Create an AWS Cluster

CAPI clusters can only be created using Platform9 UI. You must have an administrator role in PMK to create clusters.

Navigating to Cluster Creation Flow

Switch to the Infrastructure app using the App Switcher on top left the of the PMK UI.

Navigate to Infrastructure > Clusters
Click Add Cluster
Choose Amazon Web Services
Select New Generation AWS Cluster
Click Start Configuration

AWS CAPI Cluster Creation Steps

The cluster creation flow is divided into 5 steps.

Infrastructure: Choose and define your AWS Infrastructure Resource such as AWS Cloud Provider, Region, SSH Key, VPC configuration, Availability Zones, Subnet Configuration, Resource Tags etc.
Control Plane: Configure your Kubernetes cluster's control plane properties such as Kubernetes version, Master Node count, Instance Types, Operating System, Networking, CNI, Advanced Flags etc.
Worker Node Groups: Configure your worker node group types and their properties Node count, Instance type, Operating System, Autoscaling options, Spot Instance use, Node update strategies etc.
Add-ons: Choose and configure the PMK-supported add-ons to be deployed on your cluster
Finalize and Review: Review your cluster properties selected in the previous steps and create the cluster.

Each Step has required inputs to be given. On the right side of the screen, the corresponding Kubernetes Resources YAMLs are shown that constitute the particular part of the cluster.

AWS CAPI Cluster Configuration Options

Infrastructure

Field	Description
Name	User-defined name of the cluster.
Cloud Provider	From the drop-down select your desired AWS cloud provider.
AWS Assume Role	Follow Create a AWS Cluster using AWS Assume Role.
Cluster Pod CIDR Range	Define the network ranges from which Pod networks are allocated.
Cluster Service CIDR Range	Define the network ranges from which service VIPs are allocated.
Region	Select the AWS region to deploy the cluster into.
SSH Key	SSH key is attached to the EC2 Instances of the cluster.
VPC Type	Choose between PMK Managed and Self Managed from the drop-down. PMK Managed option creates the VPC in the Cloud Provider AWS account you chose to deploy your cluster. Self Managed option lets you choose an existing VPC in the AWS Account associated with your Cloud Provider.
VPC CIDR Block	CIDR Block is the CIDR block to be used when the provider creates a PMK Managed VPC.
VPC	Choose the existing Self Managed VPC to create the cluster into.
Availability Zones	Select two more Availability Zones within this region to deploy the nodes of this cluster into. Select at-least 3 availability zones for high availability.
Subnet Config - Number of Private Subnets	Only 1 Private Subnet is allowed. Read more: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/configure-subnets.html
Subnet Config - Number of Public Subnets	1 Public Subnet is allowed only.
Private Subnets CIDR	CIDR block used to create the Private Subnet
Public Subnets CIDR	CIDR block used to create the Private Subnet
Internet Gateway ID	Internet Gateway ID to be used with Self Managed VPC.
Internet Gateway ID	Internet Gateway ID to be used with Self Managed VPC.
Route Table Id	Enter the Route Table ID associated with the Subnet in the Self Managed VPC; to be used for the cluster.
NAT Gateway ID	Enter the NAT Gateway ID associated with the Subnet in the Self Managed VPC; to be used for the cluster.
API Server Load Balancer Type	AWS Load Balancer type to be used for the API Server. Only AWS Classic Load Balancer is allowed to be used now.
Scheme	Choose from the drop-down between Internet or Internal. Internet Facing load balancers can route requests from clients over the internet. Internal load balancer have only private IP addresses and can only route requests from clients with access to the VPC of the load balancer.
Cross Zone Load Balancing	Choose True from the drop-down to Enable. When cross-zone load balancing is enabled, each load balancer node distributes traffic across the registered targets in all enabled Availability Zones. When cross-zone load balancing is disabled, each load balancer node distributes traffic only across the registered targets in its Availability Zone.
Tags (Additional)	Optional set of tags to add to AWS resources managed by the AWS provider, in addition to the ones added by default. Provide a key-value pair for each tag. Eg: key = Environment , Value = Production

Control Plane

Field	Description
Kubernetes Version	Select the Kubernetes version to be used to create the master and worker nodes of the cluster.
Replica Count	Count of Master Nodes for the Control Plane. A minimum of 3 are needed for High Availability. Only Odd values are applicable.
Instance Type	Choose the type of EC2 instance to be used for master nodes.
Operating System	Choose the Operating system to be used for master nodes. Platform9 recommends using AMIs that have the component required to use encrypted cloud-init boot script i.e. `Use AWS Secrets Manager: True`. Using an AMI that does not use Secrets Manager will inject the not encrypted cloud-init boot script and can expose any secrets that are part of the boot script.
Custom AMI ID	Enter an AMI ID of your choice. Note: Only Cluster API conformant AMIs can be used to create CAPI clusters. Read https://image-builder.sigs.k8s.io/capi/providers/aws.html to create your own custom AMIs. When using custom AMIs, the secret manager is set to false.
Make Master Nodes Public	Enabling this will put master nodes in public subnets of the VPC and assign an elastic IP for the master nodes so that master nodes are publicly accessible and users can ssh into them.
Make Master Nodes Master + Worker	Choose True to allow workloads to be scheduled on the Master nodes as well.
HTTP Proxy	Enter HTTP Proxy to be used for the cluster. Format <scheme>://<username>:<password>@<host>:<port> where username and password are optional. Example: `http://52.13.162.203:3128`
Route53 Domain	Route53 enables Platform9 to use the selected Route53 domain for the API Server and Service Endpoints.
API FQDN	Fully Qualified Domain Name used to reference the cluster API. The API will be secured by including the FQDN in the API server certificate’s Subject Alt Names. Clusters in Public Cloud will automatically have the DNS records created and registered for the FQDN.
Services FQDN	Fully Qualified Domain Name used to reference cluster services. If deploying onto AWS, we will automatically create the DNS records for this FQDN into AWS Route 53.
Network backend	Choose between AWS VPC CNI or Calico.
ETCD Backup	Define and Enable the ETCD backups for your cluster in this section
Advanced API Configuration	Advance API Group and versions, which includes general configuration of Groups, versions, and even resources, that can be enabled/disabled at runtime with the apiserver's '--runtime-config' flag.
API Server Flags	Add additional API Server Flags in form of comma separated string.
Scheduler Flags	Add additional API Scheduler Flags in form of comma separated string.
Controller Manager Flags	Add additional API Controller Manager Flags in form of comma separated string.

Worker Node Groups

PMK support two types of Node Groups called Machine Deployment and Machine Pools.

Find the Node Groups Configuration Options in the AWS Node Groups page.

Addons

Field	Value
Non-configurable add-ons	Enable the PMK Supported add-ons with default configurations. The following add-ons are available for AWS CAPI clusters: Profile Agent - Read more here: (Link Removed) Metrics Server - Read more here: Metrics-server Addon Kubernetes Dashboard - Read more here: Kubernetes Dashboard Addon CAPI Cluster Autoscaler - Read more here : CAPI Cluster Auto-Scaler Addon
Configurable add-ons	Enable the PMK Supported add-on with customizable configurations. Following add-ons are available for AWS CAPI clusters: Prometheus Monitoring - Read more here : Monitoring Addons Core DNS - Read more here : CoreDNS Addon

Last updated by Anmol Sachan on Nov 17, 2023

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