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

User guide for Windows Server OS node pools

With GKE on VMware version 1.8, you can create a node pool of Windows Server OS nodes. The user cluster that runs the Windows Server OS node pools can also run node pools of nodes using Ubuntu or a Container-Optimized OS.

Requirements for a Windows Server OS node pool

The nodes in a node pool must all use the same operating system, indicated by the osImageType parameter.

Before you create, in your user cluster, a node pool that has Windows Server OS nodes, make sure you meet these requirements:

Your user cluster that runs the Windows node pool must be GKE on VMware version 1.8 or later.
Your admin cluster that controls this user cluster must be version 1.7 or later.
An admin cluster must already be in place before you can create a Windows node pool, because a Windows node pool is only supported in the user cluster.
The user cluster must run at least one Linux node pool, because the Linux node pool is required to create a Windows node pool.
User clusters with Windows node pools must have dataplane V2 enabled.
You have downloaded a Windows Server 2019 ISO from Microsoft to create a VM template specific for Windows node pools. The language/region tag for the ISO must be en-US.
Your vSphere environment must be vSphere 6.7, Update 3 or later.

Create a Windows node pool in a user cluster

Step 1: Create the Windows VM Template for GKE on VMware

Before you begin, make sure that you have already created an admin cluster.

Create a base Windows VM template from the Windows Server 2019 ISO.
- The initial network adapter type for the Windows VM to install Windows Server 2019 ISO should be E1000E.
- Follow these steps: Create a VMware vSphere template for Windows Server 2019.
- Take note of the initial password that is set when you run the Windows ISO installer, to use it in the future.
- Make sure you are using the latest patch version for Windows Server 2019, 10.0.17763.1999, that has been qualified for GKE on VMware version 1.8.0. See Security patch process.
- You can't attach any device that uses the IDE controller to the base VM template.
- If you are using Windows version >= 10.0.17763.1757, see this workaround.
Install VMware Tools on the base Windows VM template if not already installed, using the VMWare instructions.

Create a Windows VM template:

gkectl prepare windows --base-vm-template BASE_WINDOWS_VM_TEMPLATE_NAME --bundle-path BUNDLE_PATH --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG_PATH

In the last line of the command output, you can find the name of the generated Windows VM template. Make a note of the name for future use. The name has the following format:

Successfully created Anthos Windows VM template "gke-on-prem-windows-server-2019-10.0.17763.1999-1.8.0-gke.25"

Step 2: Upload Windows container images to private registry

Omit this step if you are not using a private registry.

Use of a private registry has the following requirements:

Use a Windows machine with Docker installed, and with access to gcr.io, before attempting this step, because you can only pull Windows Container images to a Windows machine.
Run docker login to authenticate to your private registry.
Upload the Windows Container images together with their base layers to your private registry, following these steps:
- Go to the Docker daemon.json file on your Windows machine:
```
PS C:> cat C:\ProgramData\docker\config\daemon.json
```
- Add the following lines to configure your Docker daemon.json file to allow pushing foreign layers to your private registry:
```
{
  "allow-nondistributable-artifacts": ["PRIVATE_REGISTRY_NAME"]
}
```
- Download the required Windows Container images to your local Windows machine, and then tag and push them to your private registry. The changes you made to the daemon.json Docker configuration file mean that the base layer can be pushed to the private registry. To complete these tasks, run the following commands:

# Pull the Windows container images
docker pull gcr.io/gke-on-prem-release/pause-win:1.6.1
docker pull gcr.io/gke-on-prem-release/fluent-bit-win:v1.7.7-gke.2_ltsc2019
docker pull gcr.io/gke-on-prem-release/gke-metrics-agent-windows:0.3.10-gke.0

# Tag the images to use private registry
docker tag gcr.io/gke-on-prem-release/pause-win:1.6.1 $PRIVATE_REGISTRY_URL/pause-win:1.6.1
docker tag gcr.io/gke-on-prem-release/fluent-bit-win:v1.7.7-gke.2_ltsc2019 $PRIVATE_REGISTRY_URL/fluent-bit-win:v1.7.7-gke.2_ltsc2019
docker tag gcr.io/gke-on-prem-release/gke-metrics-agent-windows:0.3.10-gke.0 $PRIVATE_REGISTRY_URL/gke-metrics-agent-windows:0.3.10-gke.0

# Push to private registry
docker push PRIVATE_REGISTRY_URL/pause-win:1.6.1
docker push PRIVATE_REGISTRY_URL/fluent-bit-win:v1.7.7-gke.2_ltsc2019
docker push PRIVATE_REGISTRY_URL/gke-metrics-agent-windows:0.3.10-gke.0

Step 3: (Required if using proxy) Allowlisting URLs for creating Windows node pools

If your cluster is behind a proxy server, add these URLs to your proxy server allowlist in addition to the other addresses that GKE on VMware requires.

# Microsoft registry URLs, needed by every Windows node if using GCR
mcr.microsoft.com
.data.mcr.microsoft.com
go.microsoft.com
winlayers.cdn.mscr.io

# Microsoft WSUS server URLs, needed by `gkectl prepare windows` on the Windows VM
windowsupdate.microsoft.com
.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
.update.microsoft.com
.windowsupdate.com
download.windowsupdate.com
download.microsoft.com
.download.windowsupdate.com
wustat.windows.com
ntservicepack.microsoft.com
go.microsoft.com
dl.delivery.mp.microsoft.com

# Cloudbase-Init URL, needed by `gkectl prepare windows` on the Windows VM
https://cloudbase.it

# Powershell Gallery URLs, needed by `gkectl prepare windows` on the Windows VM
psg-prod-eastus.azureedge.net
az818661.vo.msecnd.net
devopsgallerystorage.blob.core.windows.net
.powershellgallery.com

# Windows Update Service, needed by `gkectl prepare windows` on the Windows VM
onegetcdn.azureedge.net
sws.update.microsoft.com
tsfe.trafficshaping.dsp.mp.microsoft.com
fe3.delivery.mp.microsoft.com
.prod.do.dsp.mp.microsoft.com
emdl.ws.microsoft.com
adl.windows.com
activation-v2.sls.microsoft.com
crl.microsoft.com
ocsp.digicert.com
ctldl.windowsupdate.com
login.live.com
licensing.mp.microsoft.com
www.msftconnecttest.com
settings-win.data.microsoft.com
wdcp.microsoft.com
smartscreen-prod.microsoft.com
checkappexec.microsoft.com
arc.msn.com
ris.api.iris.microsoft.com
.tlu.dl.delivery.mp.microsoft.com
.au.windowsupdate.com
www.microsoft.com
fe3.delivery.dsp.mp.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
cs9.wac.phicdn.net
geo-prod.do.dsp.mp.microsoft.com
slscr.update.microsoft.com
v10.events.data.microsoft.com

# Access for Installing docker, needed by `gkectl prepare windows` on the Windows VM
dockermsft.azureedge.net

Step 4: Add a Windows node pool to the user cluster configuration file

Dataplane V2 must be enabled in your user cluster to use Windows node pools. Add the following line to your user cluster configuration file to enable Dataplane V2:
```
enableDataplaneV2: true
```
Add a Windows node pool to your nodePools section in the user cluster configuration file. At least one Linux node pool is required in addition to your Windows node pools. Set the osImage and osImageType fields to create Windows node pools:

osImage: Replace WINDOWS_VM_TEMPLATE_NAME with the name of your prepared Windows VM template in step 1, which should be in the same vCenter datastore specified in the user cluster configuration file.
osImageType: Specify the OS image type to be windows.

# user-cluster.yaml

nodePools:
- name: windows-nodepool-1
  cpus: 4
  memoryMB: 8192
  replicas: 3
  osImage: WINDOWS_VM_TEMPLATE_NAME
  osImageType: windows

Step 5: Create Windows node pools

Before you create Windows node pools, run a list of preflight validators for Windows. - (Optional) Run either or both the fast and slow preflight checks, which create a test VM for Windows and validate the Windows VM template:

gkectl check-config --config USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG

Although not recommended, you can skip the Windows preflight checks with the --skip-validation-windows flag.
Managing Windows node pools is the same as it is for Linux node pools. See Managing node pools. The commands for creating, updating, and upgrading clusters and node pools also remain the same and are listed here.

# Create a new cluster
gkectl create cluster --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG --config USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG

# Update an existing cluster with the new Windows node pool
gkectl update cluster --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG --config USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG

# Upgrade an existing cluster with the new Windows node pool
gkectl upgrade cluster --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG --config USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG

Step 6: Validate Windows nodes are running

Check that your Windows nodes have been created and are Ready.
```
kubectl --kubeconfig USER_KUBECONFIG get nodes 
```

Diagnose the user cluster to check whether it's healthy.

gkectl diagnose cluster --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG  --cluster-name CLUSTER_NAME

Deploy a Windows Pod

Windows Server nodes are tainted with this key-value pair: node.kubernetes.io/os=windows:NoSchedule.

This taint ensures that the GKE scheduler does not attempt to run Linux containers on Windows Server nodes. To schedule Windows Server containers on Windows Server nodes, your manifest file must include this nodeSelector section:

nodeSelector:
    kubernetes.io/os: windows

With nodeSelector configured, an admission webhook running in the cluster checks new workloads for the presence of this Windows node selector and when found, applies the following toleration to the workload which allows it to run on the tainted Windows Server nodes:

tolerations:
- key: "node.kubernetes.io/os"
  operator: "Equal"
  value: "windows"
  effect: "NoSchedule"

Step 1: Create an Internet Information Services (IIS) deployment file

Here is a sample configuration, which deploys Microsoft's official IIS image to a single Pod.

Create an IIS file named iis.yaml with the following content:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: iis
  labels:
    app: iis
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: iis
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: iis
    spec:
      nodeSelector:
        kubernetes.io/os: windows
      containers:
      - name: iis-server
        image: mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore/iis
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  labels:
    app: iis
  name: iis
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 80
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 80
  selector:
    app: iis
  sessionAffinity: None
  type: LoadBalancer
  loadBalancerIP: [Fill in with an available IP address]

Step 2: Create the deployment and expose it via a service

# Create the deployment
kubectl --kubeconfig USER_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG create -f iis.yaml

Step 3: Validate the Pod

Check the status of the Pod using kubectl.

kubectl --kubeconfig USER_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG get pods

Wait until the returned output shows that the Pod has a status of "Running".

NAME                   READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
iis-5c997657fb-w95dl   1/1       Running   0          28s

Get the status of the service, and wait until the external IP field is populated.

kubectl --kubeconfig USER_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG  get service iis

Expected output:

NAME   TYPE           CLUSTER-IP    EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
iis    LoadBalancer   10.44.2.112   35.x.x.x     80:32233/TCP   17s

You can use your browser to open http://EXTERNAL_IP to see the IIS web page!

Upgrade user cluster with Windows node pools

The upgrade process for a user cluster with Windows node pools is similar to that for upgrading Linux-only user clusters, except that you must create a Windows VM template from a base VM template before upgrading.

You can update the patch build version of the base VM template during upgrade by downloading a newer patch version of Windows Server 2019 from Microsoft as a security patch. See Security patch process.

gkectl prepare windows --base-vm-template $BASE_WINDOWS_VM_TEMPLATE_NAME --bundle-path $BUNDLE_PATH --kubeconfig $ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG_PATH

Run the command below for upgrading the user cluster:

gkectl upgrade cluster --kubeconfig $ADMIN_KUBECONFIG --config $USER_CLUSTER_SEED_CONFIG

Accessing Windows nodes

The standard way to access Windows nodes is with a username and password, which differs from Linux nodes, which are typically accessed via ssh key pairs for authentication.

For Windows nodes on vSphere, the username is Administrator. The password is generated by the clusterapi-controller and stored in the windows-node-password secret in the admin cluster's user namespace. The command for getting the password from that secret is:

kubectl get secret windows-node-password -n [USER_CLUSTER_NAME] --kubeconfig admin-kubeconfig.yaml -o jsonpath={.data.*} | base64 -d

You can also use get the password using the vCenter user interface. Navigate to the VM that you want to log into, and then you can find the password at the password vApp property of that VM.

Once you have the username and password, you can access your Windows VM using any of the following approaches:

Using Remote Desktop Protocol

Because the RDP has been enabled during the template build, you can access your Windows VM by using a RDP client.

Using SSH

To ssh into a Windows VM:

ssh Administrator@[VM_IP_ADDRESS]

Follow the prompt to type in the password to connect to your VM.

Transferring files from and to your Windows VM

You can transfer files from and to your Windows VM via SCP:

Upload files to Windows VM:

scp [LOCAL_FILE_PATH] Administrator@[VM_IP_ADDRESS]:/[REMOTE_FILE_PATH]

Download files from Windows VM:

scp Administrator@[VM_IP_ADDRESS]:/[REMOTE_FILE_PATH] [LOCAL_FILE_PATH]

Type the password when prompted.

Alternatively, you can also transfer files by using Cloud Storage or using RDP, as described in Transferring files to Windows VMs.

Troubleshooting

Cannot SSH/RDP to the Windows VM

Check if the VM has a network connection by running Test-NetConnection on your vCenter web console.

The result should contain PingSucceeded: true if there is a network connection. If the VM does not have a network connection, check the network adapter used for this VM. Make sure that the network allows inbound connections to the VM from your workstation where you want to run the SSH/RDP.

Verify that kubelet, kube-proxy, and flanneld are running on the Windows VM.

Connect to your VM following the steps here and run the following commands:

# Check that kubelet and kube-proxy services have status 'Running'
Get-Service kubelet
Get-Service kube-proxy
# Check that the flanneld process exists
Get-Process flanneld

Using the snapshot tool

Use the snapshot tool to grab the snapshot tarball. This tarball contains the log files on nodes as well as outputs for troubleshooting commands running on the node.

gkectl diagnose snapshot --scenario system-with-logs --cluster-name [USER_CLUSTER_NAME] --kubeconfig [PATH_TO_KUBECONFIG]

Windows VM creation fails

Check the logs from the vsphere-controller-manager container in the clusterapi-controllers Pod in the user namespace of the admin cluster.

kubectl --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG -n USER_CLUSTER_NAME logs clusterapi-controllers-POD_NAME_SUFFIX vsphere-controller-manager

Ensure that your VM template is located in the same datacenter and datastore as specified in your user cluster configuration file.

Windows VM is created, but the node fails to start properly or show up

Check the startup logs on the node located at C:\var\log\startup.log to see if anything failed to start.
- If flanneld is not running, try to rerun the startup script located at C:\Program Files\Cloudbase Solutions\Cloudbase-Init\startup.ps1
- If kubelet is not running, check the kubelet logs under `C:\var\log`.
- If kube-proxy is not running, check the kube-proxy logs under C:\var\log.

Logging and Monitoring

GKE on VMware supports logging and monitoring for Windows nodes and Pods, as it does for Linux nodes and Pods.

When logging and monitoring are configured, agents are deployed on Windows nodes. These agents collect, process, and export the node's logs and metrics.

Windows logging Agent

The Windows logging agent collects the following logs:

Pod resource type: system and user application workloads.

Note that Windows user application workloads logs are collected by default. To disable application logs:

Edit the fluent-bit-windows-config configmap and comment out the [Input] item that collects the application logs (the first [Input] item):

kubectl --kubeconfig KUBECONFIG edit configmap fluent-bit-windows-config -n kube-system

Make sure to comment out all fields under this item. For example:

#    [INPUT]
#      # https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/input/tail
#      Name               tail
#      Tag_Regex          var.log.containers.(?a-z0-9?(?:.a-z0-9?))_(?[^]+)(?.+)-(?[a-z0-9]{64}).log$
#      Tag                k8s_container...
#      Path               C:\var\log\containers\.log
#      Exclude_Path       kube-system.log,gke-connect.log,knative-serving.log,gke-system.log,istio-system.log,monitoring-system.log,config-management-system.log,gatekeeper-system.log,cnrm-system.log
#      DB                 C:\var\log\fluent-bit-k8s-container-application.db
#      Mem_Buf_Limit      30MB
#      Skip_Long_Lines    On
#      Refresh_Interval   10
#      # storage.type       filesystem
#      Buffer_Chunk_Size  512KB
#      Buffer_Max_Size    5M
#      Rotate_Wait        30
#      Ignore_Older       4h

Run the rollout restart command to restart the fluent-bit-windows daemonset:

kubectl --kubeconfig KUBECONFIG rollout restart daemonset fluent-bit-windows -n kube-system

Node resource type: kubelet, kube-proxy and Windows event-logs

You can access logs using the Logs Explorer in the console. See Access logs for more information.

Windows monitoring Agent

The Windows monitoring agent collect a different set of CPU and memory usage metrics than the Linux monitoring agent. To monitor the Windows nodes and Pods status, use the prepared dashboards. From the console, select Monitoring > Dashboards, and then select "GKE on-prem Windows node status" and "GKE on-prem Windows pod status" from the All Dashboards list.

These dashboards are automatically created during admin cluster installation if Cloud Monitoring is enabled. If you already have an admin cluster running, follow these instructions to create these dashboards, using the following json files:

See the full list of metrics collected by the Windows agents.

Windows persistent storage

When working with Windows Server containers with persistent storage, you must create a StorageClass object, and specify the name of that object in the storageClassName field of the PersistentVolumeClaim object, because the default StorageClass in on-prem user cluster uses ext4 as the file system type, which only works for Linux containers. For Windows, we need to set the file system type to ntfs.

Example Windows storage class:

kind: StorageClass
apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: my-storage-class
provisioner: kubernetes.io/vsphere-volume
parameters:
  datastore: my-datastore
  diskformat: thin
  fstype: ntfs

Security patch process

Besides the regular patch releases for the supported Anthos versions, the Anthos team also continuously qualifies newer Windows patch updates during non-release time periods, and publishes the results for your reference. If an urgent security patch update is needed between Anthos patch releases, you can build a new VM template using the latest version, and then perform a rolling update for the existing Windows node pools to use the new template.

The security patch process includes these steps:

Microsoft releases a new security patch for Windows Server 2019.
Anthos qualifies the latest security patch version and announces the qualification result.
If qualified, users will:
- Download the latest patch version from Microsoft
- Build a new Windows VM template using this patch version following the steps here.
- Update the Windows node pools to use the new template by running:

gkectl update cluster --kubeconfig $ADMIN_KUBECONFIG --config $USER_CLUSTER_SEED_CONFIG

If the new version requires changes from Anthos's side, you must wait for the next monthly Anthos patch release and upgrade the clusters.
If the new Windows version is not compatible with Anthos at all, the Anthos team will skip that version and wait for the next security update from Microsoft.

Active Directory domain join

Active Directory domain join requires the length of the VM hostname to be <= 15 characters. For IPAM mode, because the VM hostname is set in the user cluster configuration file, you must ensure the length is <= 15 characters. These instructions are based on the instructions for creating Windows node pools, with the additional step of supplying a customized script during the Windows VM template build.

Verify the Active Domain DNS server is reachable

Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) uses Domain Name System (DNS) name resolution services to make it possible for clients to locate domain controllers and for the domain controllers that host the directory service to communicate with each other.

The DNS server was created when the AD DS role installed the root forest. For any Windows VM to join the AD domain, it must be able to reach the DNS server. Configure the DNS and firewall configurations following the guidance of the DNS service provider that you are using. You can verify whether the Windows VMs in the current network can contact the AD domain DNS server by running this command:

PS C:\> nslookup DOMAIN_NAME DOMAIN_SERVER_IP
Server:  example-1-2-3-4.anthos
Address:  1.2.3.4
Name:    example.org
Address:  1.2.3.4

Step 1: Create Windows VM template with a customized script

Execute a customized script before the Windows node joins the user cluster for Active Directory domain join. Store this script to a local path on your admin workstation. Note that:
- You can replace the script with your own script for doing the Active Directory domain join.
- It is recommended that you use a user account with the minimum permissions required for an Active Directory domain join, instead of using an Administrator user.
- (Optional) To avoid storing the password as cleartext in this script, place the password in a file on the VM template, let the script read from that password file, then delete the file after the domain join.
```
$domain = "[DOMAIN_NAME]"
$password = "[PASSWORD]" | ConvertTo-SecureString -asPlainText -Force
$username = "$domain\[USERNAME]"
$credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($username,$password)
Add-Computer -DomainName $domain -Credential $credential -restart –force
```

Create a Windows VM template with a customized script:

gkectl prepare windows --base-vm-template BASE_WINDOWS_VM_TEMPLATE_NAME --bundle-path BUNDLE_PATH --kubeconfig ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG --customized-script CUSTOMIZED_SCRIPT_PATH

Step 2: Create a Windows node pool

Proceed with the standard instructions in Steps 2-6 to create a Windows node pool using the customized Windows VM template.

Step 3: Verify the Active Domain joining for the Windows nodes

On the AD domain controller VM, run the following command:

PS C:\> Get-ADComputer -Filter 'Name -like "user-host-prefix*"'

DistinguishedName : CN=AD-VM-1,CN=Computers,DC=example,DC=org
DNSHostName       : ad-vm-1.example.org
Enabled           : True
Name              : AD-VM-1
ObjectClass       : computer
ObjectGUID        : b3609717-d24b-4df6-bccb-26ca8e8b9eb0
SamAccountName    : AD-VM-1$
SID               : S-1-5-21-3236879623-1561052741-2808297733-1103

Step 4: Configure Group Managed Service Accounts (optional)

Follow these instructions: Configure GMSA for Windows Pods and containers. You can configure GMSA for Windows pods and containers after the nodes are domain joined.

Troubleshooting

Logs for the customized script execution of cloudbase-init are located at C:\Program Files\Cloudbase Solutions\Cloudbase-Init\log\cloudbase-init.log. Look for LocalScriptPlugin in the log file, and check the related logs. - Build a new Windows VM template. - Update the Windows node pools to use the new template by running:

gkectl update cluster --kubeconfig $ADMIN_KUBECONFIG --config $USER_CLUSTER_SEED_CONFIG

Considerations for Windows containers

Some notable differences between Windows and Linux containers are:

Version compatibility of Windows container images and the host/node OS images.
- The Windows Server OS version tuple has four parts: major, minor, build, and revision.
- The Windows server container base image must match the first three parts of the version tuple of the host OS image. The revision need not match, although it is recommended that you update both the host and container base images.
- Users need to rebuild their container images whenever the OS image version changes
Privileged containers and host namespaces are not supported.
- Users cannot configure/change nodes by deploying containers, such as Daemonsets.

Limitations for GKE on VMware on vSphere Windows

User clusters must contain at least one Linux node pool.
- You cannot create a cluster with only a Windows node pool
- The Linux node pools are required to run critical add-ons.
Because 1.5 times more resources are reserved for Windows nodes than Linux nodes, the allocatable resources for Windows are lower.
The use of Windows nodes might require a larger minimum machine size than the GKE on VMware Linux minimum machine size. Windows nodes typically require more resources because of the higher overhead of running node components/services.

Known Issues

This section lists known issues with Windows nodes used with GKE on VMware, along with ways that you can avoid or recover from these issues.

Windows Update service disabled by default starting with version `10.0.17763.1757`

Because Windows Update service is disabled by default starting with version 10.0.17763.1757, that breaks the Windows VM template build which attempts to stop running the service. You will see the error message, "The service has not been started."

As a workaround, manually start this service on the base Windows VM template if you are using version 10.0.17763.1757 or later. Run this command to start the Windows Update service:

sc.exe config wuauserv start= auto
Start-Service wuauserv

Windows VM template build hangs while waiting for the VM to be shut down

The Windows VM template build waits for the VM to be shut down for about 40 minutes. Continue to wait, and the command will complete successfully after a period of time.

Windows network interface name mismatch causes issue during node startup

Currently, Ethernet0 2 is used as the network interface name during node startup. If the actual network interface name is not Ethernet0 2, the node fails to be bootstrapped and cannot join the user cluster. If the original network adapter type on your base VM template is already VMXNET 3, the network interface name is Ethernet0 during node startup, and it will therefore mismatch with the expected name Ethernet0 2.

As a workaround, make sure that the initial network adapter type that you specify when you create the Windows VM to install Windows Server 2019 ISO is using E1000E. Alternatively, you can manually login to each Windows node, rename the network interface to Ethernet0 2, and then rerun the startup script.

Rename-NetAdapter -Name 'Ethernet0' -NewName 'Ethernet0 2'
Rename-NetAdapter -Name 'vEthernet (Ethernet0)' -NewName 'vEthernet (Ethernet0 2)'
./etc/startup/start-script.ps1

Windows Pods cannot talk to external IP addresses

This issue is described in Microsoft documentation. That document states "You need to exclude the external IP you are trying to query from the ExceptionList."

Contact Cloud Support to proceed with the workaround solution.

Windows containers are not cleaned up after removing Windows Pods

This is a known issue, in which docker RemoveContainer also tries to call CreateFile on Windows. As a workaround, log in to the Windows node that has the issue, run Restart-Service docker and the issue should be mitigated.

Windows node becomes NotReady after rebooting the VM

Currently the node startup script only runs for the first time the VM is powered on, so if you reboot the VM, the startup script won't run. This will cause some Windows services to stop running, including the kubelet, kube-proxy services and so forth. Therefore the node will be in NotReady status. As a workaround, you can delete the node by running the command below and wait for the controller to automatically recreate it.

kubectl --kubeconfig USER_KUBECONFIG delete node NODE_NAME

User guide for Windows Server OS node pools

Requirements for a Windows Server OS node pool

Create a Windows node pool in a user cluster

Step 1: Create the Windows VM Template for GKE on VMware

Step 2: Upload Windows container images to private registry

Step 3: (Required if using proxy) Allowlisting URLs for creating Windows node pools

Step 4: Add a Windows node pool to the user cluster configuration file

Step 5: Create Windows node pools

Step 6: Validate Windows nodes are running

Deploy a Windows Pod

Step 1: Create an Internet Information Services (IIS) deployment file

Step 2: Create the deployment and expose it via a service

Step 3: Validate the Pod

Upgrade user cluster with Windows node pools

Accessing Windows nodes

Using Remote Desktop Protocol

Using SSH

Transferring files from and to your Windows VM

Troubleshooting

Cannot SSH/RDP to the Windows VM

Verify that kubelet, kube-proxy, and flanneld are running on the Windows VM.

Using the snapshot tool

Windows VM creation fails

Windows VM is created, but the node fails to start properly or show up

Logging and Monitoring

Windows logging Agent

Windows monitoring Agent

Windows persistent storage

Security patch process

Active Directory domain join

Verify the Active Domain DNS server is reachable

Step 1: Create Windows VM template with a customized script

Step 2: Create a Windows node pool

Step 3: Verify the Active Domain joining for the Windows nodes

Step 4: Configure Group Managed Service Accounts (optional)

Troubleshooting

Considerations for Windows containers

Limitations for GKE on VMware on vSphere Windows

Known Issues

Windows Update service disabled by default starting with version 10.0.17763.1757

Windows VM template build hangs while waiting for the VM to be shut down

Windows network interface name mismatch causes issue during node startup

Windows Pods cannot talk to external IP addresses

Windows containers are not cleaned up after removing Windows Pods

Windows node becomes NotReady after rebooting the VM

Windows Update service disabled by default starting with version `10.0.17763.1757`