AWS Air-gapped: Create the Management Cluster

Create a new self-managed AWS Kubernetes cluster in an Air-gapped environment on your AWS infrastructure. A self-managed cluster refers to one in which the CAPI resources and controllers that describe and manage it are running on the same cluster they are managing. When you use existing infrastructure, DKP does not create, modify, or delete the following AWS resources:

Internet Gateways
NAT Gateways
Routing tables
Subnets
VPC
VPC Endpoints (for subnets without NAT Gateways)

An AWS subnet has Network ACLs that can control traffic in and out of the subnet. DKP does not modify the Network ACLs of an existing subnet. DKP uses Security Groups to control traffic. If a Network ACL denies traffic that is allowed by DKP-managed Security Groups, the cluster may not work correctly.

To increase Docker Hub's rate limit use your Docker Hub credentials when creating the cluster, by setting the following flag --registry-mirror-url=https://registry-1.docker.io --registry-mirror-username= --registry-mirror-password= on the dkp create cluster command.

Give your cluster a unique name suitable for your environment.
In AWS it is critical that the name is unique, as no two clusters in the same AWS account can have the same name.
Set the environment variable to the name you assigned this cluster:
CODE
```
export CLUSTER_NAME=<aws-example>
```
NOTE: The cluster name may only contain the following characters: a-z, 0-9, ., and -. Cluster creation will fail if the name has capital letters. See Kubernetes for more naming information.
Export variables for the existing infrastructure details:
CODE
```
export AWS_VPC_ID=<vpc-...>
export AWS_SUBNET_IDS=<subnet-...,subnet-...,subnet-...>
export AWS_ADDITIONAL_SECURITY_GROUPS=<sg-...>
export AWS_AMI_ID=<ami-...>
```
- AWS_VPC_ID: the VPC ID where the cluster will be created. The VPC requires the following AWS VPC Endpoints to be already present:
  - ec2 - com.amazonaws.{region}.ec2
  - elasticloadbalancing - com.amazonaws.{region}.elasticloadbalancing
  - secretsmanager - com.amazonaws.{region}.secretsmanager
  - autoscaling - com.amazonaws.{region}.autoscaling
  - ecr - com.amazonaws.{region}.ecr.api - (authentication)
  - ecr - com.amazonaws.{region}.ecr.dkr - (data trasfer)
  More details about AWS service using an interface VPC endpoint and AWS VPC endpoints list.
- AWS_SUBNET_IDS: a comma-separated list of one or more private Subnet IDs with each one in a different Availability Zone. The cluster control-plane and worker nodes will automatically be spread across these Subnets.
- AWS_ADDITIONAL_SECURITY_GROUPS: a comma-seperated list of one or more Security Groups IDs to use in addition to the ones automatically created by CAPA.
- AWS_AMI_ID: the AMI ID to use for control-plane and worker nodes. The AMI must be created by the konvoy-image-builder.

In previous DKP releases, AMI images provided by the upstream CAPA project would be used if you did not specify an AMI. However, the upstream images are not recommended for production and may not always be available. Therefore, DKP now requires you to specify an AMI when creating a cluster. To create an AMI, use Konvoy Image Builder.

There are two approaches to supplying the ID of your AMI while creating your cluster.

Option One is to provide the ID of the AMI: --ami AMI_ID.
Option Two is provide a way for DKP to discover the AMI using location, format and OS information using flags: AWS Account ID: --ami-owner AWS_ACCOUNT_ID, format --ami-base-os ubuntu-20.04, and OS --ami-format 'example-{{.BaseOS}}-?{{.K8sVersion}}-*'. Examples of these choices are shown in the dkp create cluster awscode snippets below.

⚠️ IMPORTANT: You must tag the subnets as described below to allow for Kubernetes to create External Load Balancers (ELBs) for services of type LoadBalancer in those subnets. If the subnets are not tagged, they will not receive an ELB and the following error displays: Error syncing load balancer, failed to ensure load balancer; could not find any suitable subnets for creating the ELB..
The tags should be set as follows, where <CLUSTER_NAME> corresponds to the name set in CLUSTER_NAME environment variable:
CODE
```
kubernetes.io/cluster = <CLUSTER_NAME>
kubernetes.io/cluster/<CLUSTER_NAME> = owned
kubernetes.io/role/internal-elb = 1
```
(Optional) Configure your cluster to use an existing container registry as a mirror when attempting to pull images. The example below is for AWS ECR:
⚠️ If you do not already have a local registry set up, please refer to Local Registry Tools page for more information.
⚠️ IMPORTANT: The AMI must be created by the konvoy-image-builder project in order to use the registry mirror feature.
CODE
```
export REGISTRY_URL=<ecr-registry-URI>
```
- REGISTRY_URL: the address of an existing registry accessible in the VPC that the new cluster nodes will be configured to use a mirror registry when pulling images.
- NOTE: Other local registries may use the options below:
  - JFrog - REGISTRY_CA: (optional) the path on the bastion machine to the registry CA. This value is only needed if the registry is using a self-signed certificate and the AMIs are not already configured to trust this CA.
  - REGISTRY_USERNAME: optional, set to a user that has pull access to this registry.
  - REGISTRY_PASSWORD: optional if username is not set.
Create a Kubernetes cluster. The following example shows a common configuration. See dkp create cluster aws reference for the full list of cluster creation options:

DKP uses AWS CSI as the default storage provider. You can use a Kubernetes CSI compatible storage solution that is suitable for production. See the Kubernetes documentation called Changing the Default Storage Class for more information.

Run this command to create your Kubernetes cluster using any relevant flags for Option One explained above providing the AMI ID:

CODE

dkp create cluster aws --cluster-name=${CLUSTER_NAME} \
--additional-tags=owner=$(whoami) \
--with-aws-bootstrap-credentials=true \
--vpc-id=${AWS_VPC_ID} \
--ami=${AWS_AMI_ID} \
--subnet-ids=${AWS_SUBNET_IDS} \
--internal-load-balancer=true \
--additional-security-group-ids=${AWS_ADDITIONAL_SECURITY_GROUPS} \
--registry-mirror-url=<YOUR_ECR_URL> \
--self-managed

OR

Option Two is to run the command as shown from the explanation above to allow discovery of your AMI:

CODE

dkp create cluster aws \
--cluster-name=${CLUSTER_NAME} \
--additional-tags=owner=$(whoami) \
--with-aws-bootstrap-credentials=true \
--vpc-id=${AWS_VPC_ID} \
--ami-owner AWS_ACCOUNT_ID \
--ami-base-os ubuntu-20.04 \
--ami-format 'example-{{.BaseOS}}-?{{.K8sVersion}}-*' \
--subnet-ids=${AWS_SUBNET_IDS} \
--internal-load-balancer=true \
--additional-security-group-ids=${AWS_ADDITIONAL_SECURITY_GROUPS} \
--registry-mirror-url=<YOUR_ECR_URL> \
--self-managed

Flatcar OS

Flatcar OS use --os-hint to instruct the bootstrap cluster to make some changes related to the installation paths:

CODE

--os-hint flatcar

If your environment uses HTTP/HTTPS proxies, you must include the flags --http-proxy, --https-proxy, and --no-proxy and their related values in this command for it to be successful. More information is available in Configuring an HTTP/HTTPS Proxy.

You can find a customizable YAML and other custom instructions in Create a new Air-gapped AWS Cluster under Custom Installation and Additional Infrastructure Tools .

Cluster Verification

If you want to monitor or verify the installation of your clusters, refer to:

Verify your Cluster and DKP Installation.

Next Step:

AWS Air-gapped: Install Kommander