Kubernetes v1.9 with Windows Workers - Vagrant Multi-Machine Setup

Goal:

This guide will help you stand up a local Kubernetes cluster in Hyper-V VMs through Vagrant. You should be able to use this guide to have a working cluster with 2 Windows nodes within about 3 hours (as short as 80 minutes given my experience).

This is based on GitHub docs from Microsoft and you should at least read that before diving in here.

All directories should have a README to convey its purpose

Current status

Focused on ./vagrant-k8s-manual/ work
- Stands up a working Windows worker cluster (deployments can be created)
- Leverages Vagrant 2.0 and Hyper-V
- k-builder builds windows binaries and places them and other resources in ./vagrant-synced/ for subsequent Vagrant instances to leverage
- k-m1 preps an instance with control plane running
- Using v1.9.0-beta.2 precompiled/downloaded binaries for master, and branch release-1.9 for building Windows binaries
- Windows worker nodes k-w-w1 and k-w-w2 ready to join the cluster
- You can use kubectl on your system to connect to the master by copying the config from ./vagrant-synced/kube/config to ~/.kube/config

Usage

Ensure requirements below are met
Update Vagrantfile at ./vagrant-k8s-manual/Vagrantfile
- Set the Cluster CIDR you want to use. I chose 10.4.0.0/16 as a unique network that won't collide with other networks. You want to choose a range that overlaps with the external IPs that the nodes will get so they have routing to each other by default
Open Powershell Administrator prompt
CD to repo location
CD to ./vagrant-k8s-manual/

# do you need windows binaries? if you already have exe files for kubectl, kubelet, kube-proxy, place them in `../vagrant-synced/kube-win/`
vagrant up k-builder
# enter credentials that can access `../vagrant-synced/` as an SMB share. Administrator rights required.
# wait approximately 30 minutes for Windows binaries to be compiled and placed in `../vagrant-synced/kube-win/`
# you will likely build windows binaries once if at all
vagrant up
# wait approximately 10 minutes for k-m1 to complete
# at this point you can check the dashboard via kubectl proxy below if you're interested
# wait approximately 10 minutes for k-w-w1 to come up, with majority of time for WinRM copy of kube*.exe to node
# wait approximately 10 minutes for k-w-w2 to come up for the same reason

Login to each k-w-w1 and k-w-w2 (via vagrant rdp k-w-w1 or Hyper-V Manager) and run via Powershell (due to TODO in 00-windows.ps1 provisioning script)

#NOTE: (Replace with your chosen ClusterCIDR)
$ClusterCIDR="10.4.0.0/16"

Start-Job -Name kubelet {c:\k\start-kubelet.ps1 -clusterCIDR $ClusterCIDR *> c:\k\kubelet-logs.txt}
Start-Job -Name kubeproxy {c:\k\start-kubeproxy.ps1 *> c:\k\kubeproxy-logs.txt}

Continue with kubectl to view the cluster info

cp ../vagrant-synced/kube/config ~/.kube/config
kubectl cluster-info
kubectl proxy
# navigate web browser to http://localhost:8001/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kubernetes-dashboard/proxy/#!/node?namespace=_all

Other directories

Previous work on ./vagrant-k8s-kubeadm-vanilla/ was used for testing v1.8 kubeadm to standup a master and join a Linux worker node
- This creates a functioning master in vagrant up
- Manual step to grab the kubeadm join command and run from the worker

Requirements

RAM: 5GB RAM for Master, 2GB RAM for each Windows worker
Vagrant 2.0
Hyper-V

Vagrant box created for Windows Server 1709 with Containers feature and Docker installed per Vagrant/Packer Box instructions or similar

Box generation takes roughly 1 hr, which includes caching the 1709 Docker images

packer build --only hyperv-iso -var 'hyperv_switchname=External' -var 'iso_url=c:/images/en_windows_server_version_1709_x64_dvd_100090904.iso' .\windows_server_1709_docker.json
vagrant box add windows_server_1709_docker_hyperv.box --name WindowsServer1709Docker

Internet connectivity for connecting to GitHub, and also download Kubernetes bits

Note: ./Setup-Environment.ps1 may or may not help to install the Requirements listed above

Known issues

Windows nodes do not join automatically as part of vagrant up. This is due to some issue with Start-Job running in the context of Vagrant and then disconnecting, perhaps.
Windows nodes do not report CPU or RAM metrics
Vagrant SMB synced folder to Windows nodes does not work, and the file provisioner to copy files is slow (~5 minutes to copy 250MB)
SMB synced folder does not accept parameters for some reason. This means typing in the username/password for SMB sync a couple minutes into the standup of each Linux instance
kube-dns on the master gets into a crash loop and is likely due to a configuration error or could be related to kubernetes/kubernetes#56902