GCP: Create the Management Cluster

Create a new Google Cloud Platform Kubernetes cluster in a non-air-gapped environment with the steps below.

DKP uses the GCP CSI driver as the default storage provider. Use a Kubernetes CSI compatible storage that is suitable for production.

Name your Cluster

Give your cluster a unique name suitable for your environment.
In GCP it is critical that the name is unique, as no two clusters in the same GCP account can have the same name.
Set the environment variable:
CODE
```
export CLUSTER_NAME=<gcp-example>
```

The cluster name may only contain the following characters: a-z, 0-9, ., and -. Cluster creation will fail if the name has capital letters. See Kubernetes for more naming information.

To increase Docker Hub's rate limit use your Docker Hub credentials when creating the cluster, by setting the following flag --registry-mirror-url=https://registry-1.docker.io --registry-mirror-username=<username> --registry-mirror-password=<password> on the dkp create cluster command.

Create a New GCP Cluster

Availability zones (AZs) are isolated locations within data center regions from which public cloud services originate and operate. Because all the nodes in a node pool are deployed in a single Availability Zone, you may wish to create additional node pools is to ensure your cluster has nodes deployed in multiple Availability Zones.

By default, the control-plane Nodes will be created in 3 different zones. However, the default worker Nodes will reside in a single zone. You may create additional node pools in other zones with the dkp create nodepool command. The default region for the availability zones is us-west1.

Google Cloud Platform does not publish images. You must first build the image using Konvoy Image Builder.

Create an image using Konvoy Image Builder (KIB) and then export the image name:
BASH
```
export IMAGE_NAME=projects/${GCP_PROJECT}/global/images/<image_name_from_kib>
```
(Optional) You can modify Control Plane Audit logs settings using the information contained in the page Configuring the Control Plane.
(Optional) Determine what VPC Network to use. All GCP accounts come with a preconfigured VPC Network named default, which will be used if you do not specify a different network.
To use a different VPC network for your cluster, create one by following these instructions for Create and Manage VPC Networks. Then specify the --network <new_vpc_network_name> option on the create cluster command below. Follow the link for more information on GCP Cloud Nat and network flag.

Ensure your subnets do not overlap with your host subnet because they cannot be changed after cluster creation. If you need to change the kubernetes subnets, you must do this at cluster creation. The default subnets used in DKP are:
CODE
```
spec:
  clusterNetwork:
    pods:
      cidrBlocks:
      - 192.168.0.0/16
    services:
      cidrBlocks:
      - 10.96.0.0/12
```

Create a Kubernetes cluster. The following example shows a common configuration. See dkp create cluster gcp reference for the full list of cluster creation options:
BASH
```
dkp create cluster gcp \
--cluster-name=${CLUSTER_NAME} \
--additional-tags=owner=$(whoami) \
--with-gcp-bootstrap-credentials=true
--project=${GCP_PROJECT} \
--image=${IMAGE_NAME}
--self-managed
```
If your environment uses HTTP/HTTPS proxies, you must include the flags --http-proxy, --https-proxy, and --no-proxy and their related values in this command for it to be successful. More information is available in Configuring an HTTP/HTTPS Proxy.

Wait for the cluster control-plane to be ready:

BASH

kubectl wait --for=condition=ControlPlaneReady "clusters/${CLUSTER_NAME}" --timeout=20m

After the objects are created on the API server, the Cluster API controllers reconcile them. They create infrastructure and machines. As they progress, they update the Status of each object. Konvoy provides a command to describe the current status of the cluster:

BASH

dkp describe cluster -c ${CLUSTER_NAME}

CODE

NAME                                                                      READY  SEVERITY  REASON  SINCE  MESSAGE
Cluster/gcp-example                                                       True                     52s
├─ClusterInfrastructure - GCPCluster/gcp-example
├─ControlPlane - KubeadmControlPlane/gcp-example-control-plane            True                     52s
│ ├─Machine/gcp-example-control-plane-6fbzn                               True                     2m32s
│ │ └─MachineInfrastructure - GCPMachine/gcp-example-control-plane-62g6s
│ ├─Machine/gcp-example-control-plane-jf6s2                               True                     7m36s
│ │ └─MachineInfrastructure - GCPMachine/gcp-example-control-plane-bsr2z
│ └─Machine/gcp-example-control-plane-mnbfs                               True                     54s
│   └─MachineInfrastructure - GCPMachine/gcp-example-control-plane-s8xsx
└─Workers
  └─MachineDeployment/gcp-example-md-0                                    True                     78s
    ├─Machine/gcp-example-md-0-68b86fddb8-8glsw                           True                     2m49s
    │ └─MachineInfrastructure - GCPMachine/gcp-example-md-0-zls8d
    ├─Machine/gcp-example-md-0-68b86fddb8-bvbm7                           True                     2m48s
    │ └─MachineInfrastructure - GCPMachine/gcp-example-md-0-5zcvc
    ├─Machine/gcp-example-md-0-68b86fddb8-k9499                           True                     2m49s
    │ └─MachineInfrastructure - GCPMachine/gcp-example-md-0-k8h5p
    └─Machine/gcp-example-md-0-68b86fddb8-l6vfb                           True                     2m49s
      └─MachineInfrastructure - GCPMachine/gcp-example-md-0-9h5vn

A self-managed cluster refers to one in which the CAPI resources and controllers that describe and manage it are running on the same cluster they are managing. As part of the underlying processing using the --self-managed flag, the DKP CLI:
- creates a bootstrap cluster
- creates a workload cluster
- moves CAPI controllers from the bootstrap cluster to the workload cluster, making it self-managed
- deletes the bootstrap cluster

To understand how this process works step by step, you can find customizable steps in GCP Infrastructure under Additional Infrastructure Configuration.

Cluster Verification

If you want to monitor or verify the installation of your clusters, refer to:

Verify your Cluster and DKP Installation.

Next Steps:

GCP: Install Kommander