Creating a zonal cluster

This topic shows you how to create a standard zonal cluster with the default features enabled in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Zonal clusters have a single control plane in a single zone. Depending on your availability requirements, you can choose to distribute your nodes for your zonal cluster in a single zone or in multiple zones.

You can read more about the types of clusters you can create.

Single zone versus multi-zonal

A single-zone cluster has a single control plane running in one zone. This control plane manages workloads on nodes running in the same zone.

A multi-zonal cluster's nodes run in multiple zones, but it has only a single replica of the control plane. If you need higher availability for the control plane, consider creating a regional cluster instead. In a regional cluster, the control plane is replicated across multiple zones in a region.

Note: After you create a cluster, you cannot change it from zonal to regional, or regional to zonal.

Before you begin

Before you start, make sure you have performed the following tasks:

• Ensure that you have enabled the Google Kubernetes Engine API.
Enable Google Kubernetes Engine API
• Ensure that you have installed the Cloud SDK.

Set up default gcloud settings using one of the following methods:

• Using gcloud init, if you want to be walked through setting defaults.
• Using gcloud config, to individually set your project ID, zone, and region.

Using gcloud init

If you receive the error One of [--zone, --region] must be supplied: Please specify location, complete this section.

1. Run gcloud init and follow the directions:

   gcloud init

   If you are using SSH on a remote server, use the --console-only flag to prevent the command from launching a browser:

   gcloud init --console-only

2. Follow the instructions to authorize gcloud to use your Google Cloud account.
3. Create a new configuration or select an existing one.
4. Choose a Google Cloud project.
5. Choose a default Compute Engine zone.

Note: You can override these default settings in gcloud commands using the --project, --zone, and --region flags.

Using gcloud config

• Set your default project ID:

  gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID

• If you are working with zonal clusters, set your default compute zone:

  gcloud config set compute/zone COMPUTE_ZONE

• If you are working with regional clusters, set your default compute region:

  gcloud config set compute/region COMPUTE_REGION

• Update gcloud to the latest version:

  gcloud components update

Note: You can override these default settings in gcloud commands using the --project, --zone, and --region flags.

• Multi-zonal clusters use more resources than single-zone clusters. If you are creating a multi-zonal cluster, ensure you have adequate quotas.

Important: New clusters have the cos-metrics-enabled flag enabled by default. This setting allows kernel crash logs to be collected using dmesg. The report does not include any user logs, and does not intentionally collect any PII. It can potentially include user logs if you write logs from a privileged container and bind mount /dev/kmsg. And certain PII, for example process name, may appear in the report if kernel includes them in the error messages, such as OOM kills.

Create a zonal cluster

You can create a zonal cluster by using the gcloud tool or the Google Cloud Console.

gcloud

To create a zonal cluster with the gcloud command-line tool, use one of the following commands.

Note: If you are creating a single-zone cluster, you can omit the --node-locations flag from the command.

Replace the placeholder values in the commands with the following:

• CLUSTER_NAME: the name of your new cluster.
• CHANNEL: the type of release channel, which can be one of rapid, regular or stable.
• COMPUTE_ZONE: the compute zone for the cluster control plane.
• VERSION: the version you wish to specify for your cluster.
• In the --node-locations flag, specify a comma-separated list of COMPUTE_ZONE values where the control plane and nodes are created. Do not put spaces between the zone values.

Using a release channel:

To create a new cluster using a specific release channel, run the following command:

gcloud container clusters create CLUSTER_NAME \
    --release-channel CHANNEL \
    --zone COMPUTE_ZONE \
    --node-locations COMPUTE_ZONE,COMPUTE_ZONE,[...]

Using a specific version:

To create a new cluster using a specific cluster version, run the following command:

gcloud container clusters create CLUSTER_NAME \
    --cluster-version VERSION \
    --zone COMPUTE_ZONE \
    --node-locations COMPUTE_ZONE,COMPUTE_ZONE,[...]

Using the static default version:

To create a new cluster using the static default cluster version, run the following command:

gcloud container clusters create CLUSTER_NAME \
    --zone COMPUTE_ZONE \
    --node-locations COMPUTE_ZONE,COMPUTE_ZONE,[...]

Example

The following command creates a multi-zonal cluster named example-cluster, where the cluster control plane is located in the us-central-a zone, and there are three node locations.

When the --num-nodes flag is omitted, the default number of per-zone nodes created by the cluster is three. Because three zones were specified, this command creates a nine-node cluster with three nodes each in us-central1-a, us-central1-b, and us-central1-c.

gcloud container clusters create example-cluster \
    --zone us-central1-a \
    --node-locations us-central1-a,us-central1-b,us-central1-c

Console

To create a zonal cluster with the Google Cloud Console, perform the following tasks:

1. Visit the Google Kubernetes Engine menu in Cloud Console.

   Visit the Google Kubernetes Engine menu

2. Click Create.

3. In the Cluster basics section, complete the following:

   1. Enter the Name for your cluster.
   2. For the Location type, select Zonal, and then select the desired zone for your cluster.
   3. If you are creating a multi-zonal cluster, select the Specify node locations checkbox, and then choose additional zones in which you'd like the cluster to run.

   4. Choose a Master Version. We recommend selecting a release channel. If you must specify a static version, ensure auto-upgrade is enabled for your node pools.

4. From the navigation pane, under Node Pools, click default-pool.

5. In the Node pool details section, complete the following:

   1. Enter a Name for the default Node pool.
   2. Choose the Node version for your nodes.
   3. Enter the Number of nodes to create in the cluster. You must have available resource quota for the nodes and their resources (such as firewall routes).

6. From the navigation pane, under Node Pools, click Nodes.

7. From the Image type drop-down list, select the desired node image.

8. Choose the default Machine configuration to use for the instances. Each machine type is billed differently. The default machine type is e2-medium. For machine type pricing information, refer to the machine type price sheet.

9. From the Boot disk type drop-down list, select the desired disk type.

10. Enter the Boot disk size.

11. Click Create.

After you create a cluster, you need to configure kubectl before you can interact with the cluster from the command line.

Cluster templates

GKE previously supported templates for clusters. Those templates were removed from Google Cloud Console, but are still accessible from the following links:

• Your first cluster

  Note: GKE provides a guided walk through for My First Cluster.

• CPU intensive applications

• Memory intensive applications

• GPU accelerated computing

• Highly available

What's next

• Learn about the types of clusters you can create.
• Learn about the GKE cluster architecture.
• Learn about managing your clusters.
• Learn how to delete clusters.