Create a managed Kubernetes cluster that runs sandboxed containers

Limits

• SLB instances that are created together with the ACK cluster support only the pay-as-you-go billing method.
• ACK clusters support only Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) networks.
• By default, you can create only a limited amount of cloud resources with each Alibaba Cloud account. You cannot create clusters if the quotas are exhausted. Make sure that you have sufficient resource 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.
  • You can create up to 100 security groups under each account.
  • You can create up to 60 pay-as-you-go SLB instances under each account.
  • You can create up to 20 elastic IP addresses (EIPs) under 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 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 AliyunLinux operating system is used. You cannot 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. It can contain digits, letters, and hyphens (-).
      Cluster Specification	Select a cluster type. Standard edition and Professional are supported.
      Region	Select the region where you want to create the cluster.
      Resource Group	Move the pointer over All Resources at the top of the page and select the resource group to which the cluster belongs. The name of the selected resource group is displayed.
      Kubernetes Version	Select a Kubernetes version.
      Container Runtime	Select Sandboxed-Container.
      VPC	Select a virtual private cloud (VPC) to deploy the cluster. Shared VPCs and standard VPCs are supported. Shared VPC: The owner of a VPC (resource owner) can share vSwitches in the VPC under the account of the owner with other accounts in the same organization. Standard VPC: The owner of a VPC (resource owner) cannot share vSwitches in the VPC under the account of the owner 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. Both Flannel and Terway are supported. For more information, see Work with Terway. Flannel: a simple and stable Container Network Interface (CNI) plug-in that is developed by the Kubernetes community. 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 control intercommunication among containers 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 the Terway 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.
      Pod CIDR Block	If you set Network Plug-in to Flannel, you must set Pod CIDR Block. The CIDR block specified by Pod CIDR Block cannot overlap with that of the VPC or the CIDR blocks of existing ACK clusters in the VPC. After you create the cluster, you cannot modify the pod CIDR block. 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, you must allocate vSwitches to pods. Each pod vSwitch must correspond to a worker vSwitch.
      Service CIDR	Set Service CIDR. The CIDR block specified by Service CIDR cannot overlap with that of the VPC or the CIDR blocks of existing ACK clusters in the VPC. After you create the cluster, you cannot modify the Service CIDR block. In addition, 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.
      IP Addresses per Node	If you set Network Plug-in to Flannel, 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.
      Configure SNAT	By default, an ACK cluster cannot be accessed over the Internet. If the VPC that you select for the ACK cluster cannot access the Internet, you can select Configure SNAT for VPC. Then, ACK creates a Network Address Translation (NAT) gateway and configures Source Network Address Translation (SNAT) entries 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 API server. You can modify the specifications of the SLB instance. For more information, see Specification. Notice If you delete the SLB instance, you cannot access the 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 attached to 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 only by using kubeconfig from within the VPC.
      RDS Whitelist	Set the Relational Database Service (RDS) whitelist. Add the IP addresses of nodes in the ACK cluster to the RDS whitelist. Note To enable an RDS instance to access the ACK cluster, you must deploy the RDS instance in the VPC where the ACK 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.

   2. Configure advanced settings of the cluster.

      Parameter	Description
      Kube-proxy Mode	IPVS and iptables 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 cluster nodes. Enter a key and a value, and then 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 must be 1 to 128 characters in length and cannot start with http:// or https://. This parameter can be empty. 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 one that uses the same key. You can add up to 20 labels to each resource. If you add more than 20 labels to a resource, all labels become invalid. You must remove unused labels for the remaining labels to take effect.
      Cluster Domain	Set the domain name of the ACK 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 enter custom subject alternative names (SANs) for the API server of the cluster. Separate multiple IP addresses or domain names with commas (,).
      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 Deploy service account token volume projection.
      Deletion Protection	Specify whether to enable deletion protection. If you select this check box, the ACK cluster cannot be deleted in the console or by calling the API. This prevents user errors.

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 Subscription, you must set the following parameters: Duration: You can select 1 Month, 2 Months, 3 Months, 6 Months, 1 Year, 2 Years, 3 Years, 4 Years, or 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, SSDs, and ultra disks are supported. Note You can select Enable Backup to back up disk data. If you select an enhanced SSD as the system disk, you can also set a custom performance level for the 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 over 460 GiB. You can select performance level 3 for an enhanced SSD with a storage capacity of over 1,260 GiB. For more information, see Capacity and PLs of ESSDs.
      Mount Data Disk	Enhanced SSDs, SSDs, and ultra disks are supported. You can enable disk encryption and backup when you mount data disks. Notice The data disk is used to store the root file system of all containers on the node. Therefore, you must 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 AliyunLinux operating system is used. You cannot 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 no SSH key pair 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. Set the password. Password: Enter the password that is used to log on to the nodes. Confirm Password: Enter the password again.

   2. Configure advanced settings of worker nodes.

      Parameter	Description
      Node Protection	Specify whether to enable node protection. Note By default, this check box is selected. The nodes in the ACK cluster cannot be deleted in the console or by calling the API. This prevents user errors.
      User Data	For more information, see Prepare 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 with 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 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 Configure an Ingress. 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. ACK clusters can be automatically bound to Alibaba Cloud disks, Apsara File Storage NAS (NAS) file systems, and Object Storage Service (OSS) buckets that are mounted to pods. For more information, see Storage management-CSI.
   Monitoring Agents	Specify whether to install the Cloud Monitor agent. By default, Install CloudMonitor Agent on ECS Instance and Enable Prometheus Monitoring are selected. After the Cloud Monitor agent is installed on ECS instance-based nodes, you can view monitoring data about the nodes in the Cloud Monitor console.
   Log Service	Specify whether to enable Log Service. You can select an existing Log Service project or create a new one. By default, Enable Log Service is selected. When you create an application, you can perform a few simple steps to enable Log Service. For more information, see Use Log Service to collect container logs. You can also select or clear Collect Logs of Control Plane Components. If you select this check box, logs of components on the ACK control plane are collected to the Log Service project under your account. For more information, see Collect log data of control plane components from a managed Kubernetes cluster. Note By default, Collect Logs of Control Plane Components is selected for a professional managed Kubernetes cluster. By default, Install node-problem-detector and Create Event Center is selected. You can also specify whether to create Ingress dashboard in the Log Service console.
   Workflow Engine	Specify whether to enable Alibaba Cloud Genomics Compute Service (AGS). If you select this check box, the system automatically installs the AGS workflow plug-in when the system creates the ACK 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 takes approximately 10 minutes for the system to create a managed Kubernetes cluster that contains multiple nodes.