Node image

This page describes the node operating system (node OS) image that runs on GKE on VMware cluster nodes.

GKE on VMware cluster nodes run ubuntu_containerd by default. The image is similar to Google Kubernetes Engine's Ubuntu node image.

GKE on VMware node pools also support Container-Optimized OS. Container-Optimized OS on GKE on VMware supports kdump for debugging kernel issues.

GKE on VMware offers the following node image options per OS for your cluster:

OS Node images Status
Container-Optimized OS
  • cos
 General Availability
Container-Optimized OS with cgroup v2
  • cos_cgv2
 Preview
Ubuntu with containerd
  • ubuntu_containerd
 General Availability
Ubuntu with containerd and cgroup v2
  • ubuntu_cgv2
 Preview

Kubernetes version

New GKE on VMware versions sometimes introduce a new Kubernetes version for clusters. Version changes are announced in Release notes. To learn which Kubernetes version your cluster runs, see Versions.

Preinstalled tools

  • GKE on VMware's node OS has the following tools preinstalled: arping cloud-utils, conntrack, logrotate, prips, systemd-container
  • GKE on VMware's node OS has the debug-toolbox container image preinstalled. debug-toolbox includes several packages for debugging node issues. You run an accompanying shell script, toolbox, to unpack and run the debug-toolbox container. Learn about the toolbox script.

Networking

As of GKE on VMware version 1.1.0-gke.6, the node OS' default networking configuration is disabled to support static IP allocation.

Security

See node security.