Create a managed Kubernetes cluster that runs sandboxed containers

Limits

• Server Load Balancer (SLB) instances that are created along with an ACK cluster support only the pay-as-you-go billing method.
• ACK clusters support only VPCs.
• By default, each account has specific quotas on cloud resources that can be created. You cannot create clusters if the quota is reached. Make sure that you have sufficient quotas before you create a cluster. To request a quota increase, submit a ticket.
  • By default, you can create up to five clusters across all regions with each account. Each cluster can contain up to 40 nodes. To increase the quota of clusters or nodes, submit a ticket.
    Notice By default, you can add up to 48 route entries to the VPC where an ACK cluster is deployed. This means that you can configure up to 48 route entries for ACK clusters deployed in a VPC. To increase the quota of route entries for a VPC, submit a ticket.
  • By default, you can create up to 100 security groups with each account.
  • By default, you can create up to 60 pay-as-you-go SLB instances with each account.
  • By default, you can create up to 20 elastic IP addresses (EIPs) with each account.
• To create an ACK cluster that runs sandboxed containers, you must set the parameters as described in the following table. Otherwise, the cluster cannot run sandboxed containers.

  Parameter	Description
  Zone	Only Elastic Compute Service (ECS) Bare Metal instances support sandboxed containers. Make sure that you can purchase ECS Bare Metal instances in the selected zone.
  Kubernetes Version	Select 1.14.6-aliyun.1 or later.
  Container Runtime	Select Sandboxed-Container.
  Worker Instance	Add worker nodes by creating new ECS instances.
  Instance Type	Select ECS Bare Metal Instance.
  Mount Data Disk	Mount a data disk of at least 200 GiB. We recommend that you mount a data disk of at least 1 TB.
  Operating System	By default, the Alibaba Cloud Linux operating system is used. You cannot not change the operating system.

Procedure

1. Log on to the ACK console.
2. In the left-side navigation pane of the ACK console, click Clusters.
3. In the upper-right corner of the Clusters page, click Cluster Template.
4. In the Select Cluster Template dialog box, find Standard Managed Cluster in the Managed Clusters section and click Create.
5. On the Managed Kubernetes tab, configure the cluster.
   1. Configure basic settings of the cluster.

      Parameter	Description
      Cluster Name	Enter a name for the ACK cluster. Note The name must be 1 to 63 characters in length, and can contain digits, letters, and hyphens (-).
      Cluster Specification	Select a cluster type. You can select Standard edition or Professional.
      Region	Select a region to deploy the cluster.
      All Resources	Move the pointer over All Resources at the top of the page and select the resource group that you want to use. After you select a resource group, virtual private clouds (VPCs) and vSwitches are filtered based on the selected resource group. When you create a cluster, only the VPCs and vSwitches that belong to the selected resource group are displayed in the console.
      Kubernetes Version	Select a Kubernetes version.
      Container Runtime	Select Sandboxed-Container.
      VPC	Select a VPC to deploy the cluster. Standard VPCs and shared VPCs are supported. Shared VPC: The owner of a VPC (resource owner) can share the vSwitches in the VPC with other accounts in the same organization. Standard VPC: The owner of a VPC (resource owner) cannot share the vSwitches in the VPC with other accounts. Note ACK clusters support only VPCs. You can select a VPC from the drop-down list. If no VPC is available, click Create VPC to create one. For more information, see Create a VPC.
      VSwitch	Select vSwitches. You can select up to three vSwitches that are deployed in different zones. If no vSwitch is available, click Create VSwitch to create one. For more information, see Create a vSwitch.
      Network Plug-in	Select a network plug-in. Flannel and Terway are supported. For more information, see Terway and Flannel. Flannel: a simple and stable Container Network Interface (CNI) plug-in that is developed by open source Kubernetes. Flannel provides a few simple features. However, it does not support standard Kubernetes network policies. Terway: a network plug-in that is developed by ACK. Terway allows you to assign elastic network interfaces (ENIs) of Alibaba Cloud to containers. It also allows you to customize Kubernetes network policies to regulate how containers communicate with each other and implement bandwidth throttling on individual containers. Note The number of pods that can be deployed on a node depends on the number of ENIs that are attached to the node and the maximum number of secondary IP addresses that are provided by these ENIs. If you select a shared VPC for an ACK cluster, you must select Terway as the network plug-in. If you select Terway, an ENI is shared among multiple pods. A secondary IP address of the ENI is assigned to each pod.
      IP Addresses per Node	If you select Flannel as the network plug-in, you must set IP Addresses per Node. Note IP Addresses per Node specifies the maximum number of IP addresses that can be assigned to each node. We recommend that you use the default value. After you select the VPC and specify the number of IP addresses per node, recommended values are automatically generated for Pod CIDR block and Service CIDR block. The system also provides the maximum number of nodes that can be deployed in the cluster and the maximum number of pods that can be deployed on each node. You can modify the values based on your business requirements.
      Pod CIDR Block	If you select Flannel as the network plug-in, you must set Pod CIDR Block. The CIDR block specified by Pod CIDR Block cannot overlap with that of the VPC or those of the existing clusters in the VPC. The CIDR block cannot be modified after the cluster is created. The Service CIDR block cannot overlap with the pod CIDR block. For more information about subnetting for ACK clusters, see Plan CIDR blocks for an ACK cluster.
      Pod VSwitch	If you select Terway as the network plug-in, you must allocate vSwitches to pods. For each vSwitch that allocates IP addresses to worker nodes, you must select a vSwitch in the same zone to allocate IP addresses to pods.
      Service CIDR	Set Service CIDR. The CIDR block specified by Service CIDR cannot overlap with that of the VPC or those of the existing clusters in the VPC. The CIDR block cannot be modified after the cluster is created. The Service CIDR block cannot overlap with the pod CIDR block. For more information about subnetting for ACK clusters, see Plan CIDR blocks for an ACK cluster.
      Configure SNAT	By default, an ACK cluster cannot access the Internet. If the VPC that you select for the ACK cluster cannot access the Internet, you can select Configure SNAT for VPC. This way, ACK will create a NAT gateway and configure Source Network Address Translation (SNAT) rules to enable Internet access for the VPC.
      Access to API Server	By default, an internal-facing Server Load Balancer (SLB) instance is created for the cluster API server. You can modify the specification of the SLB instance. For more information, see Instance types and specifications. Notice If you delete the SLB instance, you cannot access the cluster API server. Select or clear Expose API Server with EIP. The ACK API server provides multiple HTTP-based RESTful APIs, which can be used to create, delete, modify, query, and monitor resources, such as pods and Services. If you select this check box, an elastic IP address (EIP) is created and associated with an Internet-facing SLB instance. Port 6443 used by the API server is opened on master nodes. You can connect to and manage the ACK cluster by using kubeconfig over the Internet. If you clear this check box, no EIP is created. You can connect to and manage the ACK cluster by using kubeconfig only within the VPC.
      RDS Whitelist	Set the Relational Database Service (RDS) whitelist. Add the IP addresses of the nodes in the cluster to the RDS whitelist. Note To enable an RDS instance to access the cluster, you must deploy the RDS instance in the VPC where the cluster is deployed.
      Security Group	You can select Create Basic Security Group, Create Advanced Security Group, or Select Existing Security Group. For more information, see Overview. Note To select Select Existing Security Group, Submit a ticket to apply to be added to a whitelist.
      Deletion Protection

   2. Configure advanced settings of the cluster.

      Parameter	Description
      Time Zone	Select a time zone for the ACK cluster. By default, the time zone configured for your browser is selected.
      Kube-proxy Mode	iptables and IPVS are supported. iptables is a mature and stable kube-proxy mode. It uses iptables rules to conduct service discovery and load balancing. The performance of this mode is restricted by the size of the ACK cluster. This mode is suitable for ACK clusters that manage a small number of Services. IPVS is a high-performance kube-proxy mode. It uses Linux Virtual Server (LVS) to conduct service discovery and load balancing. This mode is suitable for ACK clusters that manage a large number of Services. We recommend that you use this mode in scenarios where high-performance load balancing is required.
      Labels	Add labels to the cluster. Enter a key and a value, and click Add. Note Key is required. Value is optional. Keys are not case-sensitive. A key must be 1 to 64 characters in length, and cannot start with aliyun, http://, or https://. Values are not case-sensitive. A value can be empty and can contain up to 128 characters in length. It cannot be http:// or https://. The keys of labels that are added to the same resource must be unique. If you add a label with a used key, the label overwrites the others that use the same key. If you add more than 20 labels to a resource, all labels become invalid. You must remove excess labels for the remaining labels to take effect.
      Cluster Domain	Set the domain name of the cluster. Note The default domain name is cluster.local. You can enter a custom domain name. A domain name consists of two parts. Each part must be 1 to 63 characters in length and can contain only letters and digits. You cannot leave these parts empty.
      Custom Certificate SANs	You can specify custom subject alternative names (SANs) for the API server certificate. Separate multiple IP addresses or domain names with commas (,). For more information, see Customize the SAN of the API server certificate for a managed Kubernetes cluster.
      Service Account Token Volume Projection	Service account token volume projection reduces security risks when pods use service accounts to access the API server. This feature enables kubelet to request and store the token on behalf of the pod. This feature also allows you to configure token properties, such as the audience and validity duration. For more information, see Enable service account token volume projection.

6. Click Next:Worker Configurations to configure worker nodes.
   Note To create an ACK cluster that runs sandboxed containers, you must select ECS Bare Metal instances as worker nodes.
   1. Configure basic settings of worker nodes.

      Parameter	Description
      Worker Instance	By default, Create Instance is selected. You cannot select Add Existing Instance.
      Billing Method	The pay-as-you-go and subscription billing methods are supported. If you select the subscription billing method, you must set the following parameters: Duration: You can select 1, 2, 3, or 6 months. If you require a longer duration, you can select 1 to 5 years. Auto Renewal: Specify whether to enable auto-renewal.
      Instance Type	Select ECS Bare Metal Instance. Only ECS Bare Metal instances are supported.
      Selected Types	The selected instance type is displayed. You can select only ECS Bare Metal Instance as the instance type.
      Quantity	Specify the number of worker nodes (ECS instances) to be created.
      System Disk	Enhanced SSDs, standard SSDs, and ultra disks are supported. Note You can select Enable Backup to back up disk data. If you select enhanced SSD as the system disk type, you can set a custom performance level for the system disk. You can select higher performance levels for enhanced SSDs with larger storage capacities. For example, you can select performance level 2 for an enhanced SSD with a storage capacity of more than 460 GiB. You can select performance level 3 for an enhanced SSD with a storage capacity of more than 1,260 GiB. For more information, see Capacity and PLs.
      Mount Data Disk	Enhanced SSDs, standard SSDs, and ultra disks are supported. You can enable disk encryption and disk backup when you mount a data disk. Notice The data disk is used to store the root file system of all containers on the node. Therefore, you must mount a disk of at least 200 GiB. We recommend that you mount a disk of at least 1 TB.
      Operating System	By default, the AliyunLinux operating system is used. You cannot not change the operating system.
      Logon Type	Key pair logon Key Pair: Select an SSH key pair from the drop-down list. create a key pair: Create an SSH key pair if none is available. For more information about how to create an SSH key pair, see Create an SSH key pair. After the key pair is created, set it as the credential that is used to log on to the cluster. Password logon Password: Enter the password that is used to log on to the nodes. Confirm Password: Enter the password again.

   2. Configure advanced settings of the worker nodes.

      Parameter	Description
      Node Protection	Specify whether to enable node protection. Note By default, this check box is selected. Node protection prevents nodes from being accidentally deleted in the console or by calling the API. This prevents user errors.
      User Data	For more information, see Overview of ECS instance user data.
      Custom Node Name	Specify whether to use a custom node name. A node name consists of a prefix, an IP substring, and a suffix. Both the prefix and suffix can contain one or more parts that are separated by periods (.).These parts can contain lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens (-), and must start and end with a lowercase letter or digit. The IP substring length specifies the number of digits to be truncated from the end of the returned node IP address. Valid values: 5 to 12. For example, if the node IP address is 192.1xx.x.xx, the prefix is aliyun.com, the IP substring length is 5, and the suffix is test, the node name will be aliyun.com00055test.
      CPU Policy	Set the CPU policy. none: This policy indicates that the default CPU affinity is used. This is the default policy. static: This policy allows pods with specific resource characteristics on the node to be granted with enhanced CPU affinity and exclusivity.
      Taints	Add taints to the worker nodes in the ACK cluster.

7. Click Next:Component Configurations to configure components.

   Parameter	Description
   Ingress	Specify whether to install Ingress controllers. By default, Install Ingress Controllers is selected. For more information, see Advanced Ingress configurations. Note If you want to select Create Ingress Dashboard, you must first enable Log Service.
   Volume Plug-in	Only CSI is supported by ACK clusters that run sandboxed containers. An ACK cluster can be automatically bound to cloud disks of Alibaba Cloud, Apsara File Storage NAS (NAS) file systems, and Object Storage Service (OSS) buckets that are mounted to pods in the cluster. For more information, see Storage management-CSI.
   Monitoring Agents	Specify whether to install the CloudMonitor agent. By default, Install CloudMonitor Agent on ECS Instance and Enable Prometheus Monitoring are selected. After the CloudMonitor agent is installed on ECS nodes, you can view monitoring data about the nodes in the CloudMonitor console.
   Alerts	Select Use Default Alert Template to enable the alerting feature and use the default alert rules. For more information, see Alert management.
   Log Service	Specify whether to enable Log Service. You can select an existing Log Service project or create one. By default, Enable Log Service is selected. When you create an application, you can enable Log Service through a few steps. For more information, see Collect log files from containers by using Log Service. By default, Install node-problem-detector and Create Event Center is selected. You can also specify whether to create Ingress dashboards in the Log Service console.
   Log Collection for Control Plane Components	If you select Enable, log of the control plane components is collected to the specified Log Service project that belongs to the current account. For more information, see Collect the logs of control plane components in a managed Kubernetes cluster.
   Workflow Engine	Specify whether to enable Alibaba Cloud Genomics Service (AGS). Note To use this feature, submit a ticket to apply to be added to a whitelist. If you select this check box, the system automatically installs the AGS workflow plug-in when the system creates the cluster. If you clear this check box, you must manually install the AGS workflow plug-in. For more information, see Introduction to AGS CLI.

8. Click Next:Confirm Order.
9. Select Terms of Service and click Create Cluster.
   Note It requires approximately 10 minutes for the system to create a managed Kubernetes cluster that contains multiple nodes.