The following are some architectural highlights of Kubernetes clusters provisioned by Palette on VMware:

1. Kubernetes nodes can be distributed across multiple-compute clusters which serve as distinct fault domains.

2. Support for static IP as well as DHCP.
   • If using DHCP, Dynamic DNS is required.

3. IP pool management for assigning blocks of IPs dedicated to clusters or projects.

4. To facilitate communications between the Palette management platform and vCenter installed in the private Datacenter, set up a Private Cloud Gateway (PCG) within the environment.

5. Private Cloud Gateway is Palette's on-premises component to enable support for isolated, private cloud or Datacenter environments. The Palette Gateway, once installed on-premises, registers itself with Palette's SaaS portal and enables secure communications between the SaaS portal and private cloud environment. The gateway enables installation and end-to-end lifecycle management of Kubernetes clusters in private cloud environments from Palette's SaaS portal.

The following prerequisites must be met before deploying a Kubernetes clusters in VMware:

1. vSphere 6.7U3 or later (recommended).

2. Configuration Requirements - A Resource Pool needs to be configured across the hosts, onto which the workload clusters will be provisioned. Every host in the Resource Pool will need access to shared storage, such as vSAN, to be able to make use of high-availability control planes. Network Time Protocol (NTP) must be configured on each of the ESXi hosts.

3. You need an active vCenter account with all the permissions listed below in the VMware Cloud Account Permissions section.

4. Install a Private Cloud Gateway for VMware as described in the Creating a VMware Cloud Gateway section. Installing the Private Cloud Gateway will automatically register a cloud account for VMware in Palette. You can register your additional VMware cloud accounts in Palette as described in the Creating a VMware Cloud account section.

5. Subnet with egress access to the internet (direct or via proxy):
   • For proxy: HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY (both required).
   • Outgoing internet connection on port 443 to api.spectrocloud.com.

6. The Private cloud gateway IP requirements are:
   • One (1) node - one (1) IP or three (3) nodes - three (3) IPs.
   • One (1) Kubernetes control-plane VIP.
   • One (1) Kubernetes control-plane extra.

7. IPs for application workload services (e.g.: LoadBalancer services).

8. A DNS to resolve public internet names (e.g.: api.spectrocloud.com).

9. Shared Storage between vSphere hosts.

10. A cluster profile created in Palette for VMWare.

11. Zone Tagging: A dynamic storage allocation for persistent storage.

Zone tagging is required for dynamic storage allocation across fault domains when provisioning workloads that require persistent storage. This is required for installation of Palette Platform itself and also useful for workloads deployed in the tenant clusters if they have persistent storage needs. Use vSphere tags on Datacenters (k8s-region) and compute clusters (k8s-zone) to create distinct zones in your environment.

As an example, assume your vCenter environment includes three compute clusters, cluster-1, cluster-2, and cluster-3, that are part of Datacenter dc-1. You can tag them as follows:

Note:

The exact values for the k8s-region and k8s-zone tags can be different from the ones described in the above example, as long as they are unique.

Last Update: August 18, 2022

The vSphere user account used in the various Palette tasks must have the minimum vSphere privileges required to perform the task. The Administrator role provides super-user access to all vSphere objects. For users without the Administrator role, one or more custom roles can be created based on the tasks being performed by the user.

• Minimum capacity required for a Private Cloud Gateway:
  • One (1) node - two (2) vCPU, 4GB memory, 30GB storage.
  • Three (3)nodes - six (6) vCPU, 12GB memory, 70GB storage.

• Setting up a cloud gateway involves:

  • Initiating the install from the tenant portal
  • Deploying gateway installer VM in vSphere
  • Launching the cloud gateway from the tenant portal

1. As a Tenant Administrator, navigate to the Private Cloud Gateway page under settings and click the dialogue to create a new Private Cloud Gateway.

2. Notate the link to the Palette Gateway Installer OVA and PIN displayed on the dialogue.

1. Initiate deployment of a new OVF template by providing a link to the installer OVA as the URL.

2. Proceed through the OVF deployment wizard by choosing the desired Name, Placement, Compute, Storage, and Network options.

3. At the Customize Template step, specify Palette properties as follows:

Additional properties that are required to be set only for a proxy environment. Each of the proxy properties may or may not have the same value but all the three properties are mandatory.

4. Finish the OVF deployment wizard and wait for the OVA to be imported and virtual machine to be deployed.

5. Power on the virtual machine.

1. Close the Create New Gateway dialog box if it is still open or navigate to the Private Cloud Gateway page under settings in case you have navigated away or been logged out.

2. Wait for a gateway widget to be displayed on the page and for the Configure option to be available. The IP address of the installer VM will be displayed on the gateway widget. This may take a few minutes after the Virtual Machine is powered on. Failure of the installer to register with the Palette Management Platform portal within 10 mins of powering on the Virtual Machine on vSphere, might be indicative of an error. Please follow the troubleshooting steps to identify and resolve the issue.

3. Click on the Configure button to invoke the Palette Configuration dialogue. Provide vCenter credentials and proceed to the next configuration step.

4. Choose the desired values for the Datacenter, Compute Cluster, Datastore, Network, Resource pool, and Folder. Optionally, provide one or more SSH Keys and/or NTP server addresses.

5. Choose the IP Allocation Scheme - Static IP or DHCP. If static IP is selected, an option to create an IP pool is enabled. Proceed to create an IP pool by providing an IP range (start and end IP addresses) or a subnet. The IP addresses from this IP Pool will be assigned to the gateway cluster. By default, the IP Pool is available for use by other tenant clusters. This can be prevented by enabling the Restrict to a single cluster button. A detailed description of all the fields involved in the creation of an IP pool can be found here.

6. Click on Confirm, to initiate provisioning of the gateway cluster. The status of the cluster on the UI should change to Provisioning and eventually Running, when the gateway cluster is fully provisioned. This process might take several minutes (typically 8 to 10 mins). You can observe a detailed provisioning sequence on the Cluster Details page, by clicking on the gateway widget on the UI. If provisioning of the gateway cluster runs into errors or gets stuck, relevant details can be found on the Summary tab or the events tab of the cluster details page.

   In certain cases where provisioning of the gateway cluster is stuck or failed due to invalid configuration, the process can be reset from the Cloud Gateway Widget on the UI.

7. Once the Gateway transitions to the Running state, it is fully provisioned and ready to bootstrap tenant cluster requests.

Power off the installer OVA which was initially imported at the start of this installation process.

Gateway installer - Unable to register with the Tenant Portal

The installer VM, when powered on, goes through a bootstrap process and registers itself with the Tenant Portal. This process typically takes five to ten minutes. Failure of the installer to register with the Tenant Portal, within this duration, might be indicative of a bootstrapping error.

SSH into the installer virtual machine using the key provided during OVA import and inspect the log file located at /var/log/cloud-init-output.log. This log file will contain error messages in the event there are failures with connecting to the Palette Management platform portal, authenticating, or downloading installation artifacts. A common cause for these errors is that the Palette Management platform console endpoint or the pairing code is typed incorrectly.

Ensure that the Tenant Portal console endpoint does not have a trailing slash. If these properties were incorrectly specified, power down and delete the installer VM and relaunch with the correct values.

Another potential issue is a lack of outgoing connectivity from the VM. The installer VM needs to have outbound connectivity directly or via a proxy. Adjust proxy settings (if applicable) to fix the connectivity or power down and delete the installer VM and relaunch in a network that enables outgoing connections.

If the above steps do not resolve your issues, copy the following script to the installer VM and execute to generate a logs archive. Open a support ticket and attach the logs archive to the ticket to allow the Palette Support team to troubleshoot and provide further guidance:

#!/bin/bash

DESTDIR="/tmp/"

CONTAINER_LOGS_DIR="/var/log/containers/"
CLOUD_INIT_OUTPUT_LOG="/var/log/cloud-init-output.log"
CLOUD_INIT_LOG="/var/log/cloud-init.log"
KERN_LOG="/var/log/kern.log"
KUBELET_LOG="/tmp/kubelet.log"
SYSLOGS="/var/log/syslog*"

FILENAME=spectro-logs-$(date +%-Y%-m%-d)-$(date +%-HH%-MM%-SS).tgz

journalctl -u kubelet > $KUBELET_LOG

tar --create --gzip -h --file=$DESTDIR$FILENAME $CONTAINER_LOGS_DIR $CLOUD_INIT_LOG $CLOUD_INIT_OUTPUT_LOG $KERN_LOG $KUBELET_LOG $SYSLOGS

retVal=$?
if [ $retVal -eq 1 ]; then
    echo "Error creating spectro logs package"
else
    echo "Successfully extracted spectro cloud logs: $DESTDIR$FILENAME"
fi

Gateway Cluster - Provisioning stalled/failure

An installation of the gateway cluster may run into errors or might get stuck in the provisioning state for a variety of reasons like lack of infrastructure resources, IP addresses not being available, unable to perform NTP sync, etc.

While these are most common, some other issue might be related to the underlying VMware environment. The Cluster Details page, which can be accessed by clicking anywhere on the gateway widget, contains details of every orchestration step including an indication of the current task being executed.

Any intermittent errors will be displayed on this page next to the relevant orchestration task. The Events tab on this page, also provides a useful resource to look at lower-level operations being performed for the various orchestration steps.

If you think that the orchestration is stuck or failed due to an invalid selection of infrastructure resources or an intermittent problem with the infrastructure, you may reset the gateway by clicking on the Reset button on the gateway widget. This will reset the gateway state to Pending allowing you to reconfigure the gateway and start provisioning of a new gateway cluster.

If the problem persists, please contact Palette support, via the Service Desk.

Upgrading a VMware Cloud Gateway

Palette maintains the OS image and all configurations for the cloud gateway. Periodically, the OS images, configurations, or other components need to be upgraded to resolve security or functionality issues. Palette releases such upgrades when required and communication about the same is presented in the form of an upgrade notification on the gateway.

Administrators should review the changes and apply them at a suitable time. Upgrading a cloud gateway does not result in any downtime for the Tenant Clusters. During the upgrade process, the provisioning of new clusters might be temporarily unavailable. New cluster requests are queued while the gateway is being upgraded and are processed as soon as the gateway upgrade is complete.

Deleting a VMware Cloud Gateway

The following steps need to be performed to delete a cloud gateway:

1. As a Tenant Administrator, navigate to the Private Cloud Gateway page under Settings.

2. Invoke the Delete action on the cloud gateway instance that needs to be deleted.

3. The system performs a validation to ensure there are no running tenant clusters associated with the gateway instance being deleted. If such instances are found, the system presents an error. Delete relevant running tenant clusters and retry the deletion of the cloud gateway.

4. Delete the Gateway Virtual Machines from vSphere.

Resizing a VMware Cloud Gateway

A cloud gateway can be set up as a 1-node or a 3-node cluster. For production environments, it is recommended that three (3) nodes are set up. A cloud gateway can be initially set up with one (1) node and resized to three (3) nodes at a later time. The following steps need to be performed to resize a 1-node cloud gateway cluster to a 3-node gateway cluster:

1. As a Tenant Administrator, navigate to the Private Cloud Gateway page under Settings.

2. Invoke the resize action for the relevant cloud gateway instance.

3. Update the size from one (1) to three (3).

4. The gateway upgrade begins shortly after the update. Two new nodes are created on vSphere and the gateway is upgraded to a 3-node cluster.

Palette supports DHCP as well as Static IP based allocation strategies for the VMs that are launched during cluster creation. IP Pools can be defined, using a range or a subnet. Administrators can define one or more IP pools linked to a private cloud gateway.

Clusters created using a private cloud gateway can select from the IP pools linked to the corresponding private cloud gateway. By default, IP Pools are shared across multiple clusters, but can optionally be restricted to a cluster.

The following is a description of various IP Pool properties:

In addition to the default cloud account already associated with the private cloud gateway, new user cloud accounts can be created for the different vSphere users.

The following steps need to be performed to provision a new VMware cluster:

1. Provide the basic cluster information like Name, Description, and Tags. Tags are currently not propagated to the Virtual Machines (VMs) deployed on the cloud/Datacenter environments.

2. Select a Cluster Profile created for the VMware environment. The profile definition will be used as the cluster construction template.

3. Review and override Pack Parameters as desired. By default, parameters for all Packs are set with values defined in the Cluster Profile.

4. Provide a vSphere Cloud account and placement information.

   Parameter	Description
   Cloud Account	Select the desired cloud account. VMware cloud accounts with credentials need to be preconfigured in the Project Settings section. An account is auto-created as part of the cloud gateway setup and is available for provisioning of Tenant Clusters if permitted by the administrator.
   Datacenter	The vSphere Datacenter where the cluster nodes will be launched.
   Deployment Folder	The vSphere VM Folder where the cluster nodes will be launched.
   Image Template Folder	The vSphere folder to which the Spectro templates are imported.
   SSH Keys (Optional)	Public key to configure remote SSH access to the nodes (User: spectro).
   NTP Server (Optional)	Setup time synchronization for all the running nodes.
   IP Allocation strategy	DHCP or Static IP

5. Configure the master and worker node pools. A master and a worker node pool are configured by default.

   Parameter	Description
   Name	A descriptive name for the node pool.
   Size	Number of nodes to be provisioned for the node pool. For the master pool, this number can be 1, 3, or 5.
   Allow worker capability (master pool)	To workloads to be provisioned on master nodes.
   CPU	Number of CPUs to be allocated to the nodes.
   Memory	Amount of memory in GB to be allocated to the nodes.
   Disk	Storage disk size in GB to be attached to the node.
   Placement Domains	One or more placement domains. VMs are distributed across multiple placement domains on a round-robin basis. Currently, only one placement domain is supported for a master pool.
   	* Compute Cluster - A Compute cluster under the selected Datacenter.
   	* Datastore - The vSphere storage in the selected Datacenter.
   	* Network - The vSphere Network in the selected Datacenter, to enable connectivity for the cluster nodes.
   	* Resource Pool- The vSphere resource pool where the cluster nodes will be launched.
   	* IP Pool - An IP pool to be used for allocation IP addresses to cluster VMs. Required only for Static IP allocation. IP pools need to be predefined for private cloud gateways.

6. Review settings and deploy the cluster. Provisioning status with details of ongoing provisioning tasks is available to track progress.

The deletion of a VMware cluster results in the removal of all Virtual machines and associated storage disks created for the cluster. The following tasks need to be performed to delete a VMware cluster:

1. Select the cluster to be deleted from the Cluster View page and navigate to the Cluster Overview page.

2. Invoke the delete action available on the page: Cluster > Settings > Cluster Settings > Delete Cluster.

3. Click Confirm to delete.

The Cluster Status is updated to Deleting while the Cluster Resources are being deleted. Provisioning status is updated with the ongoing progress of the delete operation. Once all resources are successfully deleted, the Cluster Status changes to Deleted and is removed from the list of Clusters.

A cluster stuck in the Deletion state can be force deleted by the user through the User Interface. The user can go for a force deletion of the cluster, only if it is stuck in a deletion state for a minimum of 15 minutes. Palette enables cluster force delete from the Tenant Admin and Project Admin scope.

1. Log in to the Palette Management Console.

2. Navigate to the Cluster Details page of the cluster stuck in deletion mode.

   • If the deletion status is stuck for more than 15 minutes, click the Force Delete Cluster button from the Settings dropdown.

   • If the Force Delete Cluster button is not enabled, wait for 15 minutes. The Settings dropdown will give the estimated time for the auto-enabling of the Force Delete button.