Create a cluster using web UI

This section instructs you on how to create initial configuration of a managed cluster that is based on the baremetal-based management cluster through the Mirantis Container Cloud web UI.

To create a managed cluster on bare metal:

  1. Available since the Cluster release 16.1.0 on the management cluster. If you plan to deploy a large managed cluster, enable dynamic IP allocation to increase the amount of baremetal hosts to be provisioned in parallel. For details, see Enable dynamic IP allocation.

  2. Available since Container Cloud 2.24.0. Optional. Technology Preview. Enable custom host names for cluster machines. When enabled, any machine host name in a particular region matches the related Machine object name. For example, instead of the default kaas-node-<UID>, a machine host name will be master-0. The custom naming format is more convenient and easier to operate with.

    For details, see Configure host names for cluster machines.

    If you enabled this feature during management cluster bootstrap, skip this step, as the feature applies to any cluster type.

  3. Log in to the Container Cloud web UI with the m:kaas:namespace@operator or m:kaas:namespace@writer permissions.

  4. Switch to the required non-default project using the Switch Project action icon located on top of the main left-side navigation panel.

    To create a project, refer to Create a project for managed clusters.

  5. Optional. In the SSH Keys tab, click Add SSH Key to upload the public SSH key(s) for SSH access to VMs.

  6. Optional. Enable proxy access to the cluster.

    In the Proxies tab, configure proxy:

    1. Click Add Proxy.

    2. In the Add New Proxy wizard, fill out the form with the following parameters:

      Proxy configuration

      Parameter

      Description

      Proxy Name

      Name of the proxy server to use during cluster creation.

      Region Removed in 2.26.0 (16.1.0 and 17.1.0)

      From the drop-down list, select the required region.

      HTTP Proxy

      Add the HTTP proxy server domain name in the following format:

      • http://proxy.example.com:port - for anonymous access

      • http://user:password@proxy.example.com:port - for restricted access

      HTTPS Proxy

      Add the HTTPS proxy server domain name in the same format as for HTTP Proxy.

      No Proxy

      Comma-separated list of IP addresses or domain names.

      For implementation details, see Proxy and cache support.

    3. If your proxy requires a trusted CA certificate, select the CA Certificate check box and paste a CA certificate for a MITM proxy to the corresponding field or upload a certificate using Upload Certificate.

    For MOSK-based deployments, the possibility to use a MITM proxy with a CA certificate is available since MOSK 23.1.

    For the list of Mirantis resources and IP addresses to be accessible from the Container Cloud clusters, see Requirements for a baremetal-based cluster.

  7. In the Clusters tab, click Create Cluster.

  8. Configure the new cluster in the Create New Cluster wizard that opens:

    1. Define general and Kubernetes parameters:

      Create new cluster: General, Provider, and Kubernetes

      Section

      Parameter name

      Description

      General settings

      Cluster name

      The cluster name.

      Provider

      Select Baremetal.

      Region Removed in 2.26.0 (17.1.0 and 16.1.0)

      From the drop-down list, select Baremetal.

      Release version

      The Container Cloud version.

      Proxy

      Optional. From the drop-down list, select the proxy server name that you have previously created.

      SSH keys

      From the drop-down list, select the SSH key name(s) that you have previously added for SSH access to the bare metal hosts.

      Container Registry

      From the drop-down list, select the Docker registry name that you have previously added using the Container Registries tab. For details, see Define a custom CA certificate for a private Docker registry.

      Note

      For MOSK-based deployments, the feature support is available since MOSK 22.5.

      Enable WireGuard

      Optional. Available as TechPreview since 2.24.0 and 2.24.2 for MOSK 23.2. Enable WireGuard for traffic encryption on the Kubernetes workloads network.

      WireGuard configuration

      1. Ensure that the Calico MTU size is at least 60 bytes smaller than the interface MTU size of the workload network. IPv4 WireGuard uses a 60-byte header. For details, see Set the MTU size for Calico.

      2. Enable WireGuard by selecting the Enable WireGuard check box.

        Caution

        Changing this parameter on a running cluster causes a downtime that can vary depending on the cluster size.

      For more details about WireGuard, see Calico documentation: Encrypt in-cluster pod traffic.

      Caution

      For MKE clusters that are part of MOSK infrastructure, the feature support will become available in one of the following Container Cloud releases.

      Note

      This parameter was renamed from Enable Secure Overlay to Enable WireGuard in Cluster releases 17.0.0 and 16.0.0.

      Parallel Upgrade Of Worker Machines

      Optional. Available since Cluster releases 17.0.0 and 16.0.0.

      The maximum number of the worker nodes to update simultaneously. It serves as an upper limit on the number of machines that are drained at a given moment of time. Defaults to 1.

      You can also configure this option after deployment before the cluster update.

      Parallel Preparation For Upgrade Of Worker Machines

      Optional. Available since Cluster releases 17.0.0 and 16.0.0.

      The maximum number of worker nodes being prepared at a given moment of time, which includes downloading of new artifacts. It serves as a limit for the network load that can occur when downloading the files to the nodes. Defaults to 50.

      You can also configure this option after deployment before the cluster update.

      Provider

      LB host IP

      The IP address of the load balancer endpoint that will be used to access the Kubernetes API of the new cluster. This IP address must be in the LCM network if a separate LCM network is in use and if L2 (ARP) announcement of cluster API load balancer IP is in use.

      LB address range

      The range of IP addresses that can be assigned to load balancers for Kubernetes Services by MetalLB. For a more flexible MetalLB configuration, refer to Configure MetalLB.

      Kubernetes

      Services CIDR blocks

      The Kubernetes Services CIDR blocks. For example, 10.233.0.0/18.

      Pods CIDR blocks

      The Kubernetes pods CIDR blocks. For example, 10.233.64.0/18.

      Note

      The network subnet size of Kubernetes pods influences the number of nodes that can be deployed in the cluster. The default subnet size /18 is enough to create a cluster with up to 256 nodes. Each node uses the /26 address blocks (64 addresses), at least one address block is allocated per node. These addresses are used by the Kubernetes pods with hostNetwork: false. The cluster size may be limited further when some nodes use more than one address block.

    2. Configure StackLight:

      Section

      Parameter name

      Description

      StackLight

      Enable Monitoring

      Selected by default. Deselect to skip StackLight deployment. You can also enable, disable, or configure StackLight parameters after deploying a managed cluster. For details, see Change a cluster configuration or Configure StackLight.

      Enable Logging

      Select to deploy the StackLight logging stack.

      For details about the logging components, see Deployment architecture.

      Note

      The logging mechanism performance depends on the cluster log load. In case of a high load, you may need to increase the default resource requests and limits for fluentdLogs. For details, see StackLight configuration parameters: Resource limits.

      HA Mode

      Select to enable StackLight monitoring in the HA mode. For the differences between HA and non-HA modes, see Deployment architecture.

      StackLight Default Logs Severity Level

      Log severity (verbosity) level for all StackLight components. The default value for this parameter is Default component log level that respects original defaults of each StackLight component. For details about severity levels, see Log verbosity.

      StackLight Component Logs Severity Level

      The severity level of logs for a specific StackLight component that overrides the value of the StackLight Default Logs Severity Level parameter. For details about severity levels, see Log verbosity.

      Expand the drop-down menu for a specific component to display its list of available log levels.

      OpenSearch

      Logstash Retention Time

      Skip this parameter since Container Cloud 2.26.0 (17.1.0, 16.1.0). It was removed from the code base and will be removed from the web UI in one of the following releases.

      Available if you select Enable Logging. Specifies the logstash-* index retention time.

      Events Retention Time

      Available if you select Enable Logging. Specifies the kubernetes_events-* index retention time.

      Notifications Retention

      Available if you select Enable Logging. Specifies the notification-* index retention time and is used for Mirantis OpenStack for Kubernetes.

      Persistent Volume Claim Size

      Available if you select Enable Logging. The OpenSearch persistent volume claim size.

      Collected Logs Severity Level

      Available if you select Enable Logging. The minimum severity of all Container Cloud components logs collected in OpenSearch. For details about severity levels, see Logging.

      Prometheus

      Retention Time

      The Prometheus database retention period.

      Retention Size

      The Prometheus database retention size.

      Persistent Volume Claim Size

      The Prometheus persistent volume claim size.

      Enable Watchdog Alert

      Select to enable the Watchdog alert that fires as long as the entire alerting pipeline is functional.

      Custom Alerts

      Specify alerting rules for new custom alerts or upload a YAML file in the following exemplary format:

      - alert: HighErrorRate
  expr: job:request_latency_seconds:mean5m{job="myjob"} > 0.5
  for: 10m
  labels:
    severity: page
  annotations:
    summary: High request latency

      For details, see Official Prometheus documentation: Alerting rules. For the list of the predefined StackLight alerts, see Operations Guide: Available StackLight alerts.

      StackLight Email Alerts

      Enable Email Alerts

      Select to enable the StackLight email alerts.

      Send Resolved

      Select to enable notifications about resolved StackLight alerts.

      Require TLS

      Select to enable transmitting emails through TLS.

      Email alerts configuration for StackLight

      Fill out the following email alerts parameters as required:

      • To - the email address to send notifications to.

      • From - the sender address.

      • SmartHost - the SMTP host through which the emails are sent.

      • Authentication username - the SMTP user name.

      • Authentication password - the SMTP password.

      • Authentication identity - the SMTP identity.

      • Authentication secret - the SMTP secret.

      StackLight Slack Alerts

      Enable Slack alerts

      Select to enable the StackLight Slack alerts.

      Send Resolved

      Select to enable notifications about resolved StackLight alerts.

      Slack alerts configuration for StackLight

      Fill out the following Slack alerts parameters as required:

      • API URL - The Slack webhook URL.

      • Channel - The channel to send notifications to, for example, #channel-for-alerts.

      StackLight optional settings

      Enable Reference Application

      Available since Container Cloud 2.22.0. Enables Reference Application that is a small microservice application that enables workload monitoring on non-MOSK managed clusters.

      Note

      For the feature support on MOSK deployments, refer to MOSK documentation: Deploy RefApp using automation tools.

      Disabled by default. You can also enable this option after deployment from the Configure cluster menu.

  9. Available since Container Cloud 2.24.0 and 2.24.2 for MOSK 23.2. Optional. Technology Preview. Enable the Linux Audit daemon auditd to monitor activity of cluster processes and prevent potential malicious activity.

    Configuration for auditd

    In the Cluster object, add the auditd parameters:

    spec:
  providerSpec:
    value:
      audit:
        auditd:
          enabled: <bool>
          enabledAtBoot: <bool>
          backlogLimit: <int>
          maxLogFile: <int>
          maxLogFileAction: <string>
          maxLogFileKeep: <int>
          mayHaltSystem: <bool>
          presetRules: <string>
          customRules: <string>
          customRulesX32: <text>
          customRulesX64: <text>

    Configuration parameters for auditd:

    enabled

    Boolean, default - false. Enables the auditd role to install the auditd packages and configure rules. CIS rules: 4.1.1.1, 4.1.1.2.

    enabledAtBoot

    Boolean, default - false. Configures grub to audit processes that can be audited even if they start up prior to auditd startup. CIS rule: 4.1.1.3.

    backlogLimit

    Integer, default - none. Configures the backlog to hold records. If during boot audit=1 is configured, the backlog holds 64 records. If more than 64 records are created during boot, auditd records will be lost with a potential malicious activity being undetected. CIS rule: 4.1.1.4.

    maxLogFile

    Integer, default - none. Configures the maximum size of the audit log file. Once the log reaches the maximum size, it is rotated and a new log file is created. CIS rule: 4.1.2.1.

    maxLogFileAction

    String, default - none. Defines handling of the audit log file reaching the maximum file size. Allowed values:

    • keep_logs - rotate logs but never delete them

    • rotate - add a cron job to compress rotated log files and keep maximum 5 compressed files.

    • compress - compress log files and keep them under the /var/log/auditd/ directory. Requires auditd_max_log_file_keep to be enabled.

    CIS rule: 4.1.2.2.

    maxLogFileKeep

    Integer, default - 5. Defines the number of compressed log files to keep under the /var/log/auditd/ directory. Requires auditd_max_log_file_action=compress. CIS rules - none.

    mayHaltSystem

    Boolean, default - false. Halts the system when the audit logs are full. Applies the following configuration:

    • space_left_action = email

    • action_mail_acct = root

    • admin_space_left_action = halt

    CIS rule: 4.1.2.3.

    customRules

    String, default - none. Base64-encoded content of the 60-custom.rules file for any architecture. CIS rules - none.

    customRulesX32

    String, default - none. Base64-encoded content of the 60-custom.rules file for the i386 architecture. CIS rules - none.

    customRulesX64

    String, default - none. Base64-encoded content of the 60-custom.rules file for the x86_64 architecture. CIS rules - none.

    presetRules

    String, default - none. Comma-separated list of the following built-in preset rules:

    • access

    • actions

    • delete

    • docker

    • identity

    • immutable

    • logins

    • mac-policy

    • modules

    • mounts

    • perm-mod

    • privileged

    • scope

    • session

    • system-locale

    • time-change

    You can use two keywords for these rules:

    • none - disables all built-in rules.

    • all - enables all built-in rules. With this key, you can add the ! prefix to a rule name to exclude some rules. You can use the ! prefix for rules only if you add the all keyword as the first rule. Place a rule with the ! prefix only after the all keyword.

    Example configurations:

    • presetRules: none - disable all preset rules

    • presetRules: docker - enable only the docker rules

    • presetRules: access,actions,logins - enable only the access, actions, and logins rules

    • presetRules: all - enable all preset rules

    • presetRules: all,!immutable,!sessions - enable all preset rules except immutable and sessions


    CIS controls
    4.1.3 (time-change)
    4.1.4 (identity)
    4.1.5 (system-locale)
    4.1.6 (mac-policy)
    4.1.7 (logins)
    4.1.8 (session)
    4.1.9 (perm-mod)
    4.1.10 (access)
    4.1.11 (privileged)
    4.1.12 (mounts)
    4.1.13 (delete)
    4.1.14 (scope)
    4.1.15 (actions)
    4.1.16 (modules)
    4.1.17 (immutable)
    Docker CIS controls
    1.1.4
    1.1.8
    1.1.10
    1.1.12
    1.1.13
    1.1.15
    1.1.16
    1.1.17
    1.1.18
    1.2.3
    1.2.4
    1.2.5
    1.2.6
    1.2.7
    1.2.10
    1.2.11

    See also

    Operations Guide: Troubleshooting - The auditd events cause ‘backlog limit exceeded’ messages

  10. Click Create.

    To monitor the cluster readiness, hover over the status icon of a specific cluster in the Status column of the Clusters page.

    Once the orange blinking status icon becomes green and Ready, the cluster deployment or update is complete.

    You can monitor live deployment status of the following cluster components:

    Component

    Description

    Bastion

    For the OpenStack-based management clusters, the Bastion node IP address status that confirms the Bastion node creation

    Helm

    Installation or upgrade status of all Helm releases

    Kubelet

    Readiness of the node in a Kubernetes cluster, as reported by kubelet

    Kubernetes

    Readiness of all requested Kubernetes objects

    Nodes

    Equality of the requested nodes number in the cluster to the number of nodes having the Ready LCM status

    OIDC

    Readiness of the cluster OIDC configuration

    StackLight

    Health of all StackLight-related objects in a Kubernetes cluster

    Swarm

    Readiness of all nodes in a Docker Swarm cluster

    LoadBalancer

    Readiness of the Kubernetes API load balancer

    ProviderInstance

    Readiness of all machines in the underlying infrastructure (virtual or bare metal, depending on the provider type)

    Graceful Reboot

    Readiness of a cluster during a scheduled graceful reboot, available since Cluster releases 15.0.1 and 14.0.0.

    Infrastructure Status

    Available since Container Cloud 2.25.0 for bare metal and OpenStack providers. Readiness of the following cluster components:

    • Bare metal: the MetalLBConfig object along with MetalLB and DHCP subnets.

    • OpenStack: cluster network, routers, load balancers, and Bastion along with their ports and floating IPs.

    LCM Operation

    Available since Container Cloud 2.26.0 (Cluster releases 17.1.0 and 16.1.0). Health of all LCM operations on the cluster and its machines.

    LCM Agent

    Available since Container Cloud 2.27.0 (Cluster releases 17.2.0 and 16.2.0). Health of all LCM agents on cluster machines and the status of LCM agents update to the version from the current Cluster release.

    For the history of a cluster deployment or update, refer to Inspect the history of a cluster and machine deployment or update.

  11. Configure an L2 template for a new cluster. For initial details, see Workflow of network interface naming.