Container Service for Kubernetes:Create an ACK managed cluster that runs sandboxed containers

Limits

• ACK clusters support only virtual private clouds (VPCs).

• By default, each account has specific quotas on cloud resources that can be created. You cannot create clusters if the quota is reached. For more information about quotas, see Limits.

  • By default, you can add at most 200 route entries to the virtual private cloud (VPC) where an ACK cluster is deployed. This means that you can configure at most 200 route entries for an ACK cluster deployed in a VPC. If you want to create more route entries, Go to the Quota Center page to submit a ticket.

  • By default, you can create at most 100 security groups with each account.
  • By default, you can create at most 60 pay-as-you-go SLB instances with each account.
  • By default, you can create at most 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 ECS bare metal instances are available for purchase in the selected zone.
  Kubernetes Version	Select 1.14.6-aliyun.1 or later.
  Container Runtime	Select Sandboxed-Container.
  Worker Instance	Create 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	Sandboxed-Container supports only the Alibaba Cloud Linux 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 Dedicated Kubernetes tab, configure the cluster.

   1. Configure basic settings of the cluster.

      Parameter	Description
      Cluster Name	Enter a name for the cluster. Note The name must be 1 to 63 characters in length, and can contain digits, letters, hyphens (-), and underscores (_). The name cannot start with an underscore (_).
      Cluster Specification	Select a cluster type. You can select Professional or Standard edition. We recommend that you use Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) Pro clusters in the production environment and test environment. ACK standard clusters can meet the learning and testing needs of individual users.
      Region	Select a region to deploy the cluster.
      Billing Method	Two billing methods are supported: Pay-As-You-Go and Subscription. If you select the subscription billing method, you must set the following parameters: Note If you set Billing Method to Subscription, only Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances and Server Load Balancer (SLB) instances are billed on a subscription basis. Other cloud resources are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. For more information about the billing rules of Alibaba Cloud resources, see Billing of cloud services. Duration: You can select 1, 2, 3, or 6 months. If you require a longer duration, you can select 1 year, 2 years, or 3 years. Auto Renewal: Specify whether to enable auto-renewal.
      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 that belong to the resource group are displayed. 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 and manage 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 and manage 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 offers a few simple features and does not support standard Kubernetes network policies. Terway: a network plug-in developed by Alibaba Cloud Container Service. Terway allows you to assign Alibaba Cloud Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) to containers. It also allows you to customize network policies of Kubernetes 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 a 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. When you set Network Plug-in to Terway, you can configure the following parameters: Specify whether to enable the Assign One ENI to Each Pod feature. To use the Assign One ENI to Each Pod feature, you need to log on to the Quota Center console and submit an application. If you select the check box, a separate ENI is assigned to each pod. Note After you select Assign One ENI to Each Pod, the maximum number of pods supported by a node is reduced. Exercise caution before you enable this feature. If you clear the check box, an ENI is shared among multiple pods. A secondary IP address that is provided by the ENI is assigned to each pod. Specify whether to use IPVLAN. This option is available only when you clear Assign One ENI to Each Pod. If you select IPVLAN, IPVLAN and extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) are used for network virtualization when an ENI is shared among multiple pods. This improves network performance. Only the Alibaba Cloud Linux operating system is supported. If you clear IPVLAN, policy-based routes are used for network virtualization when an ENI is shared among multiple pods. The CentOS 7 and Alibaba Cloud Linux operating systems are supported. This is the default setting. For more information about the IPVLAN feature in Terway mode, see Terway IPVLAN. Select or clear Support for NetworkPolicy. The NetworkPolicy feature is available only when you clear Assign One ENI to Each Pod. By default, Assign One ENI to Each Pod is unselected. If you select Support for NetworkPolicy, you can use Kubernetes network policies to control the communication among pods. If you clear Support for NetworkPolicy, you cannot use Kubernetes network policies to control the communication among pods. This prevents Kubernetes network policies from overloading the Kubernetes API server. Select or clear Support for ENI Trunking. To use the Support for ENI Trunking feature, you need to log on to the Quota Center console and submit an application. The Terway Trunk elastic network interface (ENI) feature allows you to specify a static IP address, a separate vSwitch, and a separate security group for each pod. This allows you to manage and isolate user traffic, configure network policies, and manage IP addresses in a fine-grained manner. For more information, see Configure a static IP address, a separate vSwitch, and a separate security group for each pod.
      Number of Pods per Node	If you set Network Plug-in to Flannel, you must set Number of Pods per Node.
      Pod CIDR Block	If you select Flannel, you must set Pod CIDR Block. The pod CIDR block must not overlap with the CIDR block of the VPC, the CIDR blocks of the ACK clusters in the VPC, or the Service CIDR block. The pod CIDR block cannot be modified after it is specified. For more information about how to plan CIDR blocks for an ACK cluster, see Plan CIDR blocks for an ACK cluster.
      Pod vSwitch	If you select Terway as the network plug-in, you must select vSwitches to allocate IP addresses 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 Service CIDR block must not overlap with the CIDR block of the VPC, the CIDR blocks of the ACK clusters in the VPC, or the pod CIDR block. The Service CIDR block cannot be modified after it is specified. For more information about how to plan CIDR blocks for an ACK cluster, 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 cluster cannot access the Internet, you can select Configure SNAT for VPC. This way, ACK will create a NAT gateway and configure SNAT rules to enable Internet access for the VPC.
      Access to API Server	By default, an internal-facing SLB instance is created for the Kubernetes API server of the cluster. You can modify the specification of the SLB instance. For more information, see Instance specifications. Important If you delete the SLB instance, you cannot access the API server of the cluster. 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 SLB instance. Port 6443 used by the API server is opened on master nodes. You can connect to and manage the cluster by using kubeconfig files over the Internet. If you clear this check box, no EIP is created. You can connect to and manage the cluster by using kubeconfig files only from within the VPC.
      Security Group	You can select Create Basic Security Group, Create Advanced Security Group, or Select Existing Security Group. For more information about security groups, see Overview. Note To enable the Select Existing Security Group option, apply to be added to the whitelist in Quota Center. If you select an existing security group, the system does not automatically configure security group rules. This may cause errors when you access the nodes in the cluster. You must manually configure security group rules. For more information, see Configure security group rules to enforce access control on ACK clusters.
      Deletion Protection	Specify whether to enable deletion protection for the cluster. Deletion protection can prevent clusters from being accidentally released by using the console or API.
      Resource Group	The resource group that owns the cluster to be created. Each resource can belong only to one resource group. You can regard a resource group as a project, an application, or an organization based on your business scenarios. For more information, see Resource groups.

   2. Configure advanced settings of the cluster.

      Parameter	Description
      Time Zone	Select a time zone for the cluster. By default, the time zone of 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 Kubernetes cluster. This mode is suitable for Kubernetes 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 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 nodes in the cluster. 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 cannot exceed 128 characters in length and cannot contain http:// or https://. A value 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 label that uses 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 when you create an ACK cluster.
      Service Account Token Volume Projection	ACK provides service account token volume projection to reduce security risks when pods use service accounts to access the Kubernetes API server. This feature enables kubelet to request and store the token on behalf of a pod. This feature also allows you to configure token properties, such as the audience and validity period. 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.
      Node Pool Name	Specify a node pool name.
      Instance Type	Select ECS Bare Metal Instance. Sandboxed-Container supports only ECS bare metal instances.
      Selected Types	The selected instance types are 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. The types of system disks that you can select depend on the instance types that you select. For more information about the disk types supported by different instance types, see Overview of instance families. Disk types that are not displayed in the drop-down list are not supported by the instance types that you select. Note 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. The Encrypt Disk option is available only for ESSDs. System disks support only the aes-256 encryption algorithm. For more information about system disk encryption, see Encrypt a system disk.
      Mount Data Disk	ESSDs, standard SSDs, and ultra disks are supported. The disk types that you can select depend on the instance types that you select. For more information about the disk types supported by different instance types, see Overview of instance families. Disk types that are not displayed in the drop-down list are not supported by the instance types that you select. Note If you select ESSD as the system disk type, you can set a custom performance level for the system disk. You can select higher performance levels for ESSDs with larger storage capacities. For example, you can select performance level 2 for an ESSD with a storage capacity of more than 460 GiB. You can select performance level 3 for an ESSD with a storage capacity of more than 1,260 GiB. For more information, see Capacity and PLs. The Encrypt Disk option is available only for ESSDs. Data disks support only the aes-256 and sm4-128 encryption algorithms. The China (Nanjing - Local Region), China (Fuzhou - Local Region), Thailand (Bangkok), and South Korea (Seoul) regions support only the Default Service CMK for data disk encryption. The Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) feature is not supported by these regions. For more information about data disk encryption, see Encrypt a data disk. The maximum number of data disks that can be mounted depends on the instance types that you select. You can view the selected data disks and the remaining number of data disks that you can mount on the right side of Mount Data Disk. Important The data disk is used to store the root file systems 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	The Alibaba Cloud Linux operating system is the default operating system for a cluster that runs sandboxed containers. You cannot change the operating system.
      Logon Type	Valid values: Key Pair, Password, and Later. Note If you select Reinforcement based on classified protection for the Security Reinforcement parameter, only the Key Pair option is supported. Configure the logon type when you create the node pool: Key Pair: Alibaba Cloud SSH key pairs provide a secure and convenient method to log on to ECS instances. An SSH key pair consists of a public key and a private key. SSH key pairs support only Linux instances. For more information, see Overview. Password: The password must be 8 to 30 characters in length, and must contain uppercase letters, lowercase letters, digits, and special characters. Configure the logon type after you create the node pool: For more information, see Bind an SSH key pair to an instance and Reset the logon password of an instance.

   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. Node protection prevents nodes from being accidentally deleted in the console or by calling the API.
      User Data	For more information, see Overview of ECS instance user data.
      Custom Node Name	Specify whether to use a custom node name. If you choose to use a custom node name, the name of the node, name of the ECS instance, and hostname of the ECS instance are changed. A custom node name consists of a prefix, an IP address, and a suffix. A custom node name must be 2 to 64 characters in length. The prefix and suffix can contain letters, digits, hyphens (-), and periods (.). The prefix and suffix must start with a letter and cannot end with a hyphen (-) or period (.). The prefix and suffix cannot contain consecutive hyphens (-) or periods (.). Due to the ECS instance limit, the prefix is required. The suffix is optional. For a Windows node that uses a custom node name, the hostname of the ECS instance is fixed to the IP address of the node. In the hostname, hyphens (-) are used to replace the periods (.) in the IP address. The hostname does not include the prefix or suffix. For example, the node IP address is 192.1xx.x.xx, the prefix is aliyun.com, and the suffix is test. If the node runs Linux, the name of the node, name of the ECS instance, and hostname of the ECS instance are aliyun.com192.1xx.x.xxtest. If the node runs Windows, the hostname of the ECS instance is 192-1xx-x-xx, and the names of the node and ECS instance are aliyun.com192.1xx.x.xxtest.
      RDS Whitelist	Click Select RDS Instance to add node IP addresses to the whitelist of an ApsaraDB RDS instance.
      CPU Policy	Specify the CPU management policy for the kubelet on nodes in the node pool. None: The default CPU management policy. Static: This policy allows pods with specific resource characteristics on the node to be granted enhanced CPU affinity and exclusivity. For more information, see CPU management policies.
      Taints	Add taints to nodes. A taint consists of a key, a value, and an effect. A taint key can be prefixed. If you want to specify a prefixed taint key, add a forward slash (/) between the prefix and the remaining content of the key. For more information, see Taints and tolerations. The following limits apply to taints: Key: A key must be 1 to 63 characters in length, and can contain letters, digits, hyphens (-), underscores (_), and periods (.). A key must start and end with a letter or digit. If you want to specify a prefixed key, the prefix must be a subdomain name. A subdomain name consists of DNS labels that are separated by periods (.), and cannot exceed 253 characters in length. It must end with a forward slash (/). For more information about subdomain names, see Subdomain names. Value: A value cannot exceed 63 characters in length, and can contain letters, digits, hyphens (-), underscores (_), and periods (.). A value must start and end with a letter or digit. You can also leave a value empty. You can specify the following effects for a taint: NoSchedule, NoExecute, and PreferNoSchedule. NoSchedule: If a node has a taint whose effect is NoSchedule, the system does not schedule pods to the node. NoExecute: Pods that do not tolerate this taint are evicted after this taint is added to a node. Pods that tolerate this taint are not evicted after this taint is added to a node. PreferNoSchedule: The system attempts to avoid scheduling pods to nodes with taints that are not tolerated by the pods.

7. Click Next:Component Configurations to configure components.

   Parameter	Description
   Ingress	Specify whether to install an Ingress controller. By default, Nginx Ingress is selected. Valid values: Do Not Install. Nginx Ingress. For more information about NGINX Ingresses, see Advanced NGINX Ingress configurations. ALB Ingress. For more information about how to access Services in a cluster by using ALB Ingresses, see Access Services by using an ALB Ingress. MSE Ingress. For more information about how to access Services in a cluster by using Microservices Engine (MSE) Ingresses, see Use MSE Ingresses to access applications in ACK clusters. Note If you want to select Create Ingress Dashboard, you must first enable Log Service.
   Service Discovery	Specify whether to install NodeLocal DNSCache. By default, NodeLocal DNSCache is installed. NodeLocal DNSCache runs a Domain Name System (DNS) caching agent to improve the performance and stability of DNS resolution. For more information about NodeLocal DNSCache, see Configure NodeLocal DNSCache.
   Volume Plug-in	Only the Container Storage Interface (CSI) plug-in 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	Enable Prometheus Monitoring is selected by default to monitor ACK clusters and generate alerts.
   Alerts	Use Default Alert Rule Template is selected by default to enable alert rules. After you select this check box, you can specify contacts and contact groups. The default is Default Contact Group. 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 with a few steps. For more information, see Collect log data from containers by using Log Service. By default, Install node-problem-detector and Create Event Center is selected. You can specify whether to enable the Kubernetes event center in the Log Service console. For more information, see Create and use an event center.
   Log Collection for Control Plane Components	By default, Enable is selected to collect the logs of the control plane components in ACK managed clusters to your projects in Log Service. For more information, see Collect the logs of control plane components in ACK Pro clusters.
   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 an ACK managed cluster that contains multiple nodes.