Creating and managing node pools

In a user cluster, you can create a group of nodes that all have the same configuration by filling in the nodePools section of the cluster configuration file. You can then manage the node pool without affecting the other nodes in the cluster. Learn more about node pools.

Before you begin

Deleting a node pool causes immediate removal of the pool's nodes regardless of whether those nodes are running workloads.

You can update the replicas field of a nodePool section without interrupting workloads. But if you update any other fields, the nodes in the pool are deleted and re-created.

If you want to attach tags to all VMs in a node pool, your vCenter user account must have these vSphere tagging privileges:

  • vSphere Tagging.Assign or Unassign vSphere Tag
  • vSphere Tagging.Assign or Unassign vSphere Tag on Object (vSphere 7)

When you update a nodePool section, GKE on VMware creates a new node and then deletes an old node. It repeats this process until all the old nodes have been replaced with new nodes. This means that the cluster must have an extra IP address available to use during the update.

Suppose a node pool will have N nodes at the end of an update. Then you must have at least N + 1 IP addresses available for nodes in that pool. This means that if you are resizing a cluster by adding nodes to one or more pools, you must have at least one more IP address than the total number of nodes that will be in all of the cluster's node pools at the end of the resizing. For more information, see Verify that enough IP addresses are available.

Filling in the nodePools section of the cluster configuration file

In your user cluster configuration file, fill in the nodePools section.

For each node pool, you must specify the following fields:

  • nodePools.[i].name
  • nodePools[i].cpus
  • nodePools.[i].memoryMB
  • nodePools.[i].replicas

The following fields are optional:

  • nodePools[i].labels
  • nodePools[i].taints
  • nodePools[i].bootDiskSizeGB
  • nodePools[i].osImageType
  • nodePools[i].vsphere.datastore
  • nodePools[i].vsphere.tags

Creating node pools in a new cluster

In your user cluster configuration file, fill in the nodePools section, and then create the cluster:

gkectl create cluster --kubeconfig ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG --config USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG

Replace the following:

  • ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG: the kubeconfig file for the admin cluster

  • USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG: the user cluster configuration file

Updating the node pools in an existing cluster

In your user cluster configuration file, edit the nodePools section, and then update the cluster:

gkectl update cluster --kubeconfig ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG --config USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG

Verifying your changes

To verify that your node pools have been created or updated as intended, inspect the cluster nodes:

kubectl --kubeconfig [USER_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG get nodes -o wide

If you need to revert your changes, edit the cluster configuration file and run gkectl update cluster.

Deleting a node pool

To delete a node pool from a user cluster:

  1. Remove its definition from the nodePools section of the user cluster configuration file.

  2. Ensure that there are no workloads running on the affected nodes.

  3. Update the cluster:

    gkectl update cluster --kubeconfig ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG --config USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG

Examples

In the following example configuration, there are four node pools, each with different attributes:

  • pool-1: only the minimum required attributes are specified
  • pool-2: includes vsphere.datastore and vsphere.tags
  • pool-3: includes taints and labels
  • pool-4: includes osImageTypeand bootDiskSizeGB
nodePools:
- name: pool-1
  cpus: 4
  memoryMB: 8192
  replicas: 5
- name: pool-2
  cpus: 8
  memoryMB: 16384
  replicas: 3
  vsphere:
    datastore: my_datastore
    tags:
    - category: "purpose"
      name: "testing"
- name: pool-3
  cpus: 4
  memoryMB: 8192
  replicas: 5
  taints:
    - key: "example-key"
      effect: NoSchedule
  labels:
    environment: production
    app: nginx
- name: pool-4
  cpus: 4
  memoryMB: 8192
  replicas: 5
  osImageType: cos
  bootDiskSizeGB: 40

Troubleshooting

  • In general, the gkectl update cluster command provides specifics when it fails. If the command succeeded and you don't see the nodes, you can troubleshoot with the Diagnosing cluster issues guide.

  • It is possible that there are insufficient cluster resources like a lack of available IP addresses during node pool creation or update. See the Resizing a user cluster topic for details about verifying that IP addresses are available.

  • You can also review the general Troubleshooting guide.

  • Won't proceed past Creating node MachineDeployment(s) in user cluster….

    It can take a while to create or update the node pools in your user cluster. However, if the wait time is extremely long and you suspect that something might have failed, you can run the following commands:

    1. Run kubectl get nodes to obtain the state of your nodes.
    2. For any nodes that are not ready, run kubectl describe node NODE_NAME to obtain details.