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Create a vSphere Virtual Machine Template
Create a vSphere template for your cluster from a base OS image
You must have at least one image before creating a new cluster. As long as you have an image, this step in your configuration is not required each time since that image can be used to spin up a new cluster. However, if you need different images for different environments or providers, you will need to create a new custom image.
The Konvoy Image Builder (KIB) uses the values in image.yaml and the input base OS image to create a vSphere template directly on the vCenter server. Using KIB, you can build an image without requiring access to the internet by providing an additional offline --override flag. You can use these overrides files to customize some of the components installed on your machine image. For example, you could tell KIB to install the FIPS versions of the Kubernetes components.
Prerequisites
Users need to create a base OS image in their vSphere client before starting this procedure.
Konvoy Image Builder (KIB) downloaded and extracted
Air-gapped Only
Assuming you have downloaded
dkp-air-gapped-bundle_v2.7.2_linux_amd64.tar.gz, extract the tarball to a local directory:CODEtar -xzvf dkp-air-gapped-bundle_v2.7.2_linux_amd64.tar.gz && cd dkp-v2.7.2/kibFollow the instructions to build a vSphere template below and set the override
--overrides overrides/offline.yamlflag.
Create a vSphere Template for Your Cluster from a Base OS Image
Using the base OS image created in a previous procedure, DKP creates the new vSphere template directly on the vCenter server.
Set the following vSphere environment variables on the bastion VM host:
CODEexport VSPHERE_SERVER=your_vCenter_APIserver_URL export VSPHERE_USERNAME=your_vCenter_user_name export VSPHERE_PASSWORD=your_vCenter_passwordCopy the base OS image file created in the vSphere Client to your desired location on the bastion VM host, and make a note of the path and file name.
Create an
image.yamlfile and add the following variables for vSphere. DKP uses this file and these variables as inputs in the next step. To customize yourimage.yamlfile, refer to this section: Customize your Image.
⚠️ NOTE: This example is Ubuntu 20.04. You will need to replace OS name below based on your OS. See other default YAML examples for copy and paste below last step.CODE--- download_images: true build_name: "ubuntu-2004" packer_builder_type: "vsphere" guestinfo_datasource_slug: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vmware/cloud-init-vmware-guestinfo" guestinfo_datasource_ref: "v1.4.0" guestinfo_datasource_script: "{{guestinfo_datasource_slug}}/{{guestinfo_datasource_ref}}/install.sh" packer: cluster: "<VSPHERE_CLUSTER_NAME>" datacenter: "<VSPHERE_DATACENTER_NAME>" datastore: "<VSPHERE_DATASTORE_NAME>" folder: "<VSPHERE_FOLDER>" insecure_connection: "false" network: "<VSPHERE_NETWORK>" resource_pool: "<VSPHERE_RESOURCE_POOL>" template: "os-qualification-templates/d2iq-base-Ubuntu-20.04" # change default value with your base template name vsphere_guest_os_type: "other4xLinux64Guest" guest_os_type: "ubuntu2004-64" # goss params distribution: "ubuntu" distribution_version: "20.04" # Use following overrides to select the authentication method that can be used with base template # ssh_username: "" # can be exported as environment variable 'SSH_USERNAME' # ssh_password: "" # can be exported as environment variable 'SSH_PASSWORD' # ssh_private_key_file = "" # can be exported as environment variable 'SSH_PRIVATE_KEY_FILE' # ssh_agent_auth: false # is set to true, ssh_password and ssh_private_key will be ignoredCreate a vSphere VM template with your variation of the following command:
CODEkonvoy-image build images/ova/<image.yaml>Any additional configurations can be added to this command using
--overridesflags as shown below:Any credential overrides:
--overrides overrides.yamlfor FIPS, add this flag:
--overrides overrides/fips.yamlfor air-gapped, add this flag:
--overrides overrides/offline-fips.yaml
The Konvoy Image Builder (KIB) uses the values in
image.yamland the input base OS image to create a vSphere template directly on the vCenter server. This template contains the required artifacts needed to create a Kubernetes cluster.
When KIB provisions the OS image successfully, it creates a manifest file. Theartifact_idfield of this file contains the name of the AMI ID (AWS), template name (vSphere), or image name (GCP/Azure), for example:CODE{ "name": "vsphere-clone", "builder_type": "vsphere-clone", "build_time": 1644985039, "files": null, "artifact_id": "konvoy-ova-vsphere-rhel-84-1.21.6-1644983717", "packer_run_uuid": "260e8110-77f8-ca94-e29e-ac7a2ae779c8", "custom_data": { "build_date": "2022-02-16T03:55:17Z", "build_name": "vsphere-rhel-84", "build_timestamp": "1644983717", [...] } }Recommendation: Now we can now see the template created in our vCenter, it is best to rename it to
dkp-<DKP_VERSION>-k8s-<K8S_VERSION>-<DISTRO>, likedkp-2.4.0-k8s-1.24.6-ubuntuto keep templates organized.Next steps are to deploy a DKP cluster using your vSphere template.