Installation

Scaling options

The module supports the following configuration:

• Maximum number of nodes: 1000.
• Maximum number of virtual machines: 50000.

The module has no additional restrictions and is compatible with any hardware that is supported by operating systems on which it can be installed.

Hardware requirements

1. A dedicated machine for installation.

   This machine will run the Deckhouse installer. For example, it can be an administrator’s laptop or any other computer that is not intended to be added to the cluster. Requirements for this machine:

   • OS: Windows 10+, macOS 10.15+, Linux (Ubuntu 18.04+, Fedora 35+).
   • Installed Docker Engine or Docker Desktop (instructions for Ubuntu, macOS, Windows).
   • HTTPS access to the container image registry at registry.deckhouse.io.
   • SSH-key-based access to the node that will serve as the master node of the future cluster.
   • SSH-key-based access to the node that will serve as the worker node of the future cluster (if the cluster will consist of more than one master node).

2. Server for the master node

   There can be multiple servers running the cluster’s control plane components, but only one server is required for installation. The others can be added later via node management mechanisms.

   Requirements for a physical bare-metal server:

   • Resources:
     • CPU:
       • x86-64 architecture.
       • Support for Intel-VT (VMX) or AMD-V (SVM) instructions.
       • At least 4 cores.
     • RAM: At least 8 GB.
     • Disk space:
       • At least 60 GB.
       • High-speed disk (400+ IOPS).
   • OS from the list of supported ones:
     • Linux kernel version 5.7 or newer.
   • Unique hostname across all servers in the future cluster.
   • Network access:
     • HTTPS access to the container image registry at registry.deckhouse.io.
     • Access to the package repositories of the chosen OS.
     • SSH key-based access from the installation machine (see item 1).
     • Network access from the installation machine (see item 1) on port 22322/TCP.
   • Required software:
     • The cloud-utils and cloud-init packages must be installed (package names may vary depending on the chosen OS).

   The container runtime will be installed automatically, so there’s no need to install any containerd or docker packages.

3. Servers for worker nodes

   These nodes will run virtual machines, so the servers must have enough resources to handle the planned number of VMs. Additional disks may be required if you deploy a software-defined storage solution.

   Requirements for a physical bare-metal server:

   • Resources:
     • CPU:
       • x86-64 architecture.
       • Support for Intel-VT (VMX) or AMD-V (SVM) instructions.
       • At least 4 cores.
     • RAM: At least 8 GB.
     • Disk space:
       • At least 60 GB.
       • High-speed disk (400+ IOPS).
       • Additional disks for software-defined storage.
   • OS from the list of supported ones:
     • Linux kernel version 5.7 or newer;
   • Unique hostname across all servers in the future cluster.
   • Network access:
     • HTTPS access to the container image registry at registry.deckhouse.io.
     • Access to the package repositories of the chosen OS.
     • SSH key-based access from the installation machine (see item 1).
   • Required software:
     • The cloud-utils and cloud-init packages must be installed (package names may vary depending on the chosen OS).

   The container runtime will be installed automatically, so there’s no need to install any containerd or docker packages.

4. Storage hardware

   Depending on the chosen storage solution, additional resources may be required. For details, refer to Storage Management.

Supported OS for platform nodes

Supported guest operating systems

The virtualization platform supports operating systems running on x86 and x86_64 architectures as guest operating systems. For correct operation in paravirtualization mode, VirtIO drivers must be installed to ensure efficient interaction between the virtual machine and the hypervisor.

Successful startup of the operating system is determined by the following criteria:

• Correct installation and booting of the OS.
• Uninterrupted operation of key components such as networking and storage.
• No crashes or errors during operation.

For Linux family operating systems, it is recommended to use guest OS images with cloud-init support, which allows initializing virtual machines after their creation.

For Windows family operating systems, the platform supports initialization with autounattend installation.

Supported virtual machine configurations

• Maximum number of cores supported: 248.
• Maximum amount of RAM: 1024 GB.

Supported storage systems

Virtual machines use PersistentVolume resources. To manage these resources and allocate disk space within the cluster, one or more supported storage systems must be installed:

Installation

1. Deploy the Deckhouse Kubernetes Platform cluster following the instructions.

2. To store virtual machine data (virtual disks and images), enable one or multiple supported storages.

3. Set the default StorageClass:

   # Specify the name of your StorageClass object.
   DEFAULT_STORAGE_CLASS=replicated-storage-class
   sudo -i d8 k patch mc global --type='json' -p='[{"op": "replace", "path": "/spec/settings/defaultClusterStorageClass", "value": "'"$DEFAULT_STORAGE_CLASS"'"}]'
   

4. Turn on the console module, which will allow you to manage virtualization components through the Deckhouse web UI (available only for users of the Enterprise Edition).

5. Enable the virtualization module:

   Enabling the virtualization module involves restarting kubelet/containerd and cilium agents on all nodes where virtual machines are supposed to start. This is necessary to configure the connectivity of containerd and DVCR.

   To enable the virtualization module, create a ModuleConfig resource with the module settings.

   Detailed settings are described in the Administrator guide.

   Example of module configuration:

   d8 k apply -f - <<EOF
   apiVersion: deckhouse.io/v1alpha1
   kind: ModuleConfig
   metadata:
     name: virtualization
   spec:
     enabled: true
     settings:
       dvcr:
         storage:
           persistentVolumeClaim:
             size: 50G
           type: PersistentVolumeClaim
       virtualMachineCIDRs:
         - 10.66.10.0/24
     version: 1
   EOF
   

   Where:

   • The .spec.settings.dvcr block describes the settings for the repository for storing virtual machine images. It specifies the size of the storage provided for storing images .spec.settings.dvcr.storage.persistentVolumeClaim.size and the storage class .spec.settings.dvcr.storage.persistentVolumeClaim.storageClassName.
   • The .spec.settings.virtualMachineCIDRs block specifies the list of subnets. Virtual machine addresses will be allocated automatically or on request from the specified subnet ranges in order.

   Subnets of .spec.settings.virtualMachineCIDRs block must not overlap with subnets of nodes, subnet of services, and pods.

   It is forbidden to delete subnets if addresses from them have already been given to virtual machines.

   To check if the module is ready, use the following command:

   d8 k get modules virtualization
   

   Example output:

   NAME             WEIGHT   SOURCE      PHASE   ENABLED   READY
   virtualization   900      deckhouse   Ready   True      True
   

   The module phase should be Ready.

Module update

The virtualization module uses five update channels designed for use in different environments that have different requirements in terms of reliability:

The virtualization module components can be updated automatically or with manual confirmation, as updates are released in update channels.

For information on versions available at the update channels, visit https://releases.deckhouse.io/.