Google Cloud¶

In this tutorial, we'll create a Kubernetes v1.29.3 cluster on Google Compute Engine with Flatcar Linux.

We'll declare a Kubernetes cluster using the Typhoon Terraform module. Then apply the changes to create a network, firewall rules, health checks, controller instances, worker managed instance group, load balancers, and TLS assets.

Controller hosts are provisioned to run an etcd-member peer and a kubelet service. Worker hosts run a kubelet service. Controller nodes run kube-apiserver, kube-scheduler, kube-controller-manager, and coredns, while kube-proxy and calico (or flannel) run on every node. A generated kubeconfig provides kubectl access to the cluster.

Requirements¶

Google Cloud Account and Service Account
Google Cloud DNS Zone (registered Domain Name or delegated subdomain)
Terraform v0.13.0+

Terraform Setup¶

Install Terraform v0.13.0+ on your system.

$ terraform version
Terraform v1.0.0

Read concepts to learn about Terraform, modules, and organizing resources. Change to your infrastructure repository (e.g. infra).

cd infra/clusters

Provider¶

Login to your Google Console API Manager and select a project, or signup if you don't have an account.

Select "Credentials" and create a service account key. Choose the "Compute Engine Admin" and "DNS Administrator" roles and save the JSON private key to a file that can be referenced in configs.

mv ~/Downloads/project-id-43048204.json ~/.config/google-cloud/terraform.json

Configure the Google Cloud provider to use your service account key, project-id, and region in a providers.tf file.

provider "google" {
  project     = "project-id"
  region      = "us-central1"
  credentials = file("~/.config/google-cloud/terraform.json")
}

provider "ct" {}

terraform {
  required_providers {
    ct = {
      source  = "poseidon/ct"
      version = "0.11.0"
    }
    google = {
      source = "hashicorp/google"
      version = "4.59.0"
    }
  }
}

Additional configuration options are described in the google provider docs.

Tip

Regions are listed in docs or with gcloud compute regions list. A project may contain multiple clusters across different regions.

Cluster¶

Define a Kubernetes cluster using the module google-cloud/flatcar-linux/kubernetes.

module "yavin" {
  source = "git::https://github.com/poseidon/typhoon//google-cloud/flatcar-linux/kubernetes?ref=v1.29.3"

  # Google Cloud
  cluster_name  = "yavin"
  region        = "us-central1"
  dns_zone      = "example.com"
  dns_zone_name = "example-zone"

  # configuration
  ssh_authorized_key = "ssh-rsa AAAAB3Nz..."

  # optional
  worker_count = 2
}

Reference the variables docs or the variables.tf source.

ssh-agent¶

Initial bootstrapping requires bootstrap.service be started on one controller node. Terraform uses ssh-agent to automate this step. Add your SSH private key to ssh-agent.

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
ssh-add -L

Apply¶

Initialize the config directory if this is the first use with Terraform.

terraform init

Plan the resources to be created.

$ terraform plan
Plan: 78 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.

Apply the changes to create the cluster.

$ terraform apply
module.yavin.null_resource.bootstrap: Still creating... (10s elapsed)
...
module.yavin.null_resource.bootstrap: Still creating... (5m30s elapsed)
module.yavin.null_resource.bootstrap: Still creating... (5m40s elapsed)
module.yavin.null_resource.bootstrap: Creation complete (ID: 5768638456220583358)

Apply complete! Resources: 78 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.

In 4-8 minutes, the Kubernetes cluster will be ready.

Verify¶

Install kubectl on your system. Obtain the generated cluster kubeconfig from module outputs (e.g. write to a local file).

resource "local_file" "kubeconfig-yavin" {
  content  = module.yavin.kubeconfig-admin
  filename = "/home/user/.kube/configs/yavin-config"
}

List nodes in the cluster.

$ export KUBECONFIG=/home/user/.kube/configs/yavin-config
$ kubectl get nodes
NAME                                       ROLES    STATUS  AGE  VERSION
yavin-controller-0.c.example-com.internal  <none>   Ready   6m   v1.29.3
yavin-worker-jrbf.c.example-com.internal   <none>   Ready   5m   v1.29.3
yavin-worker-mzdm.c.example-com.internal   <none>   Ready   5m   v1.29.3

List the pods.

$ kubectl get pods --all-namespaces
NAMESPACE     NAME                                      READY  STATUS    RESTARTS  AGE
kube-system   calico-node-1cs8z                         2/2    Running   0         6m
kube-system   calico-node-d1l5b                         2/2    Running   0         6m
kube-system   calico-node-sp9ps                         2/2    Running   0         6m
kube-system   coredns-1187388186-dkh3o                  1/1    Running   0         6m
kube-system   coredns-1187388186-zj5dl                  1/1    Running   0         6m
kube-system   kube-apiserver-controller-0               1/1    Running   0         6m
kube-system   kube-controller-manager-controller-0      1/1    Running   0         6m
kube-system   kube-proxy-117v6                          1/1    Running   0         6m
kube-system   kube-proxy-9886n                          1/1    Running   0         6m
kube-system   kube-proxy-njn47                          1/1    Running   0         6m
kube-system   kube-scheduler-controller-0               1/1    Running   0         6m

Going Further¶

Learn about maintenance and addons.

Variables¶

Check the variables.tf source.

Required¶

Name	Description	Example
cluster_name	Unique cluster name (prepended to dns_zone)	"yavin"
region	Google Cloud region	"us-central1"
dns_zone	Google Cloud DNS zone	"google-cloud.example.com"
dns_zone_name	Google Cloud DNS zone name	"example-zone"
ssh_authorized_key	SSH public key for user 'core'	"ssh-rsa AAAAB3NZ..."

Check the list of valid regions and list Container Linux images with gcloud compute images list | grep coreos.

DNS Zone¶

Clusters create a DNS A record ${cluster_name}.${dns_zone} to resolve a TCP proxy load balancer backed by controller instances. This FQDN is used by workers and kubectl to access the apiserver(s). In this example, the cluster's apiserver would be accessible at yavin.google-cloud.example.com.

You'll need a registered domain name or delegated subdomain on Google Cloud DNS. You can set this up once and create many clusters with unique names.

resource "google_dns_managed_zone" "zone-for-clusters" {
  dns_name    = "google-cloud.example.com."
  name        = "example-zone"
  description = "Production DNS zone"
}

If you have an existing domain name with a zone file elsewhere, just delegate a subdomain that can be managed on Google Cloud (e.g. google-cloud.mydomain.com) and update nameservers.

Optional¶

Name	Description	Default	Example
controller_count	Number of controllers (i.e. masters)	1	3
worker_count	Number of workers	1	3
controller_type	Machine type for controllers	"n1-standard-1"	See below
worker_type	Machine type for workers	"n1-standard-1"	See below
os_image	Flatcar Linux image for compute instances	"flatcar-stable"	flatcar-stable, flatcar-beta, flatcar-alpha
disk_size	Size of the disk in GB	30	100
worker_preemptible	If enabled, Compute Engine will terminate workers randomly within 24 hours	false	true
controller_snippets	Controller Container Linux Config snippets	[]	example
worker_snippets	Worker Container Linux Config snippets	[]	example
networking	Choice of networking provider	"cilium"	"calico" or "cilium" or "flannel"
pod_cidr	CIDR IPv4 range to assign to Kubernetes pods	"10.2.0.0/16"	"10.22.0.0/16"
service_cidr	CIDR IPv4 range to assign to Kubernetes services	"10.3.0.0/16"	"10.3.0.0/24"
worker_node_labels	List of initial worker node labels	[]	["worker-pool=default"]

Check the list of valid machine types.

Preemption¶

Add worker_preemptible = "true" to allow worker nodes to be preempted at random, but pay significantly less. Clusters tolerate stopping instances fairly well (reschedules pods, but cannot drain) and preemption provides a nice reward for running fault-tolerant cluster systems.`