The product described by this documentation, Anthos Clusters on AWS (previous generation), is now in maintenance mode. All new installs must use the current generation product, Anthos clusters on AWS.

Creating a custom user cluster

This topic describes how to customize the configuration of a GKE on AWS user cluster.

You might want to create a custom user cluster for the following reasons:

Creating another cluster for a staging or test environment.
Adding node pools with different machine types.
Creating a cluster in specific AWS availability zones (AZ).

Before you begin

Before you start using GKE on AWS, make sure you have performed the following tasks:

Complete the Prerequisites.

Install a management service.
If you want to create a cluster without using terraform output example_cluster, have private AWS subnets for your control plane. Each subnet should belong to a different AZ in the same AWS region. Route tables must be configured to allow traffic between private subnets, and each subnet must have access to a NAT gateway.
Have your AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) ID. A VPC ID looks like vpc-012345678abcde. You can find your VPC ID on the AWS Console.

To connect to your GKE on AWS resources, perform the following steps. Select if you have an existing AWS VPC (or direct connection to your VPC) or created a dedicated VPC when creating your management service.

Existing VPC

If you have a direct or VPN connection to an existing VPC, omit the line env HTTP_PROXY=http://localhost:8118 from commands in this topic.

Dedicated VPC

When you create a management service in a dedicated VPC, GKE on AWS includes a bastion host in a public subnet.

To connect to your management service, perform the following steps:

Change to the directory with your GKE on AWS configuration. You created this directory when Installing the management service.
```
cd anthos-aws
```
To open the tunnel, run the bastion-tunnel.sh script. The tunnel forwards to localhost:8118.

To open a tunnel to the bastion host, run the following command:
```
./bastion-tunnel.sh -N
```
Messages from the SSH tunnel appear in this window. When you are ready to close the connection, stop the process by using Control+C or closing the window.
Open a new terminal and change into your anthos-aws directory.
```
cd anthos-aws
```
Check that you're able to connect to the cluster with kubectl.
```
env HTTPS_PROXY=http://localhost:8118 \
kubectl cluster-info
```
The output includes the URL for the management service API server.

Selecting a control plane instance size

GKE on AWS doesn't support resizing control plane instances. Before creating your user cluster, select the instance size of your control planes. Control plane sizes depend on the number of nodes in your cluster. The following table contains recommended control plane instance sizes for various cluster sizes.

Cluster size (nodes)	Control plane instance type
1 – 10	m5.large
11 – 100	m5.xlarge
101 – 200	m5.2xlarge

Creating a new cluster with a custom configuration

You can use terraform output example_cluster to create configuration for one user cluster per management cluster. If you want to create additional clusters, you need to apply a custom configuration.

In this example, you create a cluster manually from AWSCluster and AWSNodePool CRDs.

Change to the directory with your GKE on AWS configuration. You created this directory when Installing the management service.
```
cd anthos-aws
```
From your anthos-aws directory, use anthos-gke to switch context to your management service.
```
cd anthos-aws
anthos-gke aws management get-credentials
```
Note: anthos-gke uses the credentials you specified when you ran aws configure.
Open a text editor and copy the following AWSCluster definition into a file named custom-cluster.yaml.
```
apiVersion: multicloud.cluster.gke.io/v1
kind: AWSCluster
metadata:
  name: CLUSTER_NAME
spec:
  region: AWS_REGION
  networking:
    vpcID: VPC_ID
    podAddressCIDRBlocks: POD_ADDRESS_CIDR_BLOCKS
    serviceAddressCIDRBlocks: SERVICE_ADDRESS_CIDR_BLOCKS
    ServiceLoadBalancerSubnetIDs: SERVICE_LOAD_BALANCER_SUBNETS
  controlPlane:
    version:  CLUSTER_VERSION # Latest version is 1.25.5-gke.2100
    instanceType: AWS_INSTANCE_TYPE
    keyName: SSH_KEY_NAME
    subnetIDs:
    - CONTROL_PLANE_SUBNET_IDS
    securityGroupIDs:
    - CONTROL_PLANE_SECURITY_GROUPS
    iamInstanceProfile: CONTROL_PLANE_IAM_ROLE
    rootVolume:
      sizeGiB: ROOT_VOLUME_SIZE
      volumeType: ROOT_VOLUME_TYPE # Optional
      iops: ROOT_VOLUME_IOPS # Optional
      kmsKeyARN: ROOT_VOLUME_KEY # Optional
    etcd:
      mainVolume:
        sizeGiB: ETCD_VOLUME_SIZE
        volumeType: ETCD_VOLUME_TYPE # Optional
        iops: ETCD_VOLUME_IOPS # Optional
        kmsKeyARN: ETCD_VOLUME_KEY # Optional
    databaseEncryption:
      kmsKeyARN: ARN_OF_KMS_KEY
    hub: # Optional
      membershipName: ANTHOS_CONNECT_NAME
    cloudOperations: # Optional
      projectID: YOUR_PROJECT
      location: GCP_REGION
      enableLogging: ENABLE_LOGGING
      enableMonitoring: ENABLE_MONITORING
    workloadIdentity: # Optional
      oidcDiscoveryGCSBucket: WORKLOAD_IDENTITY_BUCKET
```
Replace the following:
- CLUSTER_NAME: the name of your cluster.
- AWS_REGION: the AWS region where your cluster runs.
  
  Note: You must create your user cluster in the same region as your management service.
- VPC_ID: the ID of the VPC where your cluster runs.
- POD_ADDRESS_CIDR_BLOCKS: the range of IPv4 addresses used by the cluster's pods. Currently only a single range is supported. The range must not overlap with any subnets reachable from your network. It is safe to use the same range across multiple different AWSCluster objects. For example, 10.2.0.0/16.
- SERVICE_ADDRESS_CIDR_BLOCKS: the range of IPv4 addresses used by the cluster's services. Currently only a single range is supported. The range must not overlap with any subnets reachable from your network. It is safe to use the same range across multiple different AWSCluster objects. For example, 10.1.0.0/16.
- SERVICE_LOAD_BALANCER_SUBNETS: the subnet IDs where GKE on AWS can create public or private load balancers.
- CLUSTER_VERSION: a Kubernetes version supported by GKE on AWS. The most recent version is 1.25.5-gke.2100.
- AWS_INSTANCE_TYPE: a supported EC2 instance type.
- SSH_KEY_NAME: an AWS EC2 key pair.
- CONTROL_PLANE_SUBNET_IDS: the subnet IDs in the AZs where your control plane instances run.
- CONTROL_PLANE_SECURITY_GROUPS: a securityGroupID created during the management service installation. You can customize this by adding any securityGroupIDs required to connect to the control plane.
- CONTROL_PLANE_IAM_PROFILE: name of the AWS EC2 instance profile assigned to control plane replicas.
- ROOT_VOLUME_SIZE: the size, in gibibyte (GiB), of your control plane root volumes.
- ROOT_VOLUME_TYPE with the EBS volume type. For example, gp3.
- ROOT_VOLUME_IOPS with the amount of provisioned IO operations per second (IOPS) for the volume. Only valid when volumeType is GP3. For more information, see General Purpose SSD volumes (gp3).
- ROOT_VOLUME_KEY with the Amazon Resource Name of the AWS KMS key that encrypts your control plane instance root volumes.
- ETCD_VOLUME_SIZE: the size of volumes used by etcd.
- ETCD_VOLUME_TYPE with the EBS volume type. For example, gp3.
- ETCD_VOLUME_IOPS with the amount of provisioned IO operations per second (IOPS) for the volume. Only valid when volumeType is gp3. For more information, see General Purpose SSD volumes (gp3).
- ETCD_VOLUME_KEY with the Amazon Resource Name of the AWS KMS key that encrypts your control plane etcd data volumes.
- ARN_OF_KMS_KEY: the AWS KMS key used to encrypt cluster Secrets.
- ANTHOS_CONNECT_NAME: the Connect membership name used to register your cluster. The membership name must be unique. For example, projects/YOUR_PROJECT/locations/global/memberships/CLUSTER_NAME, where YOUR_PROJECT is your Google Cloud project and CLUSTER_NAME is a unique name in your project. This field is optional.
- YOUR_PROJECT: your project ID.
- GCP_REGION: the Google Cloud region where you want to store logs. Choose a region that is near the AWS region. For more information, see Global Locations - Regions & Zones — for example, us-central1.
- ENABLE_LOGGING: true or false, whether Cloud Logging is enabled on control plane nodes.
- ENABLE_MONITORING: true or false, whether Cloud Monitoring is enabled on control plane nodes.
- WORKLOAD_IDENTITY_BUCKET: the Cloud Storage bucket name containing your workload identity discovery information. This field is optional.
Create one or more AWSNodePools for your cluster. Open a text editor and copy the following AWSCluster definition into a file named custom-nodepools.yaml.
```
apiVersion: multicloud.cluster.gke.io/v1
kind: AWSNodePool
metadata:
  name: NODE_POOL_NAME
spec:
  clusterName: AWSCLUSTER_NAME
  version:  CLUSTER_VERSION # latest version is 1.25.5-gke.2100
  region: AWS_REGION
  subnetID: AWS_SUBNET_ID
  minNodeCount: MINIMUM_NODE_COUNT
  maxNodeCount: MAXIMUM_NODE_COUNT
  maxPodsPerNode: MAXIMUM_PODS_PER_NODE_COUNT
  instanceType: AWS_NODE_TYPE
  keyName: KMS_KEY_PAIR_NAME
  iamInstanceProfile: NODE_IAM_PROFILE
  proxySecretName: PROXY_SECRET_NAME
  rootVolume:
    sizeGiB: ROOT_VOLUME_SIZE
    volumeType: VOLUME_TYPE # Optional
    iops: IOPS # Optional
    kmsKeyARN: NODE_VOLUME_KEY # Optional 
```
Replace the following:
- NODE_POOL_NAME: a unique name for your AWSNodePool.
- AWSCLUSTER_NAME: your AWSCluster's name. For example, staging-cluster.
- CLUSTER_VERSION: a supported GKE on AWS Kubernetes version.
- AWS_REGION: the same AWS region as your AWSCluster.
- AWS_SUBNET_ID: an AWS subnet in the same region as your AWSCluster.
- MINIMUM_NODE_COUNT: the minimum number of nodes in the node pool. See Scaling user clusters for more information.
- MAXIMUM_NODE_COUNT: the maximum number of nodes in the node pool.
- MAXIMUM_PODS_PER_NODE_COUNT: the maximum number of pods that GKE on AWS can allocate to a node.
- AWS_NODE_TYPE: an AWS EC2 instance type.
- KMS_KEY_PAIR_NAME: the AWS KMS key pair assigned to each node pool worker.
- NODE_IAM_PROFILE: the name of the AWS EC2 instance profile assigned to nodes in the pool.
- ROOT_VOLUME_SIZE: the size, in gibibyte (GiB), of your control plane root volumes.
- VOLUME_TYPE: the node's AWS EBS volume type. For example, gp3.
- IOPS: the amount of provisioned IO operations per second (IOPS) for volumes. Only valid when volumeType is gp3.
- NODE_VOLUME_KEY: the ARN of the AWS KMS key used to encrypt the volume. For more information, see Using a customer managed CMK to encrypt volumes.

Apply the manifests to your management service.

env HTTPS_PROXY=http://localhost:8118 \
  kubectl apply -f custom-cluster.yaml
env HTTPS_PROXY=http://localhost:8118 \
  kubectl apply -f custom-nodepools.yaml

Create a kubeconfig

While your user cluster starts, you can create a kubeconfig context for your new user cluster. You use the context to authenticate to a user or management cluster.

Use anthos-gke aws clusters get-credentials to generate a kubeconfig for your user cluster in ~/.kube/config.
```
env HTTPS_PROXY=http://localhost:8118 \
  anthos-gke aws clusters get-credentials CLUSTER_NAME
```
Replace CLUSTER_NAME with your cluster's name. For example, cluster-0.
Use kubectl to authenticate to your new user cluster.
```
env HTTPS_PROXY=http://localhost:8118 \
  kubectl cluster-info
```
If your cluster is ready, the output includes the URLs for Kubernetes components within your cluster.

Viewing your cluster's status

The management service provisions AWS resources when you apply an AWSCluster or AWSNodePool.

From your anthos-aws directory, use anthos-gke to switch context to your management service.
```
cd anthos-aws
anthos-gke aws management get-credentials
```
Note: anthos-gke uses the credentials you specified when you ran aws configure.

To list your clusters, use kubectl get AWSClusters.

env HTTPS_PROXY=http://localhost:8118 \
  kubectl get AWSClusters

The output includes each cluster's name, state, age, version, and endpoint.

For example, the following output includes only one AWSCluster named cluster-0:

NAME        STATE          AGE     VERSION         ENDPOINT
cluster-0   Provisioning   2m41s   1.25.5-gke.2100   gke-xyz.elb.us-east-1.amazonaws.com

View your cluster's events

To see recent Kubernetes Events from your user cluster, use kubectl get events.

From your anthos-aws directory, use anthos-gke to switch context to your management service.
```
cd anthos-aws
anthos-gke aws management get-credentials
```
Note: anthos-gke uses the credentials you specified when you ran aws configure.

Run kubectl get events.

env HTTPS_PROXY=http://localhost:8118 \
  kubectl get events

The output includes information, warning, and errors related to from your management service.

Deleting a user cluster

To delete a user cluster, perform the following steps:

From your anthos-aws directory, use anthos-gke to switch context to your management service.
```
cd anthos-aws
anthos-gke aws management get-credentials
```
Note: anthos-gke uses the credentials you specified when you ran aws configure.
Use kubectl delete to delete the manifest containing your user clusters.
```
env HTTPS_PROXY=http://localhost:8118 \
  kubectl delete -f CLUSTER_FILE
```
Replace CLUSTER_FILE with the name of the manifest containing your AWScluster and AWSNodePool objects. For example, cluster-0.yaml.

Deleting all user clusters

To delete all of your user clusters, perform the following steps:

From your anthos-aws directory, use anthos-gke to switch context to your management service.
```
cd anthos-aws
anthos-gke aws management get-credentials
```
Note: anthos-gke uses the credentials you specified when you ran aws configure.

Use kubectl delete to delete your AWSNodePools and AWSClusters from your management service.

env HTTPS_PROXY=http://localhost:8118 \
  kubectl delete AWSNodePool --all
env HTTPS_PROXY=http://localhost:8118 \
  kubectl delete AWSCluster --all

For more information, see Uninstalling GKE on AWS.

What's next

Configure your identity provider with the GKE Identity Service.
Launch your first workload on GKE on AWS.
Create an externally facing deployment using a load balancer or Ingress.
Read the specifications for the AWSCluster and AWSNodePool Custom Resource Definitions.