed with the 3 networks: the management network, the workload network which is used to let the SupervisorControlPlanes communicate with the nodes of the guest clusters and also be used as real server and the frontend network used for the VIPs created by the kubernetes service type LoadBalancer. The HAproxy istance is configured by its dataplane api using the management IP. The frontend IPs ranges with CIDR are used for the anyIP kernel feature. The HAproxy will respond to the ARP requests for any IP address in those subnets.

Go to the Hosts and Clusters menu.

Hosts and Clusters

Right click on the cluster and then click Deploy OVF Template

Deploy

Add https://cdn.haproxy.com/download/haproxy/vsphere/ova/vmware-haproxy-v0.1.8.ova as URL and then click NEXT

Add OVA

Select the Virtual machine name and the location for the virtual machine then click NEXT

Name and location

Select a compute resource then click NEXT

Compute resource

Review the details then click NEXT

Review

Accept all the license agreements and then click NEXT

License agreements

Select Frontend Network and then click NEXT

Frontend Network

Select the storage and then click NEXT

Select storage

Select the source network and then click NEXT

Source Network

Set the root password and add your CA. If you don’t have one, leave blank and it will be generated

Appliance Configuration

Configure the network

Network Config 1

Network Config 2

Add the Load Balancing settings and click NEXT

Load Balancing

Review the configurations and then click FINISH

Review

Power On the haproxy VM

Power On

Workload Management

Go to the Workload Management menu

Workload Management

Click GET STARTED

Get started

Select vCenter Server Network and then click NEXT

vCenter Server and Network

Select the compatible cluster and then click NEXT

Select a Cluster

Select the size for control plane VM and then click NEXT

Control Plane size

Select the storage policy to the Control Plane VMs

Storage

Configure load balancer for workloads created on the cluster

Load Balancer

If the Server Certificate Authority used is a self-signed cert, retrieve that data from the VM with the follow powershell snippet

 $vc = "10.174.71.163"
$vc_user = "administrator@vsphere.local"
$vc_password = "Admin!23"
Connect-VIServer -User $vc_user -Password $vc_password -Server $vc
$VMname = "haproxy-demo"
$AdvancedSettingName = "guestinfo.dataplaneapi.cacert"
$Base64cert = get-vm $VMname |Get-AdvancedSetting -Name $AdvancedSettingName
while ([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Base64cert.Value)) {
Write-Host "Waiting for CA Cert Generation... This may take a under 5-10
minutes as the VM needs to boot and generate the CA Cert (if you haven't provided one already)."
$Base64cert = get-vm $VMname |Get-AdvancedSetting -Name
$AdvancedSettingName
Start-sleep -seconds 2
}
Write-Host "CA Cert Found... Converting from BASE64"
$cert = [Text.Encoding]::Utf8.GetString([Convert]::FromBase64String($Base64cert.Value))
Write-Host $cert

Snippet

and then click NEXT

Configure the Management Network and then click NEXT

Management Network

Configure the IP address for Services and click ADD to configure the Workload Network

IP address for Services

Configure the Workload Network and then click SAVE

Workload Network

Click NEXT
Add the Content Library clicking ADD

Add Content Library

Select the Content Library and click OK

Click NEXT

Review the config and then click FINISH

Finish

Now, wait until the cluster is configured

Wait

When the Config Status turns green, the Workload Management is ready with the Control Plane Node IP Address needed to connect to the cluster

Workload Management Ready

The creation of Namespace and Guest Clusters will be covered in the second part

vsphere 7 | Spagno's Blog

TKG-S Setup with vCenter Server Network - Part 2

Table of Contents

Namespace

TKG-S Setup with vCenter Server Network - Part 1

Table of Contents

Prerequisites

Network Configurations

Procedures

Content Library

Storage Policy

VMware-HAproxy OVA as LoadBalancer

Workload Management