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Provision an Edge Host VM

Use the following steps to provision a VM as an Edge host using an Open Virtualization Format (OVF) template.

Prerequisites​

  • Access to Palette and the ability to register an Edge host.

  • Access to network information about the physical site, specifically the network Virtual IP (VIP) address.

  • Physical access to the Edge host.

  • An Edge Installer OVF template. Check out the Installation for guidance on how to create an Edge Installer OVF template.

Instructions​

Perform the following steps to proceed with the installation at the site in your VMware environment.

  1. Log in to the vCenter Server using the vSphere Client.

  2. Navigate to VMs and Templates and right-click on the desired folder, then select the option Deploy VM(s) from this OVF template.

  3. Specify the location of the OVF template and start the deployment.

  4. Proceed through the installation steps and deploy the virtual machine.

  5. The VM will start up in the registration phase and wait for you to register the Edge host with Palette. If you provided the Edge Installer user data with an EdgeHostToken then the Edge host will automatically register with Palette. Otherwise, the Edge host will wait until you manually register the device in Palette. Go ahead and register the Edge host with Palette. Review the Register Edge Host for additional guidance.

When the cluster is created, the installation process continues. The Palette Edge Host agent will download all required artifacts and reboot the Edge host.

After the reboot, the Cluster Provisioning phase begins. In this phase, the system boots into the OS defined in the cluster profile, and cluster configuration begins. Kubernetes components are initialized and configured based on the specifications in the cluster profile.

Any content bundles you provided are extracted and loaded into the container runtime process. Refer to the EdgeForge Workflow to learn more about content bundles. Any cloud-init stages defined in the OS pack will also be invoked as the OS initializes.

Validate​

  1. Log in to Palette.

  2. Navigate to the left Main Menu and select Clusters.

  3. Select the host cluster you created to view its details page.

  4. Review the Cluster Status. Ensure the Cluster Status field displays Running.

You can also use kubectl to issue commands against the cluster. Check out the Access Cluster with CLI to learn how to use kubectl with a host cluster.

Next Steps​

Your Edge host is now registered with Palette. The next step is to provision create a cluster with this Edge host or add it to an existing cluster. The steps for creating a cluster with a virtual Edge host is identical to creating a cluster with a physical Edge host. To learn how to create a cluster or add the Edge host to an existing cluster, refer to Create Cluster Definition.