Version 1.8. This version is no longer supported. For more information see the version support policy.

Creating additional user clusters

This page explains how to create an additional user cluster for Google Distributed Cloud.

Before you begin

Be sure that an admin cluster is running. You created an admin cluster when you installed Google Distributed Cloud.
Each user cluster requires its own user cluster configuration file. Decide if you want to generate a new user cluster configuration file and modify it, or copy an existing user cluster configuration file and modify it.
Locate the admin cluster's kubeconfig file. You reference this file when you specify the command to create the new user cluster.

Verify that enough IP addresses are available

Be sure that you have enough IP addresses allocated for the new user cluster. Verifying that you have enough IP addresses depends on whether you're using a DHCP server or static IPs.

In addition, be sure that you have enough IP addresses allocated for your admin cluster. The admin cluster has one or three control-plane nodes for each user cluster, and the admin cluster will need one or three additional control-plane nodes for the user cluster you want to create. There must be enough IP addresses available for all of those control-plane nodes. To upgrade your admin cluster to have more IP addresses, see Upgrading--verify that enough IP addresses are available.

DHCP

Verify that the DHCP server in the network in which the cluster will be created has enough IP addresses. There should be more IP addresses than there will be nodes running in the user cluster.

Static IPs

Verify that there are enough IP addresses set aside for the new cluster nodes that will be created in the existing admin cluster and in the new user cluster.

Create another user cluster configuration file

The new user cluster requires its own user cluster configuration file. You can either generate a new file, or copy an existing one. In each case, you must modify the settings for the new cluster.

To generate a new user cluster configuration file:
```
gkectl create-config cluster --config NEW_USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG
```
Replace the following:
- USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG is the name you choose for the user cluster configuration file.
- NEW_USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG is the name you choose for the copy of the user cluster configuration file.
Otherwise, locate an existing user cluster configuration file on your admin workstation. Run this command to copy this file to a new filename.
```
cp USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG NEW_USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG
```

Modify this new user cluster configuration file as described in Filling in your configuration file

Create a Seesaw load balancer for your additional user cluster

If you have chosen to use the bundled Seesaw load balancer, proceed with the following step. Otherwise, skip this section.

Create and configure the VMs for your Seesaw load balancer:

gkectl create loadbalancer --kubeconfig ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG --config NEW_USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG

Replace the following:

ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG is the existing admin cluster's kubeconfig file.
NEW_USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG is the name of the new user cluster configuration file.

Create the user cluster

Now that you've populated a NEW_USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG file to match the specifications you want for the new user cluster, you can use that file to create this user cluster. Run the following command:

gkectl create cluster --config NEW_USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG --kubeconfig ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG