Creating a Cluster

Creating a Kubernetes cluster includes three main steps:

• Setting Cluster basic configuration such as name, location, version and High Availability Requirements
• Configuring Node Pool(s)
• Accessing the cluster

From the Navigation pane, click Kubernetes → Clusters and then click Create Cluster.

Cluster Configuration

• Set the Cluster Name . In this example we set it to my-cluster
• Network:
  • Select an existing network or create a new one

  Note: Networks are isolated. Clusters created in different networks cannot connect to each other's private addresses. You can create multiple clusters on the same network

  • If you select to create and new network, choose a Data center in which you want your cluster to run. For more information about the available data centers, click the Data Centers section.
• High Availability configuration - selecting High Availability (default), will create three master nodes. you may uncheck this in cases you do not require HA (such as development or QA purposes)
• Select a Kubernetes version from the drop-down list. The latest supported version is selected by default

Creating a Node Pool

A Node Pool is a group of worker nodes that share a common configuration such as sizing, auto-scaling, labels and taints.

• Enter a Node pool name . On this example we use pool1 .
• Selecting autoscaling will dynamically adjust the size of a node pool in accordance with demand from the cluster. if you enable autoscaling, you will need to specify:
  • Minimum nodes : determines the smallest size of the pool
  • Maximum nodes : determines the largest size of the pool
  • Initial Count : determines the size of the pool at its creation

• In this example we disable Autoscaling and set the Number of nodes in the node pool to 1

• Select a Configuration for the nodes in the pool. Data center may have different configuration options:
  • Catalog of preset configurations, similar to instance types

Note: Customizable instances - some data centers allow flexible configuration of CPU cores, RAM and storage.

Note: If you have exceeded your quota, a warning message is displayed.

Click Create Cluster

After you create the Cluster, Ridge begins creating and provisioning. It creates master node(s), worker nodes, provisions the machines, network and security rules. The cluster it creates is fully isolated from the world. Once the cluster is in the running state, You can use the Kubernetes API to interact with and deploy applications on top of it.

Additional Settings

Master nodes configuration

Choose a master nodes' configuration in case you want to override the default master node configuration.

CNI plugin

Ridge supports Weave (default) and Calico

API server whitelist

Your cluster is created, by default, With a Kubernetes API server that can be accessed from any IP address. If you wish to limit this access or block it altogether, click Additional Settings.

• select Block all to prevent access to the API
• select Allow only and enter one or more addresses in CIDR format You can edit this list at any time.

AWS Credentials for Containers

Applications deployed on any Ridge cluster, can continue to use any AWS service, with no extra configuration. This allows you to deploy applications that use AWS SDK without the need to handle complicated permission configuration - Ridge dynamically takes care of that.

In order to use this feature, you need to:

• Create and store a one-time AWS credentials using Ridge credentials vault. Select the Credentials Vault -> AWS to manage AWS credentials. Ridge can use these to create temporary credentials for your containers. The AWS SDK that you install in your container will automatically locate these credentials. This will allow your containers to seamlessly access AWS services.
• provide AWS credentials to the containers in you cluster click Additional Settings . In the AWS credentials section set the following:
  • Enter the ARN of the role that you wish the containers to assume in the Role ARN
  • Select the AWS credentials to use for obtaining the temporary credentials from the dropdown list in the key parameter.

Taints and Labels for Node Pools

To add kubernetes taints and labels to a node pool, click Taints and Labels in the node pool's section. Labels are simply pairs of {key,value}. Select Add Label and set the Key abd Value. A taint is a tuple of {key,value,effect}. To add a taint select Add Taint. Set the Key abd Value and select the Effect from the dropdown menu.

Accessing the cluster

To access a cluster using standard Kubernetes API tools such as kubectl, you need to create an Access Token. Creating an access token grants a member of the Organization credentials to Kubernetes API.

To create an access token:

1. Go to the Cluster page and select the Access Control tab.

2. Click Add Token .
3. Select a member of the organization from the dropdown list.
4. Enter a Token name .
5. In Groups , enter a role binding associated with this token. The group name should always match a group that appears in Kubernetes role bindings that are defined in your cluster. In this example, this is the first user of the cluster, therefore we assign the system:masters group.
6. Click Create .

A standard Kubernetes configuration file is generated, now you can securely use any Kubernetes tools to interact with the cluster. Download the Kubernetes config file and save it under your .kube folder or export KUBECONFIG=<name of your config file>, so you can point your kubectl to the cluster you just created.