Kubeadm defaults to running a single member etcd cluster in a static pod managed by the kubelet on the control plane node. This is not a high availability setup as the etcd cluster contains only one member and cannot sustain any members becoming unavailable. This task walks through the process of creating a high availability etcd cluster of three members that can be used as an external etcd when using kubeadm to set up a kubernetes cluster.
ssh
and scp
can satisfy this requirement.The general approach is to generate all certs on one node and only distribute the necessary files to the other nodes.
Note: kubeadm contains all the necessary crytographic machinery to generate the certificates described below; no other cryptographic tooling is required for this example.
Configure the kubelet to be a service manager for etcd.
Running etcd is simpler than running kubernetes so you must override the kubeadm-provided kubelet unit file by creating a new one with a higher precedence.
cat << EOF > /etc/systemd/system/kubelet.service.d/20-etcd-service-manager.conf
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/bin/kubelet --address=127.0.0.1 --pod-manifest-path=/etc/kubernetes/manifests --allow-privileged=true
Restart=always
EOF
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl restart kubelet
Create configuration files for kubeadm.
Generate one kubeadm configuration file for each host that will have an etcd member running on it using the following script.
# Update HOST0, HOST1, and HOST2 with the IPs or resolvable names of your hosts
export HOST0=10.0.0.6
export HOST1=10.0.0.7
export HOST2=10.0.0.8
# Create temp directories to store files that will end up on other hosts.
mkdir -p /tmp/${HOST0}/ /tmp/${HOST1}/ /tmp/${HOST2}/
ETCDHOSTS=(${HOST0} ${HOST1} ${HOST2})
NAMES=("infra0" "infra1" "infra2")
for i in "${!ETCDHOSTS[@]}"; do
HOST=${ETCDHOSTS[$i]}
NAME=${NAMES[$i]}
cat << EOF > /tmp/${HOST}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
apiVersion: "kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta1"
kind: ClusterConfiguration
etcd:
local:
serverCertSANs:
- "${HOST}"
peerCertSANs:
- "${HOST}"
extraArgs:
initial-cluster: infra0=https://${ETCDHOSTS[0]}:2380,infra1=https://${ETCDHOSTS[1]}:2380,infra2=https://${ETCDHOSTS[2]}:2380
initial-cluster-state: new
name: ${NAME}
listen-peer-urls: https://${HOST}:2380
listen-client-urls: https://${HOST}:2379
advertise-client-urls: https://${HOST}:2379
initial-advertise-peer-urls: https://${HOST}:2380
EOF
done
Generate the certificate authority
If you already have a CA then the only action that is copying the CA’s crt
and
key
file to /etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/ca.crt
and
/etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/ca.key
. After those files have been copied,
proceed to the next step, “Create certificates for each member”.
If you do not already have a CA then run this command on $HOST0
(where you
generated the configuration files for kubeadm).
kubeadm init phase certs etcd-ca
This creates two files
/etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/ca.crt
/etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/ca.key
Create certificates for each member
kubeadm init phase certs etcd-server --config=/tmp/${HOST2}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
kubeadm init phase certs etcd-peer --config=/tmp/${HOST2}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
kubeadm init phase certs etcd-healthcheck-client --config=/tmp/${HOST2}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
kubeadm init phase certs apiserver-etcd-client --config=/tmp/${HOST2}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
cp -R /etc/kubernetes/pki /tmp/${HOST2}/
# cleanup non-reusable certificates
find /etc/kubernetes/pki -not -name ca.crt -not -name ca.key -type f -delete
kubeadm init phase certs etcd-server --config=/tmp/${HOST1}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
kubeadm init phase certs etcd-peer --config=/tmp/${HOST1}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
kubeadm init phase certs etcd-healthcheck-client --config=/tmp/${HOST1}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
kubeadm init phase certs apiserver-etcd-client --config=/tmp/${HOST1}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
cp -R /etc/kubernetes/pki /tmp/${HOST1}/
find /etc/kubernetes/pki -not -name ca.crt -not -name ca.key -type f -delete
kubeadm init phase certs etcd-server --config=/tmp/${HOST0}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
kubeadm init phase certs etcd-peer --config=/tmp/${HOST0}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
kubeadm init phase certs etcd-healthcheck-client --config=/tmp/${HOST0}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
kubeadm init phase certs apiserver-etcd-client --config=/tmp/${HOST0}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
# No need to move the certs because they are for HOST0
# clean up certs that should not be copied off this host
find /tmp/${HOST2} -name ca.key -type f -delete
find /tmp/${HOST1} -name ca.key -type f -delete
Copy certificates and kubeadm configs
The certificates have been generated and now they must be moved to their respective hosts.
USER=ubuntu
HOST=${HOST1}
scp -r /tmp/${HOST}/* ${USER}@${HOST}:
ssh ${USER}@${HOST}
USER@HOST $ sudo -Es
root@HOST $ chown -R root:root pki
root@HOST $ mv pki /etc/kubernetes/
Ensure all expected files exist
The complete list of required files on $HOST0
is:
/tmp/${HOST0}
└── kubeadmcfg.yaml
---
/etc/kubernetes/pki
├── apiserver-etcd-client.crt
├── apiserver-etcd-client.key
└── etcd
├── ca.crt
├── ca.key
├── healthcheck-client.crt
├── healthcheck-client.key
├── peer.crt
├── peer.key
├── server.crt
└── server.key
On $HOST1
:
$HOME
└── kubeadmcfg.yaml
---
/etc/kubernetes/pki
├── apiserver-etcd-client.crt
├── apiserver-etcd-client.key
└── etcd
├── ca.crt
├── healthcheck-client.crt
├── healthcheck-client.key
├── peer.crt
├── peer.key
├── server.crt
└── server.key
On $HOST2
$HOME
└── kubeadmcfg.yaml
---
/etc/kubernetes/pki
├── apiserver-etcd-client.crt
├── apiserver-etcd-client.key
└── etcd
├── ca.crt
├── healthcheck-client.crt
├── healthcheck-client.key
├── peer.crt
├── peer.key
├── server.crt
└── server.key
Create the static pod manifests
Now that the certificates and configs are in place it’s time to create the
manifests. On each host run the kubeadm
command to generate a static manifest
for etcd.
root@HOST0 $ kubeadm init phase etcd local --config=/tmp/${HOST0}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
root@HOST1 $ kubeadm init phase etcd local --config=/home/ubuntu/kubeadmcfg.yaml
root@HOST2 $ kubeadm init phase etcd local --config=/home/ubuntu/kubeadmcfg.yaml
Optional: Check the cluster health
docker run --rm -it \
--net host \
-v /etc/kubernetes:/etc/kubernetes quay.io/coreos/etcd:${ETCD_TAG} etcdctl \
--cert-file /etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/peer.crt \
--key-file /etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/peer.key \
--ca-file /etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/ca.crt \
--endpoints https://${HOST0}:2379 cluster-health
...
cluster is healthy
${ETCD_TAG}
to the version tag of your etcd image. For example v3.2.24
.${HOST0}
to the IP address of the host you are testing.Once your have a working 3 member etcd cluster, you can continue setting up a highly available control plane using the external etcd method with kubeadm.
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