Anthos clusters on VMware is now Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for VMware. For more information, see the product overview.

Create a user cluster

In Google Distributed Cloud, your workloads run on one or more user clusters. This document shows how to create a user cluster. This page is for Admins, Architects, and Operators who set up, monitor, and manage the tech infrastructure. To learn more about common roles and example tasks that we reference in Google Cloud content, see Common GKE Enterprise user roles and tasks.

There are several tools that you can use to create a user cluster:

gkectl
Google Cloud console
Google Cloud CLI
Terraform

Three of these tools (the console, the gcloud CLI, and Terraform) are clients of the GKE On-Prem API.

For guidance on which tool you might like to use, see Choose a tool to manage cluster lifecycle.

Before you begin

If you haven't already done so, set up your Google Cloud resources as described in these documents:
As you set up your fleet host project, keep in mind your choice of tool, because if you have chosen one of the GKE On-Prem API clients, there are additional APIs that you must enable. For the list of APIs, see Enable APIs in your fleet host project.
Before you create a user cluster, you must have an admin cluster to manage the user cluster. If you haven't already done so, create an admin workstation and an admin cluster.
Determine the version of the user cluster that you want to install. When you create a user cluster, you typically install the version that matches the version of the admin cluster. But you can install a later patch version, and in version 1.28 and higher, user clusters can be up to 2 minor versions higher than their admin cluster.
We strongly recommend that you enable Controlplane V2. When Controlplane V2 is enabled, the control plane for the user cluster runs on one or more nodes in the user cluster itself. If you plan to install version 1.30 or a higher version, Controlplane V2 is required. The alternative is to create a user cluster that uses kubeception. In the kubeception case, the control plane for the user cluster runs on one or more nodes in the admin cluster.
Review the IP addresses planning document, and ensure that you have enough IP addresses available.
Review the load balancing overview and revisit your decision about the kind of load balancer you want to use. You can use the bundled MetalLB load balancer, or you can manually configure a load balancer of your choice. For manual load balancing, you must set up the load balancer before you create your user cluster.
Think about how many node pools you need and which operating system you want to run in each of your pools.
Think about whether you want to use separate vSphere clusters for your admin cluster and user clusters, and whether you want to use separate data centers. Also think about whether you want to use separate instances of vCenter Server.
In version 1.29 and higher, server-side preflight checks are enabled by default. Server-side preflight checks require additional firewall rules. In Firewall rules for admin clusters, search for "Preflight checks" and make sure all required firewall rules are configured.

With server-side preflight checks, when you create a user cluster using gkectl, the preflight checks are run on the admin cluster instead of locally on the admin workstation. Server-side preflight checks are also run if you use the Google Cloud console, the Google Cloud CLI, or Terraform to create a user cluster.

Create a user cluster

gkectl

Procedure overview

These are the primary steps involved in using gkectl to create a user cluster:

Connect to your admin workstation

The admin workstation is a machine that has the necessary tools for creating a user cluster.
Fill in your configuration files

Specify the details for your new cluster by completing a user cluster configuration file, a credentials configuration file, and possibly an IP block file.
(Optional) Import OS images to vSphere, and push container images to the private registry if applicable.

Run gkectl prepare.
Create a user cluster

Run gkectl create cluster to create a cluster as specified in your configuration file.
Verify that your user cluster is running

Use kubectl to view your cluster nodes.

At the end of this procedure, you will have a running user cluster where you can deploy your workloads.

If you use VPC Service Controls, you might see errors when you run some gkectl commands, such as "Validation Category: GCP - [UNKNOWN] GCP service: [Stackdriver] could not get GCP services". To avoid these errors, add the --skip-validation-gcp parameter to your commands.

Fill in your configuration files

Do these steps on your admin workstation.

When gkeadm created your admin workstation, it generated a configuration file named user-cluster.yaml. This configuration file is for creating your user cluster.

Familiarize yourself with the configuration file by scanning the user cluster configuration file document. You might want to keep this document open in a separate tab or window, because you will refer to it as you complete the following steps.

`name`

Set the name field to a name of your choice for the user cluster.

`gkeOnPremVersion`

This field is already filled in for you. It specifies the version of Google Distributed Cloud. For example, 1.30.200-gke.101.

`enableControlplaneV2`

To create a user cluster that has Controlplane V2 enabled, set enableControlplaneV2 to true.

When Controlplane V2 is enabled, the control plane for the user cluster runs on nodes in the user cluster itself. We strongly recommend that you enable Controlplane V2.

kubeception

If you set this field to false, the cluster will use kubecetption. With kubeception, the control plane for the user cluster runs on nodes in the admin cluster.

For a kubeception cluster:

Set enableControlplaneV2 to false.
Don't fill in the controlPlaneIPBlock section.
Specify IP addresses for the control-plane nodes of the user cluster in the IP block file of the admin cluster.

`enableDataplaneV2`

Set enableDataplaneV2 to true.

`vCenter`

The values you set in the vCenter section of your admin cluster configuration file are global. That is, they apply to your admin cluster and its associated user clusters.

For each user cluster that you create, you have the option of overriding some of the global vCenter values.

To override any of the global vCenter values, fill in the relevant fields in the vCenter section of your user cluster configuration file.

In particular, you might want to use separate vSphere clusters for your admin cluster and user clusters, and you might want to use separate data centers for your admin cluster and user clusters.

Using one data center and one vSphere cluster

The default option is to use one data center and one vSphere cluster for the admin cluster and the user cluster. For this option, don't set any vCenter values in the user cluster configuration file. The vCenter values will be inherited from the admin cluster.

Using separate vSphere clusters

If you want to create a user cluster that is in its own vSphere cluster, specify a value for vCenter.cluster in the user cluster configuration file.

If your admin cluster and user cluster are in separate vSphere clusters, they can be in the same data center or different data centers.

Using separate vSphere data centers

The user cluster and admin cluster can be in different data centers. In that case, they are also in separate vSphere clusters.

If you specify vCenter.datacenter in the user cluster configuration file, then you must also specify:

vCenter.networkName
Either vCenter.datastore or vCenter.storagePolicyName
Either vCenter.cluster or vCenter.resourcePool

Using separate vCenter accounts

A user cluster can use a different vCenter account, with different vCenter.credentials, from the admin cluster. The vCenter account for the admin cluster needs access to the admin cluster data center, while the vCenter account for the user cluster only needs access to the user cluster data center.

Using separate instances of vCenter Server

In certain situations, it makes sense to create a user cluster that uses its own instance of vCenter Server. That is, the admin cluster and an associated user cluster use different instances of vCenter Server.

For example, in an edge location, you might want to have a physical machine running vCenter Server and one or more physical machines running ESXi. You could then use your local instance of vCenter Server to create a vSphere object hierarchy, including data centers, clusters, resource pools, datastores, and folders.

Fill in the entire vCenter section of your user cluster configuration file. In particular, specify a value for vCenter.address that is different from the vCenter Server address you specified in the admin cluster configuration file. For example:

vCenter:
  address: "vc-edge.example"
  datacenter: "vc-edge"
  cluster: "vc-edge-workloads"
  resourcePool: "vc-edge-pool
  datastore: "vc-edge-datastore
  caCertPath: "/usr/local/google/home/me/certs/edge-cacert.pem"
  credentials:
    fileRef:
      path: "credential.yaml"
      entry: "vCenter-edge"
  folder: "edge-vm-folder"

Also fill in the network.vCenter.networkName field.

`network`

Decide how you want your worker nodes to get their IP addresses. The options are:

From a DHCP server that you set up ahead of time. Set network.ipMode.type to "dhcp".
From a list of static IP addresses that you provide. Set network.ipMode.type to "static", and create an IP block file that provides the static IP addresses. For an example of an IP block file, see Example of filled-in configuration files.

If you have decided to use static IP addresses for your worker nodes, fill in the network.ipMode.ipBlockFilePath field.

The control-plane nodes for your user cluster must get their IP addresses from a list of static addresses that you provide. This is the case even if your worker nodes get their addresses from a DHCP server. To specify static IP addresses for your control-plane nodes, fill in the network.controlPlaneIPBlock section. If you want a high-availability (HA) user cluster, specify three IP addresses. Otherwise, specify one IP address.

Specify DNS and NTP servers by filling in the hostConfig section. These DNS and NTP servers are for the control-plane nodes. If you are using static IP addresses for your worker nodes, then these DNS and NTP servers are also for the worker nodes.

The network.podCIDR and network.serviceCIDR have prepopulated values that you can leave unchanged unless they conflict with addresses already being used in your network. Kubernetes uses these ranges to assign IP addresses to Pods and Services in your cluster.

Regardless of whether you rely on a DHCP server or specify a list of static IP addresses, you need to have enough IP addresses available for your user cluster. For an explanation of how many IP addresses you need, see Plan your IP addresses.

`loadBalancer`

Set aside a VIP for the Kubernetes API server of your user cluster. Set aside another VIP for the ingress service of your user cluster. Provide your VIPs as values for loadBalancer.vips.controlPlaneVIP and loadBalancer.vips.ingressVIP.

Decide what type of load balancing you want to use. The options are:

MetalLB bundled load balancing. Set loadBalancer.kind to "MetalLB". Also fill in the loadBalancer.metalLB.addressPools section, and set enableLoadBalancer to true for at least one of your node pools. For more information, see Bundled load balancing with MetalLB.
Manual load balancing. Set loadBalancer.kind to "ManualLB", and fill in the manualLB section. For more information, see Manual load balancing.

For more information about load balancing options, see Overview of load balancing.

`advancedNetworking`

If you plan to create an egress NAT gateway, set advancedNetworking to true.

`multipleNetworkInterfaces`

Decide whether you want to configure multiple network interfaces for Pods, and set multipleNetworkInterfaces accordingly.

`storage`

If you want to disable the deployment of vSphere CSI components, set storage.vSphereCSIDisabled to true.

`masterNode`

In the masterNode section, you can specify how many control-plane nodes you want for your user cluster: one or three. You can also specify a datastore for the control-plane nodes and whether you want to enable automatic resizing for the control-plane nodes.

Recall that you specified IP addresses for the control-plane nodes in the network.controlPlaneIPBlock section.

`nodePools`

A node pool is a group of nodes in a cluster that all have the same configuration. For example, the nodes in one pool could run Windows and the nodes in another pool could run Linux.

You must specify at least one node pool by filling in the nodePools section.

For more information, see Node pools and Creating and managing node pools.

`antiAffinityGroups`

Set antiAffinityGroups.enabled to true or false.

This field specifies whether Google Distributed Cloud creates Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) anti-affinity rules for your worker nodes, causing them to be spread across at least three physical hosts in your data center.

`stackdriver`

If you want to enable Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring for your cluster, fill in the stackdriver section.

This section is required by default. That is, if you don't fill in this section, you must include the --skip-validation-stackdriver flag when you run gkectl create cluster.

Note the following requirements for new clusters:

The ID in stackdriver.projectID must be the same as the ID in gkeConnect.projectID and cloudAuditLogging.projectID.
The Google Cloud region set in stackdriver.clusterLocation must be the same as the region set in cloudAuditLogging.clusterLocation and gkeConnect.location (if the field is included in your configuration file.) Additionally, if gkeOnPremAPI.enabled is true, the same region must be set in gkeOnPremAPI.location.

If the project IDs and regions aren't the same, cluster creation fails.

`gkeConnect`

Your user cluster must be registered to a Google Cloud fleet.

Fill in the gkeConnect section to specify a fleet host project and an associated service account. The ID in gkeConnect.projectID must be the same as the ID set in stackdriver.projectID and cloudAuditLogging.projectID. If the project IDs aren't the same, cluster creation fails.

In 1.28 and later, you can optionally specify a region where the Fleet and Connect services run in gkeConnect.location. If you don't include this field, the cluster uses the global instances of these services.

If you include gkeConnect.location in your configuration file, the region that you specify must be the same as the region configured in cloudAuditLogging.clusterLocation, stackdriver.clusterLocation, and gkeOnPremAPI.location. If the regions aren't the same, cluster creation fails.

`gkeOnPremAPI`

In 1.16 and later, if the GKE On-Prem API is enabled in your Google Cloud project, all clusters in the project are enrolled in the GKE On-Prem API automatically in the region configured in stackdriver.clusterLocation. The gkeOnPremAPI.location region must be the same as the region specified in cloudAuditLogging.clusterLocation, gkeConnect.location (if the field is included in your configuration file), and stackdriver.clusterLocation.

If you want to enroll all clusters in the project in the GKE On-Prem API, be sure to do the steps in Before you begin to activate and use the GKE On-Prem API in the project.
If you don't want to enroll the cluster in the GKE On-Prem API, include this section and set gkeOnPremAPI.enabled to false. If you don't want to enroll any clusters in the project, disable gkeonprem.googleapis.com (the service name for the GKE On-Prem API) in the project. For instructions, see Disabling services.

`usageMetering`

If you want to enable usage metering for your cluster, then fill in the usageMetering section.

`cloudAuditLogging`

If you want to integrate the audit logs from your cluster's Kubernetes API server with Cloud Audit Logs, fill in the cloudAuditLogging section.

Note the following requirements for new clusters:

The ID in cloudAuditLogging.projectID must be the same as the ID in gkeConnect.projectID and stackdriver.projectID.
The region in cloudAuditLogging.clusterLocation must be the same as the region set in gkeConnect.location (if the field is included in your configuration file) and stackdriver.clusterLocation. Additionally, if gkeOnPremAPI.enabled is true, the same region must be set in gkeOnPremAPI.location.

If the project IDs and regions aren't the same, cluster creation fails.

Example of filled-in configuration files

Here is an example of an IP block file and a user cluster configuration file;

user-ipblock.yaml

blocks:
  - netmask: 255.255.255.0
    gateway: 172.16.21.1
    ips:
    - ip: 172.16.21.2
      hostname: worker-vm-1
    - ip: 172.16.21.3
      hostname: worker-vm-2
    - ip: 172.16.21.4
      hostname: worker-vm-3
    - ip: 172.16.21.5
      hostname: worker-vm-4

user-cluster.yaml

cat user-cluster.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: UserCluster
name: "my-user-cluster"
gkeOnPremVersion: 1.30.200-gke.101
enableControlplaneV2: true
enableDataplaneV2: true
network:
  hostConfig:
    dnsServers:
    - "203.0.113.2"
    - "198.51.100.2"
    ntpServers:
    - "216.239.35.4"
  ipMode:
    type: "static"
    ipBlockFilePath: "user-ipblock.yaml"
  serviceCIDR: 10.96.0.0/20
  podCIDR: 192.168.0.0/16
  controlPlaneIPBlock:
    netmask: "255.255.255.0"
    gateway: "172.16.21.1"
    ips:
    - ip: "172.16.21.6"
      hostname: "cp-vm-1"
    - ip: "172.16.21.7"
      hostname: "cp-vm-2"
    - ip: "172.16.21.8"
      hostname: "cp-vm-3"
loadBalancer:
  vips:
    controlPlaneVIP: "172.16.21.40"
    ingressVIP: "172.16.21.30"
  kind: MetalLB
  metalLB:
    addressPools:
    - name: "address-pool-1"
      addresses:
      - "172.16.21.30-172.16.21.39"
masterNode:
  cpus: 4
  memoryMB: 8192
  replicas: 3
nodePools:
- name: "worker-node-pool"
  cpus: 4
  memoryMB: 8192
  replicas: 3
  enableLoadBalancer: true
antiAffinityGroups:
  enabled: true
gkeConnect:
  projectID: "my-project-123"
  location: "us-central1"
  registerServiceAccountKeyPath: "connect-register-sa-2203040617.json"
stackdriver:
  projectID: "my-project-123"
  clusterLocation: "us-central1"
  enableVPC: false
  serviceAccountKeyPath: "log-mon-sa-2203040617.json"
autoRepair:
  enabled: true

These are the important points to understand in the preceding example:

The static IP addresses for the worker nodes are specified in an IP block file. The IP block file has four addresses even though there are only three worker nodes. The extra IP address is needed during cluster upgrade, update, and auto repair.
DNS and NTP servers are specified in the hostConfig section. In this example, these DNS and NTP servers are for the control-plane nodes and the worker nodes. That is because the worker nodes have static IP addresses. If the worker nodes were to get their IP addresses from a DHCP server, then these DNS and NTP servers would be only for the control-plane nodes.
The static IP addresses for the three control-plane nodes are specified in the network.controlPlaneIPBlock section of the user cluster configuration file. There is no need for an extra IP address in this block.
Controlplane V2 is enabled.
The masterNode.replicas field is set to 3, so the cluster will have a high-availability control plane.
The control-plane VIP and the ingress VIP are both in the same VLAN as the worker nodes and the control-plane nodes.
The VIPs that are set aside for Services of type LoadBalancer are specified in the loadBalancer.metalLB.addressPools section of the user cluster configuration file. These VIPs are in the same VLAN as the worker nodes and the control-plane nodes. The set of VIPs specified in this section must include the ingress VIP and must not include the control-plane VIP.
The user cluster configuration file does not include a vCenter section. So the user cluster uses the same vSphere resources as the admin cluster.

Validate your configuration file

After you've filled in your user cluster configuration file, run gkectl check-config to verify that the file is valid:

gkectl check-config --kubeconfig ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG --config USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG

Replace the following:

ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG: the path of the kubeconfig file for your admin cluster
USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG: the path of your user cluster configuration file

If the command returns any failure messages, fix the issues and validate the file again.

If you want to skip the more time-consuming validations, pass the --fast flag. To skip individual validations, use the --skip-validation-xxx flags. To learn more about the check-config command, see Running preflight checks.

3. (Optional) Import OS images to vSphere, and push container images to a private registry

Run gkectl prepare if any of the following are true:

Your user cluster is in a different vSphere data center from your admin cluster.
Your user cluster has a different vCenter Server from your admin cluster.
Your user cluster uses a private container registry that is different from the private registry used by your admin cluster.

gkectl prepare --kubeconfig ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG \
    --bundle-path BUNDLE \
    --user-cluster-config USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG

Replace the following:

ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG: the path of your admin cluster kubeconfig file
BUNDLE: the path of the bundle file. This file is on your admin workstation in /var/lib/gke/bundles/. For example:
```
/var/lib/gke/bundles/gke-onprem-vsphere-1.30.200-gke.101-full.tgz
```
USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG: the path of your user cluster configuration file

4. Create a user cluster

Create a user cluster:

gkectl create cluster --kubeconfig ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG --config USER_CLUSTER_CONFIG

Locate the user cluster kubeconfig file

The gkectl create cluster command creates a kubeconfig file named USER_CLUSTER_NAME-kubeconfig in the current directory. You will need this kubeconfig file later to interact with your user cluster.

The kubeconfig file contains the name of your user cluster. To view the cluster name, you can run:

kubectl config get-clusters --kubeconfig USER_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG

The output shows the name of the cluster. For example:

NAME
my-user-cluster

If you like, you can change the name and location of your kubeconfig file.

5. Verify that your user cluster is running

Verify that your user cluster is running:

kubectl get nodes --kubeconfig USER_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG

Replace USER_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG with the path of your user cluster kubeconfig file.

The output shows the user cluster nodes. For example:

cp-vm-1       Ready    control-plane,master   18m
cp-vm-2       Ready    control-plane,master   18m
cp-vm-3       Ready    control-plane,master   18m
worker-vm-1   Ready                           6m7s
worker-vm-2   Ready                           6m6s
worker-vm-3   Ready                           6m14s

Console

Get started

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Create a Google Distributed Cloud cluster page.

Go to Create a Google Distributed Cloud cluster
Select the Google Cloud project that you want to create the cluster in. The selected project is also used as the fleet host project. This must be the same project that the admin cluster is registered to. After the user cluster is created, it is automatically registered to the selected project's fleet.

Cluster basics

Enter basic information about the cluster.

Enter a Name for the user cluster.
Under Admin cluster, select the admin cluster from the list. If you didn't specify a name for the admin cluster when you created it, the name is generated in the form gke-admin-[HASH]. If you don't recognize the admin cluster name, run the following command on your admin workstation:
```
KUBECONFIG=ADMIN_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG
kubectl get OnPremAdminCluster -n kube-system -o=jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}'
```
If the admin cluster that you want to use isn't displayed, see the troubleshooting section The admin cluster isn't displayed on the Cluster basics drop-down list.
In the GCP API Location field, select the Google Cloud region from the list. This setting specifies the region where the following APIs and services run:
- GKE On-Prem API (gkeonprem.googleapis.com)
- Fleet service (gkehub.googleapis.com)
- Connect service (gkeconnect.googleapis.com)
This setting also controls the region in which the following are stored:
- The user cluster metadata that the GKE On-Prem API needs to manage the cluster lifecycle
- The Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring data of system components
- The Admin Audit log created by Cloud Audit Logs
The cluster name, project, and location together uniquely identify the cluster in Google Cloud.
Select the Google Distributed Cloud version for your user cluster.
As the cluster creator, you are granted cluster admin privileges to the cluster. Optionally, enter the email address of another user who will administer the cluster in the Cluster admin user field in the Authorization section.

When the cluster is created, the GKE On-Prem API applies the Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC) policies to the cluster to grant you and other admin users the Kubernetes clusterrole/cluster-admin role, which provides full access to every resource in the cluster in all namespaces.

Note: In addition to the Kubernetes RBAC policies, you must grant some Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles to the users who aren't project owners. For details on granting the IAM roles, see Grant required roles.
Click Next to go to the Control plane section.

Control Plane

All the fields in the Control plane section are set with default values. Review the defaults and optionally, change them as needed.

In the Control-plane node vCPUs field, enter the number of vCPUs (minimum 4) for each control plane node for your user cluster.
In the Control-plane node memory field, enter the memory size in MiB (minimum 8192 and must be a multiple of 4) for each control plane for your user cluster.
Under Control-plane nodes, select the number of control-plane nodes for your user cluster. For example, you may select 1 control-plane node for a development environment and 3 control-planes nodes for high availability (HA), production environments.
Optionally, select Automatic node resizing. Resizing means that the vCPU and memory resources assigned to a node are adjusted automatically. When enabled, the control-plane nodes for the user cluster are resized according to the number of worker nodes in the user cluster. So as you add more worker nodes to the user cluster, the control-plane nodes are increased in size.
Optionally, select Enable control plane v2. Enabling Controlplane V2 means the control plane for a user cluster runs on one or more nodes in the user cluster itself instead of in the admin cluster (referred to as kubeception).

When you select Enable control plane v2, the Control plane node IPs section displays. Enter the IP address for the gateway, the subnet mask, and the IP addresses for the control-plane nodes.

When Controlplane V2 is enabled, the vCPU and memory fields apply to the control plane nodes in the user cluster. The number of nodes is determined by the number of IP address that you enter. When Controlplane V2 isn't enabled, the vCPU, memory, and number of control-plane nodes fields apply to the nodes in the admin cluster. Make sure you set aside enough IP addresses for your admin cluster.
Click Next to go to the Networking section.

Networking

In this section, you specify the IP addresses for your cluster's nodes, Pods, and Services. A user cluster needs to have one IP address for each node and an additional IP address for a temporary node that is needed during cluster upgrades, updates, and auto repair. For more information, see How many IP addresses does a user cluster need?.

In the Node IPs section, select the IP mode for the user cluster. Select one of the following:
- DHCP: Choose DHCP if you want your cluster nodes to get their IP address from a DHCP server.
- Static: Choose Static if you want to provide static IP addresses for your cluster nodes, or if you want to set up manual load-balancing.
If you selected DHCP, skip to the next step to specify Service and Pod CIDRs. For Static IP mode, provide the following information:
1. Enter the IP address of the Gateway for the user cluster.
2. Enter the Subnet mask for the user cluster nodes.
3. In the IP Addresses section, enter the IP addresses and optionally, the hostnames for the nodes in the user cluster. You can enter either an individual IP v4 address (such as 192.0.2.1) or a CIDR block of IPv4 addresses (such as 192.0.2.0/24).
  - If you enter a CIDR block, don't enter a hostname.
  - If you enter an individual IP address, you can optionally enter a hostname. If you don't enter a hostname, Google Distributed Cloud uses the VM's name from vSphere as the hostname.
4. Click + Add IP Address as needed to enter more IP addresses.
In the Service and Pod CIDRs section, the console provides the following address ranges for your Kubernetes Services and Pods:
- Service CIDR: 10.96.0.0/20
- Pod CIDR: 192.168.0.0/16
If you prefer to enter your own address ranges, see IP addresses for Pods and Services for best practices.
If you selected Static IP mode or Enable control plane v2, specify the following information in the Host config section:
1. Enter the IP addresses of the DNS servers.
2. Enter the IP addresses of the NTP servers.
3. Optionally, enter DNS search domains.
Click Next to go to the Load balancer section.

Load balancer

Choose the load balancer to set up for your cluster. See Load balancer overview for more information.

Select the Load balancer type from the list.

Bundled with MetalLB

Configure bundled load balancing with MetalLB. You can use MetalLB for the user cluster only if your admin cluster is using SeeSaw or MetalLB. This option requires minimal configuration. MetalLB runs directly on your cluster nodes and doesn't require extra VMs. For more information about the benefits of using MetalLB and how it compares to the other load balancing options, see Bundled load balancing with MetalLB.

In the Address pools section, configure at least one address pool, as follows:
1. Enter a name for the address pool.
2. Enter an IP address range that contains the ingress VIP in either CIDR notation (ex. 192.0.2.0/26) or range notation (ex. 192.0.2.64-192.0.2.72). To specify a single IP address in a pool, use /32 in the CIDR notation (ex. 192.0.2.1/32).
3. If the IP addresses for your Services of type LoadBalancer aren't in the same IP address range as the ingress VIP, click + Add IP Address Range and enter another address range.
  
  The IP addresses in each pool cannot overlap, and must be in the same subnet as the cluster nodes.
4. Under Assignment of IP addresses, select one of the following:
  - Automatic: Choose this option if you want the MetalLB controller to automatically assign IP addresses from the address pool to Services of type LoadBalancer
  - Manual: Choose this option if you intend to use addresses from the pool to manually specify addresses for Services of type LoadBalancer
5. Click Avoid buggy IP addresses if you want the MetalLB controller to not use addresses from the pool that end in .0 or .255. This avoids the problem of buggy consumer devices mistakenly dropping traffic sent to those special IP addresses.
6. When you're finished click Done.
If needed, click Add Address Pool.
In the Virtual IPs section, enter the following:
- Control plane VIP: The destination IP address to be used for traffic sent to the Kubernetes API server of the user cluster. The Kubernetes API server for the user cluster runs on a node in the admin cluster. This IP address must be in the same L2 domain as the admin cluster nodes. Don't add this address in the Address pools section.
- Ingress VIP: The IP address to be configured on the load balancer for the ingress proxy. You must add this to an address pool in the Address pools section.
Click Continue.

F5 BIG-IP

You can use F5 BIG-IP for the user cluster only if your admin cluster is using F5 BIG-IP. Be sure to install and configure the F5 BIG-IP ADC before integrating it with Google Distributed Cloud.

The F5 username and password are inherited from the admin cluster.

In the Virtual IPs section, enter the following:
- Control plane VIP: The destination IP address to be used for traffic sent to the Kubernetes API server.
- Ingress VIP: The IP address to be configured on the load balancer for the ingress proxy.
In the Address field, enter the address of your F5 BIG-IP load balancer.
In the Partition field, enter the name of a BIG-IP partition that you created for your user cluster.
In the sNAT pool name field, enter the name of your SNAT pool, if applicable.
Click Continue.

Manual

You can use a manual load balancer for the user cluster only if your admin cluster uses a manual load balancer. In Google Distributed Cloud, the Kubernetes API server and the ingress proxy are each exposed by a Kubernetes Service of type LoadBalancer. Choose your own nodePort values in the 30000 - 32767 range for these Services. For the ingress proxy, choose a nodePort value for both HTTP and HTTPS traffic. See Enabling manual load balancing mode for more information.

In the Virtual IPs section, enter the following:
- Control plane VIP: The destination IP address to be used for traffic sent to the Kubernetes API server.
- Ingress VIP: The IP address to be configured on the load balancer for the ingress proxy.
In the Control-plan node port field, enter a nodePort value for the Kubernetes API server.
In the Ingress HTTP node port field, enter a nodePort value for HTTP traffic to the ingress proxy.
In the Ingress HTTPS node port field, enter a nodePort value for HTTPS traffic to the ingress proxy.
In the Konnectivity server node port field, enter a nodePort value for the Konnectivity server.
Click Continue.

Features

This section displays the features and operations that are enabled on the cluster.

The following are enabled automatically and can't be disabled:
- Cloud Logging of system services
- Cloud Monitoring of system services
- The Admin Activity audit log
The following are enabled by default, but you can disable them:
- Enable vSphere CSI driver: Also called the vSphere Container Storage Plug-in. The Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver runs in a Kubernetes cluster deployed in vSphere to provision persistent volumes on vSphere storage. For more information, see Using the vSphere Container Storage Interface driver.
- Enable anti-affinity groups: VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) anti-affinity rules are automatically created for your user cluster's nodes, causing them to be spread across at least 3 physical hosts in your data center. Make sure that your vSphere environment meets the requirements.
Note: If you followed Set up minimal infrastructure, you only have one ESXi host, so be sure to clear Enable anti-affinity groups.
Click Next to configure a node pool

Node pools

Your cluster will be created with at least one node pool. A node pool is a template for a group of worker nodes created in this cluster. For more information, see Creating and managing node pools .

In the Node pool defaults section, complete the following:
1. Enter the Node pool name or accept "default-pool" as the name.
2. Enter the number of vCPUs for each node in the pool (minimum 4 per user cluster worker).
3. Enter the memory size in mebibytes (MiB) for each node in the pool (minimum 8192 MiB per user cluster worker node and must be a multiple of 4).
4. In the Nodes field, enter the number of nodes in the pool (minimum of 3). If you entered static IP addresses for the Node IPs in the Networking section, make sure that you entered enough IP addresses to accommodate these user cluster nodes.
5. Select the OS image type: Ubuntu, Ubuntu Containerd, or COS.
6. Enter the Boot disk size in gibibytes (GiB) (minimum 40 GiB).
7. If you are using MetalLB as the load balancer, MetalLB must be enabled in at least one node pool. Either leave Use this node pool for MetalLB load balancing selected, or add another node pool to use for MetalLB.
In the Node pool metadata (optional) section, if you want to add Kubernetes labels and taints, do the following:
1. Click + Add Kubernetes Labels. Enter the Key and Value for the label. Repeat as needed.
2. Click + Add Taint. Enter the Key, Value, and Effect for the taint. Repeat as needed.
Click Verify and Complete to create the user cluster. It takes 15 minutes or more to create the user cluster. The console displays status messages as it verifies the settings and creates the cluster in your data center.

If an error is encountered verifying the settings, the console displays an error message that should be clear enough for you to fix the configuration issue and try again to create the cluster.

For more information about possible errors and how to fix them, see Troubleshoot user cluster creation in the Google Cloud console.

gcloud CLI

You use the following command to create a user cluster:

gcloud container vmware clusters create

After creating the cluster, you need to create at least one node pool using the following command:

gcloud container vmware node-pools create

Most of the flags for creating the cluster and the node pool correspond to the fields in the user cluster configuration file. To help you get started, you can test a complete command in the examples section.

Gather information

Gather some information that you need to create the cluster.

Get the name and the fleet membership location of your admin cluster:
```
gcloud container fleet memberships list \
    --project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID
```
Replace FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID with ID of the project that the admin cluster is registered to.

The output is similar to the following:
```
NAME             EXTERNAL_ID                           LOCATION
admin-cluster-1  bb7803b4-8438-4b22-859f-4559b4b29072  global
admin-cluster-2  ee16ee2b-6ec0-49fc-9413-3c89cbc70854  global
admin-cluster-3  fc2b7ef5-39ff-4b63-b919-04c5adc67be4  us-west1
```
The location specifies where the Fleet and Connect services run. Admin clusters created prior to 1.28 are managed by the global Fleet and Connect services. In 1.28 and higher, you can specify either global or a Google Cloud region when you create the admin cluster. You specify the region in the --admin-cluster-membership-location flag in the example commands that follow.
Get a list of available versions:
```
gcloud container vmware clusters query-version-config \
    --admin-cluster-membership=ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME \
    --admin-cluster-membership-project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
    --admin-cluster-membership-location=ADMIN_CLUSTER_REGION \
    --location=REGION
```
Replace the following:
- ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME: The name of the admin cluster.
- FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID: The ID of the project that the admin cluster is registered to.
- ADMIN_CLUSTER_REGION: The admin cluster's fleet membership region. This is either global or a Google Cloud region. Use the location for the admin cluster from the output of gcloud container fleet memberships list.
- REGION: The Google Cloud region that you will use when you create the user cluster. This is the region that the GKE On-Prem API runs and stores its metadata.
  - If the admin cluster is enrolled in the GKE On-Prem API, use the same region as the admin cluster. To find out the admin cluster's region, run the following command:
```
gcloud container vmware admin-clusters list \
  --project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
  --location=-
```
  - If the admin cluster isn't enrolled in the GKE On-Prem API, specify us-west1 or another supported region. If you subsequently enroll the admin cluster in the GKE On-Prem API, use the same region that the user cluster is in.
The output of the gcloud container vmware clusters query-version-config command is similar to the following:
```
versions:
- isInstalled: true
  version: 1.28.800-gke.109
- version: 1.29.0-gke.1456
- version: 1.29.100-gke.248
- version: 1.29.200-gke.245
- version: 1.29.300-gke.184
```
The command also outputs an explanation of the versions that you can use for user cluster creation or upgrade. Versions that you can use to create or upgrade a user cluster are annotated with isInstalled: true, which means the admin cluster has the version-specific components it needs to manage user clusters of that version. If you want to use a version that is installed on the admin cluster, skip to the Examples section to create the user cluster.

Install a higher version

An admin cluster can manage user clusters at different versions. The output of the query-version-config command lists other versions that you can use when you create the cluster. If you want to create a user cluster that is a higher version than the admin cluster, you need to download and deploy the components that the admin cluster needs to manage user clusters of that version, as follows:

gcloud container vmware admin-clusters update ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME \
    --project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
    --location=REGION \
    --required-platform-version=VERSION

Replace VERSION with one of the versions listed in the output of the query-version-config command.

The command downloads the version of the components that you specify in --required-platform-version to the admin cluster, and then deploys the the components. You can now create a user cluster with the specified version.

If you rerun the gcloud container vmware clusters query-version-config, the version that you specified is annotated with isInstalled: true.

Examples

The following examples show how to create a user cluster with different load balancers with Controlplane V2 enabled. With Controlplane V2, the control plane for a user cluster runs on one or more nodes in the user cluster itself. We recommend that you enable Controlplane V2, and in version 1.30 and higher, new user clusters are required to have Controlplane V2 enabled. For information about the available load balancing options, see Load balancer overview.

Most of the examples use the default values for configuring the control plane nodes. If you want to change any of the defaults, include the flags described in the Control plane flags section. If needed, you can also change some vSphere settings.

Before running the gcloud command to create the cluster, you can include --validate-only to validate the configuration that you specified in the flags to the gcloud command. When you are ready to create the cluster, remove this flag and run the command.

If you get an error after the gcloud container vmware clusters create command has been running for about a minute or more, check if the cluster was partially created by running the following command:

gcloud container vmware clusters list \
    --project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
    --location=-

If the cluster isn't listed in the output, fix the error and rerun gcloud container vmware clusters create.

If the cluster is listed in the output, delete the cluster using the following command:

gcloud container vmware clusters delete USER_CLUSTER_NAME \
    --project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
    --location=REGION \
    --force \
    --allow-missing

Then fix the error and rerun gcloud container vmware clusters create.

After the cluster is running, you must add a node pool before deploying workloads, as described in the Create a node pool section.

MetalLB & DHCP

This example shows how to create a user cluster with the bundled MetalLB load balancer and using your DHCP server to get IP addresses for your cluster worker nodes.

You can use MetalLB for the user cluster only if your admin cluster is using MetalLB. This load balancing option requires minimal configuration. MetalLB runs directly on your cluster nodes and doesn't require extra VMs. For more information about the benefits of using MetalLB and how it compares to the other load balancing options, see Bundled load balancing with MetalLB.

The example command creates a user cluster with the following characteristics, which you can modify as needed for your environment.

Flag	Description
`--admin-users`	Grants you and another user full administrative rights on the cluster.
`--enable-control-plane-v2`	Enables Controlplane V2, which is recommended and required in version 1.30 and higher.
`--control-plane-ip-block`	One IP address for the control plane node. To create a high-availability (HA) user cluster, specify three IP address and add the flag `--replicas=3`.
`--metal-lb-config-address-pools`	Two address pools for the MetalLB load balancer. You need at least one address pool, and you can specify more if needed. For convenience, the example contains an address pool with the name "ingress-vip-pool" as a reminder that the IP address for the ingress VIP must be in one of the address pools. You specify the CIDR for a single IP address by appending `/32` to the IP address.

gcloud container vmware clusters create USER_CLUSTER_NAME \
    --project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
    --admin-cluster-membership=ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME \
    --admin-cluster-membership-project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
    --admin-cluster-membership-location=ADMIN_CLUSTER_REGION \
    --location=REGION \
    --version=VERSION \
    --admin-users=YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS \
    --admin-users=ANOTHER_EMAIL_ADDRESS \
    --service-address-cidr-blocks=10.96.0.0/20 \
    --pod-address-cidr-blocks=192.168.0.0/16 \
    --metal-lb-config-address-pools='pool=NAME,avoid-buggy-ips=AVOID_BUGGY_IPS,manual-assign=MANUAL_ASSIGN,addresses=IP_ADDRESS_RANGE_1' \
    --metal-lb-config-address-pools='pool=ingress-vip-pool,avoid-buggy-ips=False,manual-assign=True,addresses=INGRESS_VIP/32' \
    --enable-control-plane-v2 \
    --dns-servers=DNS_SERVER_1 \
    --ntp-servers=NTP_SERVER_1 \
    --control-plane-ip-block 'gateway=CP_GATEWAY,netmask=CP_NETMASK,ips=CP_IP_ADDRESS_1 CP_HOST_1' \
    --control-plane-vip=CONTROL_PLANE_VIP \
    --ingress-vip=INGRESS_VIP \
    --enable-dhcp

Replace the following:

USER_CLUSTER_NAME: A name of your choice for your user cluster. The name can't be changed after the cluster is created. The name must:
- contain at most 40 characters
- contain only lowercase alphanumeric characters or a hyphen (-)
- start with an alphabetic character
- end with an alphanumeric character
FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID: The ID of the project that you want to create the cluster in. The specified project is also used as the fleet host project. This must be the same project that the admin cluster is registered to. After the user cluster is created, it is automatically registered to the selected project's fleet. The fleet host project can't be changed after the cluster is created.
ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME: The name of the admin cluster that manages the user cluster. In the --admin-cluster-membership flag, you can use the fully-specified cluster name, which has the following format:
```
    projects/FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID/locations/ADMIN_CLUSTER_REGION/memberships/ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME
```
Alternativly, you can set --admin-cluster-membership to the admin cluster's name, as in the example command. When you use only the admin cluster's name, set the admin cluster's project ID with the --admin-cluster-membership-project and location with --admin-cluster-membership-location. The admin cluster's location is either global or a Google Cloud region. If you need to find the region, run gcloud container fleet memberships list.
REGION: The Google Cloud region in which the GKE On-Prem API (gkeonprem.googleapis.com), Fleet service (gkehub.googleapis.com), and the Connect service (gkeconnect.googleapis.com) run. Specify us-west1 or another supported region. The region can't be changed after the cluster is created. This setting specifies the region where the following are stored:
- The user cluster metadata that the GKE On-Prem API needs to manage the cluster lifecycle
- The Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring data of system components
- The Admin Audit log created by Cloud Audit Logs
The cluster name, project, and location together uniquely identify the cluster in Google Cloud.

Important If you plan to install Cloud Service Mesh, you must install version 1.19.3 or later. This is required because the Fleet and Connect services run in a region.
VERSION: The Google Distributed Cloud version for your user cluster.
YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS and ANOTHER_EMAIL_ADDRESS: If you don't include the --admin-users flag, as the cluster creator, by default you are granted cluster admin privileges. But If you include --admin-users to designate another user as an administrator, you override the default and need to include both your email address and the email address of the other administrator. For example, to add two administrators:
```
    --admin-users=sara@example.com \
    --admin-users=amal@example.com
```
When the cluster is created, the GKE On-Prem API applies the Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC) policies to the cluster to grant you and other admin users the Kubernetes clusterrole/cluster-admin role, which provides full access to every resource in the cluster in all namespaces.

Note: In addition to the Kubernetes RBAC policies, you must grant some Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles to the users who aren't project owners. For details on granting the IAM roles, see Grant required roles.

SERVICE_CIDR_BLOCK: A range of IP addresses, in CIDR format, to be used for Services in your cluster. Must be at least a /24 range.
Example: --service-address-cidr-blocks=10.96.0.0/20
POD_CIDR_BLOCK: A range of IP addresses, in CIDR format, to be used for Pods in your cluster. Must be at least a /18 range.
Example: --pod-address-cidr-blocks=192.168.0.0/16

--metal-lb-config-address-pools: Include this flag to specify the configuration for address pools to be used by the MetalLB load balancer. The value for the flag has the following format:
```
--metal-lb-config-address-pool 'pool=NAME,avoid-buggy-ips=True|False,manual-assign=True|False,addresses=IP_ADDRESS_RANGE_1;IP_ADDRESS_RANGE_2;...' \
```
The value has segments that start with the keywords pool, avoid-buggy-ip, manual-assign, and addresses. Separate each segment with a comma.
- pool: A name of your choice for the pool.
- avoid-buggy-ips1: If you set this to True, the MetalLB controller will not assign IP addresses ending in .0 or .255 to Services. This avoids the problem of buggy consumer devices mistakenly dropping traffic sent to those special IP addresses. If not specified, defaults to False.
- manual-assign: If you do not want the MetalLB controller to automatically assign IP addresses from this pool to Services, set this to True. Then a developer can create a Service of type LoadBalancer and manually specify one of the addresses from the pool. If not specified, manual-assign is set to False.
- In the list of addresses: Each address must be a range either in CIDR notation or hyphenated-range format. To specify a single IP address in a pool (such as for the ingress VIP), use /32 in CIDR notation, for example: 192.0.2.1/32.
Note the following:
- Surround the entire value in single quotes.
- Whitespace isn't allowed.
- Separate each IP address range with a semicolon.
For example:
```
--metal-lb-config-address-pool 'pool=pool1,avoid-buggy-ips=True,manual-assign=True,addresses=10.251.134.80/32;192.168.1.0/26;192.168.1.2-192.168.1.3'
```

CONTROL_PLANE_VIP: The IP address that you have chosen to configure on the load balancer for the Kubernetes API server of the user cluster.
Example: --control-plane-vip=203.0.113.3
INGRESS_VIP: The IP address that you have chosen to configure on the load balancer for the ingress proxy.
Example: --ingress-vip=10.251.134.80

The IP address for the ingress VIP must be in one of the MetalLB address pools.

--enable-dhcp: Include --enable-dhcp if you want your cluster nodes to get their IP address from a DHCP server that you provide. Don't include this flag if you want to provide static IP addresses for your cluster nodes, or if you want to set up manual load balancing.

MetalLB & static IPs

This example shows how to create a user cluster with the bundled MetalLB load balancer and assigning static IP addresses to your cluster worker nodes.

The example command creates a user cluster with the following characteristics, which you can modify as needed for your environment.

Flag	Description
`--admin-users`	Grants you and another user full administrative rights on the cluster.
`--enable-control-plane-v2`	Enables Controlplane V2, which is recommended and required in version 1.30 and higher.
`--control-plane-ip-block`	One IP address for the control plane node. To create a high-availability (HA) user cluster, specify three IP address and add the flag `--replicas=3`.
`--metal-lb-config-address-pools`	Two address pools for the MetalLB load balancer. You need at least one address pool, and you can specify more if needed. For convenience, the example contains an address pool with the name "ingress-vip-pool" as a reminder that the IP address for the ingress VIP must be in one of the address pools. You specify the CIDR for a single IP address by appending `/32` to the IP address.
`--static-ip-config-ip-blocks`	Four IP addresses for the worker nodes in the clusters. This includes an address for an extra node that can be used during upgrade and update. You can specify more IP addresses if needed. The hostname is optional.

gcloud container vmware clusters create USER_CLUSTER_NAME \
    --project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
    --admin-cluster-membership=ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME \
    --admin-cluster-membership-project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
    --admin-cluster-membership-location=ADMIN_CLUSTER_REGION \
    --location=REGION \
    --version=VERSION \
    --admin-users=YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS \
    --admin-users=ANOTHER_EMAIL_ADDRESS \
    --service-address-cidr-blocks=10.96.0.0/20 \
    --pod-address-cidr-blocks=192.168.0.0/16 \
    --metal-lb-config-address-pools='pool=NAME,avoid-buggy-ips=AVOID_BUGGY_IPS,manual-assign=MANUAL_ASSIGN,addresses=IP_ADDRESS_RANGE_1' \
    --metal-lb-config-address-pools='pool=ingress-vip-pool,avoid-buggy-ips=False,manual-assign=True,addresses=INGRESS_VIP/32' \
    --enable-control-plane-v2 \
    --control-plane-ip-block 'gateway=CP_GATEWAY,netmask=CP_NETMASK,ips=CP_IP_ADDRESS_1 CP_HOST_1' \
    --control-plane-vip=CONTROL_PLANE_VIP \
    --ingress-vip=INGRESS_VIP \
    --static-ip-config-ip-blocks='gateway=GATEWAY,netmask=NETMASK,ips=IP_ADDRESS_1 HOST_1;IP_ADDRESS_2 HOST_2;IP_ADDRESS_3 HOST_3;IP_ADDRESS_4 HOST_4' \
    --dns-servers=DNS_SERVER_1 \
    --ntp-servers=NTP_SERVER_1

Replace the following:

USER_CLUSTER_NAME: A name of your choice for your user cluster. The name can't be changed after the cluster is created. The name must:
- contain at most 40 characters
- contain only lowercase alphanumeric characters or a hyphen (-)
- start with an alphabetic character
- end with an alphanumeric character
FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID: The ID of the project that you want to create the cluster in. The specified project is also used as the fleet host project. This must be the same project that the admin cluster is registered to. After the user cluster is created, it is automatically registered to the selected project's fleet. The fleet host project can't be changed after the cluster is created.
ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME: The name of the admin cluster that manages the user cluster. In the --admin-cluster-membership flag, you can use the fully-specified cluster name, which has the following format:
```
    projects/FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID/locations/ADMIN_CLUSTER_REGION/memberships/ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME
```
Alternativly, you can set --admin-cluster-membership to the admin cluster's name, as in the example command. When you use only the admin cluster's name, set the admin cluster's project ID with the --admin-cluster-membership-project and location with --admin-cluster-membership-location. The admin cluster's location is either global or a Google Cloud region. If you need to find the region, run gcloud container fleet memberships list.
REGION: The Google Cloud region in which the GKE On-Prem API (gkeonprem.googleapis.com), Fleet service (gkehub.googleapis.com), and the Connect service (gkeconnect.googleapis.com) run. Specify us-west1 or another supported region. The region can't be changed after the cluster is created. This setting specifies the region where the following are stored:
- The user cluster metadata that the GKE On-Prem API needs to manage the cluster lifecycle
- The Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring data of system components
- The Admin Audit log created by Cloud Audit Logs
The cluster name, project, and location together uniquely identify the cluster in Google Cloud.

Important If you plan to install Cloud Service Mesh, you must install version 1.19.3 or later. This is required because the Fleet and Connect services run in a region.
VERSION: The Google Distributed Cloud version for your user cluster.
YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS and ANOTHER_EMAIL_ADDRESS: If you don't include the --admin-users flag, as the cluster creator, by default you are granted cluster admin privileges. But If you include --admin-users to designate another user as an administrator, you override the default and need to include both your email address and the email address of the other administrator. For example, to add two administrators:
```
    --admin-users=sara@example.com \
    --admin-users=amal@example.com
```
When the cluster is created, the GKE On-Prem API applies the Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC) policies to the cluster to grant you and other admin users the Kubernetes clusterrole/cluster-admin role, which provides full access to every resource in the cluster in all namespaces.

Note: In addition to the Kubernetes RBAC policies, you must grant some Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles to the users who aren't project owners. For details on granting the IAM roles, see Grant required roles.

SERVICE_CIDR_BLOCK: A range of IP addresses, in CIDR format, to be used for Services in your cluster. Must be at least a /24 range.
Example: --service-address-cidr-blocks=10.96.0.0/20
POD_CIDR_BLOCK: A range of IP addresses, in CIDR format, to be used for Pods in your cluster. Must be at least a /18 range.
Example: --pod-address-cidr-blocks=192.168.0.0/16

--metal-lb-config-address-pools: Include this flag to specify the configuration for address pools to be used by the MetalLB load balancer. The value for the flag has the following format:
```
--metal-lb-config-address-pool 'pool=NAME,avoid-buggy-ips=True|False,manual-assign=True|False,addresses=IP_ADDRESS_RANGE_1;IP_ADDRESS_RANGE_2;...' \
```
The value has segments that start with the keywords pool, avoid-buggy-ip, manual-assign, and addresses. Separate each segment with a comma.
- pool: A name of your choice for the pool.
- avoid-buggy-ips1: If you set this to True, the MetalLB controller will not assign IP addresses ending in .0 or .255 to Services. This avoids the problem of buggy consumer devices mistakenly dropping traffic sent to those special IP addresses. If not specified, defaults to False.
- manual-assign: If you do not want the MetalLB controller to automatically assign IP addresses from this pool to Services, set this to True. Then a developer can create a Service of type LoadBalancer and manually specify one of the addresses from the pool. If not specified, manual-assign is set to False.
- In the list of addresses: Each address must be a range either in CIDR notation or hyphenated-range format. To specify a single IP address in a pool (such as for the ingress VIP), use /32 in CIDR notation, for example: 192.0.2.1/32.
Note the following:
- Surround the entire value in single quotes.
- Whitespace isn't allowed.
- Separate each IP address range with a semicolon.
For example:
```
--metal-lb-config-address-pool 'pool=pool1,avoid-buggy-ips=True,manual-assign=True,addresses=10.251.134.80/32;192.168.1.0/26;192.168.1.2-192.168.1.3'
```

CONTROL_PLANE_VIP: The IP address that you have chosen to configure on the load balancer for the Kubernetes API server of the user cluster.
Example: --control-plane-vip=203.0.113.3
INGRESS_VIP: The IP address that you have chosen to configure on the load balancer for the ingress proxy.
Example: --ingress-vip=10.251.134.80

The IP address for the ingress VIP must be in one of the MetalLB address pools.

--static-ip-config-ip-blocks: Specify the default gateway, subnet mask, and a list of the static IP addresses for the worker nodes in the user cluster. The value for the flag has the following format:
```
--static-ip-config-ip-blocks 'gateway=GATEWAY,netmask=NETMASK,ips=IP_ADDRESS_1;IP_ADDRESS_2 HOST_2;...'
```
The value has segments that start with the keywords gateway, netmask, and ips. Separate the segments with a comma.

Note the following:
- Surround the entire value in single quotes.
- Whitespace isn't allowed except between an IP address and a hostname.
In the list of IP addresses:
- You can specify an individual IP address or a CIDR block of IP addresses.
- Separate each IP address or CIDR block with a semicolon.
- For an individual IP address, you can optionally specify a hostname after the IP address. Separate the IP address and the hostname with a space. When you don't specify a hostname, Google Distributed Cloud uses the VM's name from vSphere as the hostname.
- If you specify a CIDR block, do not specify a value for hostname.
For example:
```
--static-ip-config-ip-blocks 'gateway=172.16.23.254,netmask=255.255.252.0,ips=172.16.20.10;172.16.20.11 host2;172.16.20.12/30'
```
DNS_SERVER: A comma-separated list of the IP addresses of DNS servers for the VMs.
DNS_SEARCH_DOMAIN: A comma-separated list of the DNS search domains for the hosts to use. These domains are used as part of a domain search list.
For example:
```
--dns-search-domains example.com,examplepetstore.com
```
NTP_SERVER: A comma-separated list of the IP addresses of time servers for the VMs to use.

Manual LB & static IPs

This example shows how to create a user cluster with a manual load balancer and assigning static IP addresses to your cluster worker nodes.

You can use a manual load balancer for the user cluster only if your admin cluster uses a manual load balancer. In Google Distributed Cloud, the Kubernetes API server, ingress proxy, and the add-on service for log aggregation are each exposed by a Kubernetes Service of type LoadBalancer. Choose your own nodePort values in the 30000 - 32767 range for these Services. For the ingress proxy, choose a nodePort value for both HTTP and HTTPS traffic. See Enabling manual load balancing mode for more information.

The example command creates a user cluster with the following characteristics, which you can modify as needed for your environment.

Flag	Description
`--admin-users`	Grants you and another user full administrative rights on the cluster.
`--enable-control-plane-v2`	Enables Controlplane V2, which is recommended and required in version 1.30 and higher.
`--control-plane-ip-block`	One IP address for the control plane node. To create a high-availability (HA) user cluster, specify three IP address and add the flag `--replicas=3`.
`--static-ip-config-ip-blocks`	Four IP addresses for the worker nodes in the clusters. This includes an address for an extra node that can be used during upgrade and update. You can specify more IP addresses if needed. The hostname is optional.

gcloud container vmware clusters create USER_CLUSTER_NAME \
    --project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
    --admin-cluster-membership=ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME \
    --admin-cluster-membership-project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
    --admin-cluster-membership-location=ADMIN_CLUSTER_REGION \
    --location=REGION \
    --version=VERSION \
    --admin-users=YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS \
    --admin-users=ANOTHER_EMAIL_ADDRESS \
    --service-address-cidr-blocks=10.96.0.0/20 \
    --pod-address-cidr-blocks=192.168.0.0/16 \
    --enable-control-plane-v2 \
    --control-plane-ip-block 'gateway=CP_GATEWAY,netmask=CP_NETMASK,ips=CP_IP_ADDRESS_1 CP_HOST_1' \
    --control-plane-vip=CONTROL_PLANE_VIP \
    --ingress-vip=INGRESS_VIP \
    --ingress-http-node-port=INGRESS_HTTP_NODE_PORT \
    --ingress-https-node-port=INGRESS_HTTPS_NODE_PORT \
    --static-ip-config-ip-blocks='gateway=GATEWAY,netmask=NETMASK,ips=IP_ADDRESS_1 HOST_1;IP_ADDRESS_2 HOST_2;IP_ADDRESS_3 HOST_3;IP_ADDRESS_4 HOST_4' \
    --dns-servers=DNS_SERVER_1 \
    --ntp-servers=NTP_SERVER_1

Replace the following:

USER_CLUSTER_NAME: A name of your choice for your user cluster. The name can't be changed after the cluster is created. The name must:
- contain at most 40 characters
- contain only lowercase alphanumeric characters or a hyphen (-)
- start with an alphabetic character
- end with an alphanumeric character
FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID: The ID of the project that you want to create the cluster in. The specified project is also used as the fleet host project. This must be the same project that the admin cluster is registered to. After the user cluster is created, it is automatically registered to the selected project's fleet. The fleet host project can't be changed after the cluster is created.
ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME: The name of the admin cluster that manages the user cluster. In the --admin-cluster-membership flag, you can use the fully-specified cluster name, which has the following format:
```
    projects/FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID/locations/ADMIN_CLUSTER_REGION/memberships/ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME
```
Alternativly, you can set --admin-cluster-membership to the admin cluster's name, as in the example command. When you use only the admin cluster's name, set the admin cluster's project ID with the --admin-cluster-membership-project and location with --admin-cluster-membership-location. The admin cluster's location is either global or a Google Cloud region. If you need to find the region, run gcloud container fleet memberships list.
REGION: The Google Cloud region in which the GKE On-Prem API (gkeonprem.googleapis.com), Fleet service (gkehub.googleapis.com), and the Connect service (gkeconnect.googleapis.com) run. Specify us-west1 or another supported region. The region can't be changed after the cluster is created. This setting specifies the region where the following are stored:
- The user cluster metadata that the GKE On-Prem API needs to manage the cluster lifecycle
- The Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring data of system components
- The Admin Audit log created by Cloud Audit Logs
The cluster name, project, and location together uniquely identify the cluster in Google Cloud.

Important If you plan to install Cloud Service Mesh, you must install version 1.19.3 or later. This is required because the Fleet and Connect services run in a region.
VERSION: The Google Distributed Cloud version for your user cluster.
YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS and ANOTHER_EMAIL_ADDRESS: If you don't include the --admin-users flag, as the cluster creator, by default you are granted cluster admin privileges. But If you include --admin-users to designate another user as an administrator, you override the default and need to include both your email address and the email address of the other administrator. For example, to add two administrators:
```
    --admin-users=sara@example.com \
    --admin-users=amal@example.com
```
When the cluster is created, the GKE On-Prem API applies the Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC) policies to the cluster to grant you and other admin users the Kubernetes clusterrole/cluster-admin role, which provides full access to every resource in the cluster in all namespaces.

Note: In addition to the Kubernetes RBAC policies, you must grant some Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles to the users who aren't project owners. For details on granting the IAM roles, see Grant required roles.

SERVICE_CIDR_BLOCK: A range of IP addresses, in CIDR format, to be used for Services in your cluster. Must be at least a /24 range.
Example: --service-address-cidr-blocks=10.96.0.0/20
POD_CIDR_BLOCK: A range of IP addresses, in CIDR format, to be used for Pods in your cluster. Must be at least a /18 range.
Example: --pod-address-cidr-blocks=192.168.0.0/16

CONTROL_PLANE_VIP: The IP address that you have chosen to configure on the load balancer for the Kubernetes API server of the user cluster.

Example: --control-plane-vip=203.0.113.3
INGRESS_VIP: The IP address that you have chosen to configure on the load balancer for the ingress proxy.

Example: --ingress-vip=203.0.113.4
INGRESS_HTTP_NODE_PORT: A nodePort value for HTTP traffic to the ingress proxy (such as 30243).
INGRESS_HTTPS_NODE_PORT: A nodePort value for HTTPS traffic to the ingress proxy (such as 30879).

--static-ip-config-ip-blocks: Specify the default gateway, subnet mask, and a list of the static IP addresses for the worker nodes in the user cluster. The value for the flag has the following format:
```
--static-ip-config-ip-blocks 'gateway=GATEWAY,netmask=NETMASK,ips=IP_ADDRESS_1;IP_ADDRESS_2 HOST_2;...'
```
The value has segments that start with the keywords gateway, netmask, and ips. Separate the segments with a comma.

Note the following:
- Surround the entire value in single quotes.
- Whitespace isn't allowed except between an IP address and a hostname.
In the list of IP addresses:
- You can specify an individual IP address or a CIDR block of IP addresses.
- Separate each IP address or CIDR block with a semicolon.
- For an individual IP address, you can optionally specify a hostname after the IP address. Separate the IP address and the hostname with a space. When you don't specify a hostname, Google Distributed Cloud uses the VM's name from vSphere as the hostname.
- If you specify a CIDR block, do not specify a value for hostname.
For example:
```
--static-ip-config-ip-blocks 'gateway=172.16.23.254,netmask=255.255.252.0,ips=172.16.20.10;172.16.20.11 host2;172.16.20.12/30'
```
DNS_SERVER: A comma-separated list of the IP addresses of DNS servers for the VMs.
DNS_SEARCH_DOMAIN: A comma-separated list of the DNS search domains for the hosts to use. These domains are used as part of a domain search list.
For example:
```
--dns-search-domains example.com,examplepetstore.com
```
NTP_SERVER: A comma-separated list of the IP addresses of time servers for the VMs to use.

Control plane flags

If you want to use non-default values for the control plane configuration, include one or more of the following flags:

--cpus=vCPUS: The number of vCPUs (minimum 4) for each control-plane node for your user cluster. If not specified, the default is 4 vCPUs.
--memory=MEMORY: The memory size in mebibytes (MiB) for each control-plane for your user cluster. The minimum value is 8192 and it must be a multiple of 4. If not specified, the default is 8192.
--replicas=NODES: The number of control-plane nodes for your user cluster. For example, you may select 1 control-plane node for a development environment and 3 control-planes nodes for high availability (HA), production environments.
--enable-auto-resize: If you want to enable automatic resizing of the control-plane nodes for the user cluster, include --enable-auto-resize. Resizing means that the vCPU and memory resources assigned to a node are adjusted automatically. When enabled, the control-plane nodes for the user cluster are resized according to the number of worker nodes in the user cluster. So as you add more worker nodes to the user cluster, the control-plane nodes are increased in size.
--enable-control-plane-v2: To enable Controlplane V2, which we recommend, include this flag. When Controlplane V2 is enabled, the control plane for a user cluster runs on one or more nodes in the user cluster itself. In version 1.30 and higher, Controlplane V2 is required.

When you enable Controlplane V2, you must also specify the following flags:
- --dns-servers=DNS_SERVER_1,...: A comma-separated list of the IP addresses of DNS servers for the VMs.
- --ntp-servers=NTP_SERVER_1,...: A comma-separated list of the IP addresses of time servers for the VMs to use.
- --control-plane-ip-block, which has the following format:
```
  --control-plane-ip-block 'gateway=CP_GATEWAY,netmask=CP_NETMASK,ips=CP_IP_ADDRESS_1;CP_IP_ADDRESS_2 CP_HOST_2'
```
  The value has segments that start with the keywords gateway, netmask, and ips. Separate the segments with a comma.
  
  Note the following:
  - Surround the entire value in single quotes.
  - Whitespace isn't allowed except between an IP address and a hostname.
    
    In the list of IP addresses:
  - You can specify an individual IP address or a CIDR block of IP addresses.
  - Separate each IP address or CIDR block with a semicolon.
  - For an individual IP address, you can optionally specify a hostname after the IP address. Separate the IP address and the hostname with a space.
  - If you specify a CIDR block, do not specify a value for hostname.
    
    For example:
    --control-plane-ip-block 'gateway=192.168.0.1,netmask=255.0.0.0,ips=192.168.1.1;192.168.1.2 hostname-2;192.168.2.2/28`
- Optional: --dns-search-domains=DNS_SEARCH_DOMAIN_1,...: A comma-separated list of the DNS search domains for the hosts to use. These domains are used as part of a domain search list.
  
  For example:
```
--dns-search-domains example.com,examplepetstore.com
```
For a complete list of the flags and their descriptions, see the gcloud CLI reference.

vSphere flags

Specify the following optional flags if needed:
--disable-aag-config: If you don't include this flag the VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) anti-affinity rules are automatically created for your user cluster's nodes, causing them to be spread across at least 3 physical hosts in your data center. Make sure that your vSphere environment meets the requirements. If your cluster doesn't meet the requirements, include this flag.

Note: If you followed Set up minimal infrastructure, you only have one ESXi host, so be sure to include this flag.
--disable-vsphere-csi: If you don't include this flag, the vSphere Container Storage Interface (CSI) components are deployed in the user cluster. The CSI driver runs in a native Kubernetes cluster deployed in vSphere to provision persistent volumes on vSphere storage. For more information, see Using the vSphere Container Storage Interface driver. If you don't want to deploy the CSI components, include this flag.

For a complete list of the flags and their descriptions, see the gcloud CLI reference

Track cluster creation progress

The output from the cluster create command is similar to the following:
```
Waiting for operation [projects/example-project-12345/locations/us-west1/operations/operation-1679543737105-5f7893fd5bae9-942b3f97-75e59179] to complete.
```
In the example output, the string operation-1679543737105-5f7893fd5bae9-942b3f97-75e59179 is the OPERATION_ID of the long-running operation. You can find out the status of the operation with the following command:
```
gcloud container vmware operations describe OPERATION_ID \
  --project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
  --location=REGION
```
For more information, see gcloud container vmware operations.

It takes 15 minutes or more to create the user cluster. You can view the cluster in the Google Cloud console on the GKE clusters page.

Create a node pool

After the cluster is created, you need to create at least one node pool before deploying workloads.
```
gcloud container vmware node-pools create NODE_POOL_NAME \
--cluster=USER_CLUSTER_NAME  \
--project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
--location=REGION \
--image-type=IMAGE_TYPE  \
--boot-disk-size=BOOT_DISK_SIZE \
--cpus=vCPUS \
--memory=MEMORY \
--replicas=NODES \
--enable-load-balancer
```
Replace the following:
NODE_POOL_NAME: A name of your choice for the node pool. The name must:
- contain at most 40 characters
- contain only lowercase alphanumeric characters or a hyphen (-)
- start with an alphabetic character
- end with an alphanumeric character
USER_CLUSTER_NAME: The name of the newly-created user cluster.
FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID: The ID of the project that the cluster is registered to.
REGION: The Google Cloud region that you specified when you created the cluster.
IMAGE_TYPE: The type of OS image to run on the VMs in the node pool. Set to one of the follow: ubuntu_containerd or cos.
BOOT_DISK_SIZE: The size of the boot disk in gibibytes (GiB) for each node in the pool. The minimum is 40 GiB.
vCPUs: The number of vCPUs for each node in the node pool. The minimum is 4.
MEMORY: The memory size in mebibytes (MiB) for each node in the pool. The minimum is 8192 MiB per user cluster worker node and the value must be a multiple of 4.
NODES: The number of nodes in the node pool. The minimum is 3.
If you are using MetalLB as the load balancer, optionally, include --enable-load-balancer if you want to allow the MetalLB speaker to run on the nodes in the pool. MetalLB must be enabled in at least one node pool. If you don't include this flag, you must create another node pool to use for MetalLB.

For information about optional flags, see Add a node pool and the gcloud CLI reference.

Example gcloud commands

MetalLB & DHCP

gcloud container vmware clusters create user-cluster-1 \
    --project=example-project-12345 \
    --location=us-west1 \
    --admin-cluster-membership=projects/example-project-12345/locations/us-west1/memberships/admin-cluster-1 \
    --version=1.30.200-gke.101 \
    --admin-users=sara@example.com \
    --admin-users=amal@example.com \
    --enable-dhcp \
    --service-address-cidr-blocks=10.96.0.0/20 \
    --pod-address-cidr-blocks=192.168.0.0/16 \
    --metal-lb-config-address-pools='pool=lb-pool-1,manual-assign=False,avoid-buggy-ips=True,addresses=192.0.2.0/26;pool=lb-ingress-vip-pool,manual-assign=True,addresses=198.51.100.1/32' \
    --enable-control-plane-v2 \
    --control-plane-vip=203.0.113.1 \
    --ingress-vip=198.51.100.1

MetalLB & static IPs

gcloud container vmware clusters create user-cluster-3 \
    --project=example-project-12345 \
    --location=europe-west1 \
    --admin-cluster-membership=projects/example-project-12345/locations/global/memberships/admin-cluster-1 \
    --version=1.30.200-gke.101 \
    --admin-users=sara@example.com \
    --admin-users=amal@example.com \
    --static-ip-config-ip-blocks='gateway=192.0.2.254,netmask=255.255.255.0,ips=192.0.2.10 user-vm-1;192.0.2.11 user-vm-2' \
    --static-ip-config-ip-blocks='gateway=192.0.2.254,netmask=255.255.255.0,ips=192.0.2.12 user-vm-3;192.0.2.13 extra-vm' \
    --dns-servers=203.0.113.1,203.0.113.2  \
    --dns-search-domains=example.com,altostrat.com \
    --ntp-servers=203.0.113.3,203.0.113.4 \
    --service-address-cidr-blocks=10.96.0.0/20 \
    --pod-address-cidr-blocks=192.168.0.0/16 \
    --enable-control-plane-v2 \
    --control-plane-ip-block 'gateway=192.0.2.254,netmask=255.255.255.0,ips=198.51.100.1 cp-vm-1;198.51.100.2 cp-vm-2;198.51.100.3 cp-vm-3' \
    --replicas=3 \
    --metal-lb-config-address-pools='pool=lb-pool-1,manual-assign=False,avoid-buggy-ips=True,addresses=192.0.2.0/26;lb-ingress-vip-pool,manual-assign=True,addresses=198.51.100.1/32' \
    --control-plane-vip=172.16.20.61 \
    --ingress-vip=172.16.20.62

Manual LB & static IPs

gcloud container vmware clusters create user-cluster-4 \
    --project=example-project-12345 \
    --location=asia-east1 \
    --admin-cluster-membership=projects/example-project-12345/locations/asia-east1/memberships/admin-cluster-1 \
    --version=1.30.200-gke.101 \
    --admin-users=sara@example.com \
    --admin-users=amal@example.com \
    --static-ip-config-ip-blocks='gateway=192.0.2.254,netmask=255.255.255.0,ips=192.0.2.10 user-vm-1;192.0.2.11 user-vm-2';ips=192.0.2.12 user-vm-3;192.0.2.13 extra-vm'\
    --dns-servers=203.0.113.1,203.0.113.2  \
    --ntp-servers=203.0.113.3,203.0.113.4 \
    --service-address-cidr-blocks=10.96.0.0/20 \
    --pod-address-cidr-blocks=192.168.0.0/16 \
    --enable-control-plane-v2 \
    --control-plane-ip-block 'gateway=192.0.2.254,netmask=255.255.255.0,ips=198.51.100.1 cp-vm-1;198.51.100.2 cp-vm-2;198.51.100.3 cp-vm-3' \
    --replicas=3 \
    --control-plane-vip=192.0.2.60 \
    --ingress-vip=192.0.2.50 \
    --ingress-http-node-port=30243 \
    --ingress-https-node-port=30879

Terraform

Before you begin

Get the name and the fleet membership location of your admin cluster:
```
gcloud container fleet memberships list \
    --project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID
```
Replace FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID with ID of the project that the admin cluster is registered to.

The output is similar to the following:
```
NAME             EXTERNAL_ID                           LOCATION
admin-cluster-1  bb7803b4-8438-4b22-859f-4559b4b29072  global
admin-cluster-2  ee16ee2b-6ec0-49fc-9413-3c89cbc70854  global
admin-cluster-3  fc2b7ef5-39ff-4b63-b919-04c5adc67be4  us-west1
```
The location specifies where the Fleet and Connect services run. Admin clusters created prior to 1.28 are managed by the global Fleet and Connect services. In 1.28 and later, you can specify either global or a Google Cloud region when you create the cluster.
Get a list of available versions:
```
gcloud container vmware clusters query-version-config \
    --admin-cluster-membership=ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME \
    --admin-cluster-membership-project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID \
    --admin-cluster-membership-location=ADMIN_CLUSTER_REGION \
    --location=REGION
```
Replace the following:
- ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME: The name of the admin cluster.
- FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID: The ID of the project that the admin cluster is registered to.
- ADMIN_CLUSTER_REGION: The admin cluster's fleet membership region. This is either global or a Google Cloud region. Use the location for the admin cluster from the output of gcloud container fleet memberships list.
- REGION: The Google Cloud region that you will use when you create the cluster. This is the region in which the GKE On-Prem API and the Fleet and Connect services run. Specify us-west1 or another supported region.
The output of the command is similar to the following:
```
versions:
- isInstalled: true
  version: 1.14.3-gke.25
- version: 1.14.4-gke.54
- version: 1.15.0-gke.581
```
Versions that you can use to create a user cluster are annotated with isInstalled=true, which means the admin cluster has the version-specific components it needs to manage user clusters of that version. If you want to create a user cluster with a another available version, see Install a later version than the admin cluster version.

Example

You can use the following basic configuration sample to create a user cluster with the bundled MetalLB load balancer and one node pool.

For more information and other examples, see the google_gkeonprem_vmware_cluster reference documentation.

Set variables in `terraform.tfvars`

The sample provides an example variables file to pass in to main.tf, which shows how to configure the bundled MetalLB load balancer and enable your cluster nodes to get their IP addresses from a DHCP server that you provide.

Clone the anthos-samples repository and change to the directory where the Terraform sample is located:

git clone https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/anthos-samples
cd anthos-samples/anthos-onprem-terraform/avmw_user_cluster_metallb

Make a copy of the terraform.tfvars.sample file:

cp terraform.tfvars.sample terraform.tfvars

Modify the parameters values in terraform.tfvars.
```
project_id                  = "FLEET_HOST_PROJECT_ID"
region                      = "REGION"
admin_cluster_name          = "ADMIN_CLUSTER_NAME"
on_prem_version             = "VERSION"
admin_user_emails           = ["YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS", "ADMIN_2_EMAIL_ADDRESS"]
cluster_name                = "avmw-user-cluster-metallb"
control_plane_node_cpus     = 4
control_plane_node_memory   = 8192
control_plane_node_replicas = 3
control_plane_vip           = "CONTROL_PLANE_VIP"
ingress_vip                 = "INGRESS_VIP"
lb_address_pools            = [
    { name = "lbpool_1", addresses = ["10.200.0.51-10.200.0.70"] }
]
```
The following list describes the variables:
- project_id: The ID of the project that you want to create the cluster in. The specified project is also used as the fleet host project. This must be the same project that the admin cluster is registered to. After the user cluster is created, it is automatically registered to the selected project's fleet. The fleet host project can't be changed after the cluster is created.
- region: The Google Cloud region in which the GKE On-Prem API (gkeonprem.googleapis.com), Fleet service (gkehub.googleapis.com), and the Connect service (gkeconnect.googleapis.com) run. Specify us-west1 or another supported region.
- admin_cluster_name: The name of the admin cluster that manages the user cluster. The example assumes that the admin cluster uses global as the region. If you have a regional admin cluster:
  1. Open main.tf in a text editor.
  2. Search for admin_cluster_membership, which looks like the following:
```
admin_cluster_membership = "projects/${var.project_id}/locations/global/memberships/${var.admin_cluster_name}"
```
  1. Change global to the region that the admin cluster uses and save the file.
- on_prem_version: The Google Distributed Cloud version for your user cluster. Typically, you specify the same version as the admin cluster. To specify a later version, Install a later version than the admin cluster version. If you don't know the admin cluster version, run gcloud container vmware clusters query-version-config, which is the first step in Install a later version than the admin cluster version.
- admin_user_emails: A list of email addresses of the users to be granted administrative privileges on the cluster. Be sure to add your email address if you intend to administer the cluster.
  
  When the cluster is created, the GKE On-Prem API applies the Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC) policies to the cluster to grant the admin users the Kubernetes clusterrole/cluster-admin role, which provides full access to every resource in the cluster in all namespaces. This also lets users log on to the console using their Google identity.
- cluster_name: A name of your choice for your user cluster. The name can't be changed after the cluster is created. The name must:
  - contain at most 40 characters
  - contain only lowercase alphanumeric characters or a hyphen (-)
  - start with an alphabetic character
  - end with an alphanumeric character
- control_plane_node_cpus: The number of vCPUs for each control-plane node for your user cluster. The minimum is 4 vCPUs.
- control_plane_node_memory: The memory size in mebibytes (MiB) for each control-plane for your user cluster. The minimum value is 8192 and it must be a multiple of 4.
- control_plane_node_replicas: The number of control-plane nodes for your user cluster. For example, you may enter 1 control-plane node for a development environment and 3 control-planes nodes for high availability (HA), production environments.
- control_plane_vip: The virtual IP address (VIP) that you have chosen to configure on the load balancer for the Kubernetes API server of the user cluster.
- ingress_vip: The IP address that you have chosen to configure on the load balancer for the ingress proxy.
- lb_address_pools: A list of maps that define the address pools to be used by the MetalLB load balancer. The ingress VIP must be in one of these pools. Specify the following:
  - name: A name for the pool.
  - addresses: An address range either in CIDR notation or hyphenated-range format. To specify a single IP address in a pool (such as for the ingress VIP), use /32 in CIDR notation, for example: 192.0.2.1/32.
  Replace the example IP addresses with your values, and add additional address pools if needed.
Save the changes in terraform.tfvars. If you don't want to make any optional changes to main.tf, skip to the section that follows, Create the cluster and one node pool.

Optional: Configure cluster settings in `main.tf`

This section explains some optional configuration changes that you can make in main.tf. Before making changes, make a backup of main.tf:

cp main.tf main.tf.bak

Worker node IP addressing mode

By default, main.tf configures the cluster to use a DHCP server that you provide to assign IP addresses to the cluster's worker nodes. DHCP is configured by including the dhcp_config map within the network_config block. If you want to provide static IP addresses for your worker nodes, make the following changes to main.tf:

Replace the network_config block and include a static_ip_config block. For example:

  network_config {
    service_address_cidr_blocks = ["10.96.0.0/12"]
    pod_address_cidr_blocks = ["192.168.0.0/16"]
    host_config {
      dns_servers = ["10.254.41.1"]
      ntp_servers = ["216.239.35.8"]
    }
    static_ip_config {
      ip_blocks {
        netmask = "255.255.252.0"
        gateway = "10.251.31.254"
        ips {
          ip = "10.251.30.153"
          hostname = "vm-1"
        }
        ips {
          ip = "10.251.31.206"
          hostname = "vm-2"
        }
        ips {
          ip = "10.251.31.193"
          hostname = "vm-3"
        }
        ips {
          ip = "10.251.30.230"
          hostname = "vm-4"
        }
      }
    }
  }

Replace the following with your values:
- service_address_cidr_blocks: A range of IP addresses, in CIDR format, to be used for Services in your cluster. Must be at least a /24 range.
- pod_address_cidr_blocks: A range of IP addresses, in CIDR format, to be used for Pods in your cluster. Must be at least a /18 range.
- dns_servers: A list of the IP addresses of DNS servers for the VMs.
- ntp_servers: A list of the IP addresses of time servers for the VMs to use.
- In the static_ip_config block, replace the values for netmask and gateway with the addresses for your network. Replaceip and hostname with the IP addresses and hostnames of your worker nodes.

Configure Controlplane V2

By default, main.tf configures the control plane for the user cluster to run on one or more nodes on the admin cluster (referred to as the kubeception model). If you prefer, you can enable Controlplane V2. When Controlplane V2 is enabled, the control plane for a user cluster runs on one or more nodes in the user cluster itself. To configure Controlplane V2, make the following changes to main.tf:

Add the following line after the line with admin_cluster_membership:
```
  enable_control_plane_v2 = "true"
```

Add a control_plane_v2_config map to the network_config block, for example:

  control_plane_v2_config {
    control_plane_ip_block {
      netmask = "255.255.252.0"
      gateway = "10.250.71.254"
      ips {
        ip = "10.250.68.54"
        hostname = "cpv2-vm1"
      }
      ips {
        ip = "10.250.68.128"
        hostname = "cpv2-vm2"
      }
      ips {
        ip = "10.250.71.50"
        hostname = "cpv2-vm3"
      }
    }
  }

Replace the values for netmask and gateway with IP addresses from your network. Replace ip and hostname with the IP addresses of your conrol plane nodes.

Create the cluster and one node pool

Initialize and create the Terraform plan:
```
terraform init
```
Terraform installs any needed libraries, such as the Google Cloud provider.
Review the configuration and make changes if needed:
```
terraform plan
```
Apply the Terraform plan to create the user cluster:
```
terraform apply
```
It takes about 15 minutes or more to create the user cluster, and another 15 minutes to create the node pool. You can view the cluster in the Google Cloud console on the GKE clusters page.

Troubleshooting

See Troubleshooting cluster creation and upgrade.

Create a user cluster

Before you begin

Create a user cluster

gkectl

Procedure overview

Fill in your configuration files

name

gkeOnPremVersion

enableControlplaneV2

kubeception

enableDataplaneV2

vCenter

Using one data center and one vSphere cluster

Using separate vSphere clusters

Using separate vSphere data centers

Using separate vCenter accounts

Using separate instances of vCenter Server

network

loadBalancer

advancedNetworking

multipleNetworkInterfaces

storage

masterNode

nodePools

antiAffinityGroups

stackdriver

gkeConnect

gkeOnPremAPI

usageMetering

cloudAuditLogging

Example of filled-in configuration files

user-ipblock.yaml

user-cluster.yaml

Validate your configuration file

3. (Optional) Import OS images to vSphere, and push container images to a private registry

4. Create a user cluster

Create a user cluster:

Locate the user cluster kubeconfig file

5. Verify that your user cluster is running

Console

Get started

Cluster basics

Control Plane

Networking

Load balancer

Bundled with MetalLB

F5 BIG-IP

Manual

Features

Node pools

gcloud CLI

Gather information

Install a higher version

Examples

MetalLB & DHCP

MetalLB & static IPs

Manual LB & static IPs

Control plane flags

vSphere flags

Track cluster creation progress

Create a node pool

Example gcloud commands

MetalLB & DHCP

MetalLB & static IPs

Manual LB & static IPs

Terraform

Before you begin

Example

Set variables in terraform.tfvars

Optional: Configure cluster settings in main.tf

Worker node IP addressing mode

Configure Controlplane V2

Create the cluster and one node pool

Troubleshooting

What's next

`name`

`gkeOnPremVersion`

`enableControlplaneV2`

`enableDataplaneV2`

`vCenter`

`network`

`loadBalancer`

`advancedNetworking`

`multipleNetworkInterfaces`

`storage`

`masterNode`

`nodePools`

`antiAffinityGroups`

`stackdriver`

`gkeConnect`

`gkeOnPremAPI`

`usageMetering`

`cloudAuditLogging`

Set variables in `terraform.tfvars`

Optional: Configure cluster settings in `main.tf`