Register a GKE cluster to your fleet

This page shows you how to add a GKE cluster on Google Cloud to your fleet. Depending on your project and use case, you can use the Google Cloud console, Terraform, Config Connector, or the Google Cloud CLI for registration. You can also create and register a new cluster in a single step using the Google Cloud CLI or the Google Cloud console (available with GKE Enterprise).

Before you begin

Ensure that you have followed the general prerequisites for registering a cluster.

Depending on your use case, GKE cluster registrations may also require the following:

Register your GKE cluster

As you saw in the prerequisites, we recommend registering your GKE clusters with fleet Workload Identity enabled, which provides a consistent way for applications to authenticate to Google Cloud APIs and services. You can find out more about the advantages of enabling fleet Workload Identity in Use fleet Workload Identity. All of the following options allow you to enable fleet Workload Identity if required.

  • If the entire Anthos platform is enabled (which you do by enabling the Anthos API in your project), you can register an existing cluster in the same project from the Google Cloud console. This is the simplest and quickest way to register a GKE cluster. Using this approach immediately lets you view your cluster as part of your fleet in the console, and use fleet-enabled features such as Anthos Config Management.

  • If you have upgraded to GKE Enterprise, you can register a cluster at creation time in the Google Cloud console. You can also choose to register some or all of your existing clusters while upgrading to GKE Enterprise. Learn more about GKE Enterprise.

  • You can register a new or existing GKE cluster (with or without enabling the entire Anthos platform) by using the Google Cloud CLI.

  • You can create and register a GKE cluster (with or without enabling the entire Anthos platform) by using Terraform or Config Connector.

To register a GKE cluster:

Console

Create and register a new cluster

  1. Follow the instructions in the GKE documentation to create your choice of Autopilot, Standard regional, or Standard zonal cluster from the Google Cloud console.

  2. Before you finish creating the cluster, click Fleet in the navigation pane.

  3. Select the Register to a fleet checkbox.

  4. (Optional) If this is the first cluster that you have registered in this project, you can specify a descriptive name for your fleet in the Fleet name field. Otherwise, a default fleet name based on your project ID is used.

  5. If you want the registered cluster to use fleet Workload Identity (recommended), click Security in the navigation pane and ensure that Enable Workload Identity is selected.

  6. When you have finished reviewing cluster details, click Create to create and register the cluster to a fleet.

Register an existing cluster

  1. (Optional) If you want your fleet-registered Standard cluster to use fleet Workload Identity (recommended), ensure that GKE Workload Identity is enabled on the cluster. Clusters with GKE Workload Identity automatically have fleet Workload Identity enabled when you register them from the Google Cloud console.

  2. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Anthos Clusters page. This page shows all your registered clusters.

    Go to the Anthos Clusters page

  3. Click Register GKE cluster at the top of the page, which opens a new page with a list of unregistered clusters.

  4. Click Register next to the unregistered cluster that you want to add to your fleet.

gcloud

You can use the Google Cloud CLI to register a new or an existing cluster. Note that the non-legacy commands require the gcloud CLI version 423.0.0 or higher, with the alpha or beta component installed.

Registering a cluster by using the Google Cloud CLI gives your cluster a regional membership location by default.

Create and register a cluster

To create a new GKE cluster and register it to a fleet in a single step, run one of the following commands, depending on whether you want to create a standard or Autopilot cluster:

gcloud beta container clusters create CLUSTER_NAME \
  --fleet-project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT \
  --workload-pool=PROJECT_ID.svc.id.goog

or

gcloud beta container clusters create-auto CLUSTER_NAME \
  --fleet-project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT

where:

  • CLUSTER_NAME is the name you have chosen for your cluster. This will also become the cluster's membership name. If there is already a cluster with this name in your chosen fleet, the command will return an error.
  • FLEET_HOST_PROJECT is the fleet host project for the fleet you want your cluster to join.
  • PROJECT_ID is the Google Cloud project ID for the project that owns the new cluster.

If you are creating a standard cluster, we recommend creating the cluster with GKE Workload Identity enabled, as in the example, as this enables fleet Workload Identity for your registered cluster. Omit the --workload-pool flag if you do not want to use this feature. Autopilot clusters have Workload Identity enabled by default.

Depending on the cluster you want to create, you can also specify any of the other options for creating a standard zonal, standard regional, or Autopilot cluster. You may also need to specify a Compute Engine zone if you haven't configured a default zone for the Google Cloud CLI, and a Google Cloud project to own the cluster if you have not configured a default project.

Learn more about creating different types of GKE cluster in the GKE documentation.

Register an existing cluster

To register an existing GKE cluster, run the following command:

gcloud beta container clusters update CLUSTER_NAME --fleet-project=FLEET_HOST_PROJECT

where:

  • CLUSTER_NAME is the cluster's name. This will also become the cluster's membership name. If there is already a cluster with this name in your chosen fleet, the command will return an error.
  • FLEET_HOST_PROJECT is the fleet host project for the fleet you want your cluster to join.

This command enables fleet Workload Identity for the cluster if the cluster already has GKE Workload Identity enabled.

Register an existing cluster (legacy command)

This older command is still supported, although for most use cases we recommend registering existing clusters by using the update command described in the previous section. Using this command lets you choose to install the Connect Agent on the cluster, which you may need for integration with some fleet services such as Cloud Deploy. You can choose for the agent to use fleet Workload Identity (recommended) or a Google Cloud service account when authenticating to Google Cloud.

Register a GKE cluster with fleet Workload Identity

  1. Ensure that the cluster has GKE Workload Identity enabled, following the instructions in our prerequisites.

  2. Run either of the following commands to register the cluster:

    gcloud container fleet memberships register MEMBERSHIP_NAME \
 --gke-uri=GKE_URI \
 --enable-workload-identity

    or

    gcloud container fleet memberships register MEMBERSHIP_NAME \
 --gke-cluster=GKE_CLUSTER \
 --enable-workload-identity

    Replace the following:

    • MEMBERSHIP_NAME: the membership name that you choose to uniquely represent the cluster being registered to the fleet.
    • GKE_URI: the URI of the GKE cluster, for example: https://container.googleapis.com/v1/projects/my-gke-project/locations/us-central1-a/clusters/my-gke-cluster. You can obtain the URI by running gcloud container clusters list --uri.
    • GKE_CLUSTER: the location/name of the GKE cluster from the current project. The location can be a zone or a region, for example: us-central1-a/my-gke-cluster.

    If you want to install the Connect Agent on the cluster, add the optional --install-connect-agent flag to either command, as in the following example. By default (without this flag) the agent is not installed.

    gcloud container fleet memberships register MEMBERSHIP_NAME \
 --gke-cluster=GKE_CLUSTER \
 --enable-workload-identity \
 --install-connect-agent

Register a GKE cluster with a service account

To register a cluster with the Connect Agent, specifying a service account:

  1. Ensure that you have created a service account for use by the Connect Agent, as described in our prerequisites.

  2. Run either of the following commands:

    gcloud container fleet memberships register MEMBERSHIP_NAME \
 --gke-uri=GKE_URI \
 --service-account-key-file=SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY_PATH \
 --install-connect-agent

    or

    gcloud container fleet memberships register MEMBERSHIP_NAME \
 --gke-cluster=GKE_CLUSTER \
 --service-account-key-file=SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY_PATH \
 --install-connect-agent

    Replace the following:

    • MEMBERSHIP_NAME: the membership name that you choose to uniquely represent the cluster being registered to the fleet.
    • SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY_PATH: the local filepath to the service account's private key JSON file downloaded as part of Prerequisites. This service account key is stored as a secret named creds-gcp in the gke-connect namespace.
    • GKE_URI: the URI of the GKE cluster, for example: https://container.googleapis.com/v1/projects/my-gke-project/locations/us-central1-a/clusters/my-gke-cluster. You can obtain the URI by running gcloud container clusters list --uri.
    • GKE_CLUSTER: the location/name of the GKE cluster from the current project. The location can be a zone or a region, for example: us-central1-a/my-gke-cluster.

Terraform

You can register GKE clusters with Terraform using the google-beta provider. You can find a complete reference for the gke_hub_membership resource used to configure registration in the terraform registry.

Ensure that you have created a service account for Terraform to use as described in the prerequisites before following these instructions.

Register a GKE cluster

To register the cluster, use the following blocks in your configuration.

  1. Specify the google-beta provider as a required provider, as in the following snippet. The version should be above 3.62.0.

    terraform {
  required_providers {
    google-beta = {
      source = "hashicorp/google-beta"
      version = "3.67.0"
    }
  }
}

    This provider is required if you want to use gke_hub_membership.

  2. Set the following default values for the provider:

    provider "google-beta" {
  credentials = file("SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY_PATH")
  project = "PROJECT_ID"
}

    Replace the following:

    • SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY_PATH: the local filepath to the service account's private key JSON file downloaded as part of Prerequisites. This service account key is stored as a secret named creds-gcp in the gke-connect namespace. This service account key enables Terraform to access your Google Cloud account.
    • PROJECT_ID: the default project that you choose to provision your Terraform resources.

  3. Create a GKE cluster (optional)

    If you want to register an existing cluster, skip this step.

    resource "google_container_cluster" "TF_CLUSTER_RESOURCE_NAME" {
  provider = google-beta
  name               = "CLUSTER_NAME"
  location           = "ZONE"
  initial_node_count = 1
}

    Replace the following:

    • TF_CLUSTER_RESOURCE_NAME: the name that you choose to uniquely identify the Terraform google_container_cluster resource created by this block.
    • CLUSTER_NAME: the name that you choose to uniquely represent the cluster you created.
    • ZONE: the default zone that you choose to provision your GKE cluster resource. For example: us-central1-a.

  4. Register a membership for the GKE cluster.

    resource "google_gke_hub_membership" "TF_MEMBERSHIP_RESOURCE_NAME" {
  provider = google-beta
  project = "FLEET_PROJECT_ID"
  membership_id = "MEMBERSHIP_NAME"
  endpoint {
    gke_cluster {
     resource_link = "//container.googleapis.com/CLUSTER_RESOURCE_NAME"
    }
  }
}

    Replace the following:

    • TF_MEMBERSHIP_RESOURCE_NAME: the name that you choose to uniquely identify the Terraform google_gke_hub_membership resource created by this block.
    • FLEET_PROJECT_ID: If this is not set, the cluster's membership will be created in the default project you specified earlier (PROJECT_ID). Set this field if you want to register the GKE cluster to a fleet in a different project.
    • MEMBERSHIP_NAME: the membership name that you choose to uniquely represent the cluster in the fleet.
    • CLUSTER_RESOURCE_NAME: the Google Cloud resource name for the GKE cluster. For example: projects/my-project/zones/us-west1-a/clusters/my-cluster. If the cluster is provisioned with Terraform, this is ${google_container_cluster.TF_CLUSTER_RESOURCE_NAME.id}.

Enable Workload Identity on a registered GKE cluster

Enabling Workload Identity uses the same configuration as registering a cluster, with the following additional steps.

  1. Enable GKE Workload Identity by adding the following in the relevant google_container_cluster resource block. You need to do this for both new and existing clusters.

    workload_identity_config {
  workload_pool = "PROJECT_ID.svc.id.goog"
}

    Replace the following:

    • PROJECT_ID: the default project that you choose to provision your Terraform resources.

  2. Enable Fleet Workload Identity by adding the following in the relevant google_gke_hub_membership resource block.

    authority {
  issuer = "https://container.googleapis.com/v1/CLUSTER_RESOURCE_NAME"
}

    Replace the following:

    • CLUSTER_RESOURCE_NAME: the Google Cloud resource for the GKE cluster. For example: projects/my-project/zones/us-west1-a/clusters/my-cluster. If the cluster is provisioned with Terraform, this is ${google_container_cluster.TF_CLUSTER_RESOURCE_NAME.id}.

Config Connector

If you have the Config Connector add-on installed, you can use Config Connector to register GKE clusters. Ensure that you have a version of Config Connector above 1.47.0 and that you've created a service account as described in the prerequisites.

You can find a complete reference for the GKEHubMembership resource in the Config Connector reference documentation.

Register a GKE cluster

To register the cluster, first specify where you want to create your resources, following the instructions in the Config Connector guide. Then create a YAML file to register and (optionally) create a cluster, as follows:

Create and register a GKE cluster

  1. Create a GKE cluster, as in the following simple example:

    apiVersion: container.cnrm.cloud.google.com/v1beta1
kind: ContainerCluster
metadata:
  name: CLUSTER_NAME
spec:
  location: LOCATION
  initialNodeCount: 1

    Replace the following:

    • CLUSTER_NAME: the name that you chose to uniquely represent the cluster you created with Config Connector.
    • LOCATION: the zone or region that you chose to provision your GKE cluster resource. For example: us-central1-a.

    For a complete list of options when creating a GKE cluster with Config Connector, see the Config Connector documentation.

  2. Register a membership for the GKE cluster.

    apiVersion: gkehub.cnrm.cloud.google.com/v1beta1
kind: GKEHubMembership
metadata:
  name: MEMBERSHIP_NAME
spec:
  location: MEMBERSHIP_LOCATION
  endpoint:
    gkeCluster:
      resourceRef:
        name: CLUSTER_NAME

    Replace the following:

    • MEMBERSHIP_NAME: the membership name that you chose to uniquely represent the cluster being registered to the fleet.
    • MEMBERSHIP_LOCATION: the location of the Fleet service you want to manage your cluster's membership. This can be the cluster's own location (recommended) or global. Learn more in Fleet membership location. You cannot specify a location that's different from the cluster's location: if you do this, registration fails.
    • CLUSTER_NAME: the name that you chose to uniquely represent the cluster you created with Config Connector.

Register the cluster in a different project

Add the following to the metadata field of the GKEHubMembership resource to register a cluster to a fleet in another project.

   metadata:
     annotations:
       cnrm.cloud.google.com/project-id: FLEET_PROJECT_ID

Replace the following:

  • FLEET_PROJECT_ID: the fleet host project you chose to register the GKE cluster.

Register an existing cluster

Use the following configuration if you want to register any existing cluster, regardless of how it was created. In this case you need to specify the full resource name of the cluster so that Config Connector can find it. Replace the resourceRef field of the GKEHubMembership resource with:

   resourceRef:
     external: //container.googleapis.com/CLUSTER_RESOURCE_NAME

Replace the following:

  • CLUSTER_RESOURCE_NAME: the Google Cloud resource name for the GKE cluster. For example: projects/my-project/zones/us-west1-a/clusters/my-cluster.

If the cluster was created with Config Connector you don't need to specify the fully qualified cluster name.

Enable Workload Identity on a registered GKE cluster

Enabling Workload Identity uses the same configuration as registering a cluster, with the following additional steps.

  1. Enable GKE Workload Identity by adding the following in the spec field of ContainerCluster resource. You need to do this for both new and existing clusters.

    spec:
  workloadIdentityConfig:
    workloadPool: PROJECT_ID.svc.id.goog

    Replace the following:

  2. Enable fleet Workload Identity by adding the following in the spec field of GKEHubMembership resource block.

    spec:
  authority:
    issuer: https://container.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/clusters/CLUSTER_NAME
}

    Replace the following:

    • PROJECT_ID: the default project you chose through namespace annotation to create your GKE cluster resource.
    • LOCATION: the zone or region that you chose to provision your GKE cluster resource. For example: us-central1-a.
    • CLUSTER_NAME: the name that you chose to uniquely represent the cluster you created.

Troubleshooting

If you run into any problems during this setup, see our troubleshooting guide.

What's next?