Vagrant & Libvirt

Pre-requisities

Linux OS
Vagrant installed
vagrant-libvirt plugin installed
talosctl installed
kubectl installed

Overview

We will use Vagrant and its libvirt plugin to create a KVM-based cluster with 3 control plane nodes and 1 worker node. For this, we will mount Talos ISO into the VMs using a virtual CD-ROM, and configure the VMs to attempt to boot from the disk first with the fallback to the CD-ROM. We will also configure a virtual IP address on Talos to achieve high-availability on kube-apiserver.

Preparing the environment

First, we download the latest metal-amd64.iso ISO from GitHub releases into the /tmp directory. Create a Vagrantfile with the following contents:

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.define "control-plane-node-1" do |vm|
    vm.vm.provider :libvirt do |domain|
      domain.cpus = 2
      domain.memory = 2048
      domain.serial :type => "file", :source => {:path => "/tmp/control-plane-node-1.log"}
      domain.storage :file, :device => :cdrom, :path => "/tmp/metal-amd64.iso"
      domain.storage :file, :size => '4G', :type => 'raw'
      domain.boot 'hd'
      domain.boot 'cdrom'
    end
  end

  config.vm.define "control-plane-node-2" do |vm|
    vm.vm.provider :libvirt do |domain|
      domain.cpus = 2
      domain.memory = 2048
      domain.serial :type => "file", :source => {:path => "/tmp/control-plane-node-2.log"}
      domain.storage :file, :device => :cdrom, :path => "/tmp/metal-amd64.iso"
      domain.storage :file, :size => '4G', :type => 'raw'
      domain.boot 'hd'
      domain.boot 'cdrom'
    end
  end

  config.vm.define "control-plane-node-3" do |vm|
    vm.vm.provider :libvirt do |domain|
      domain.cpus = 2
      domain.memory = 2048
      domain.serial :type => "file", :source => {:path => "/tmp/control-plane-node-3.log"}
      domain.storage :file, :device => :cdrom, :path => "/tmp/metal-amd64.iso"
      domain.storage :file, :size => '4G', :type => 'raw'
      domain.boot 'hd'
      domain.boot 'cdrom'
    end
  end

  config.vm.define "worker-node-1" do |vm|
    vm.vm.provider :libvirt do |domain|
      domain.cpus = 1
      domain.memory = 1024
      domain.serial :type => "file", :source => {:path => "/tmp/worker-node-1.log"}
      domain.storage :file, :device => :cdrom, :path => "/tmp/metal-amd64.iso"
      domain.storage :file, :size => '4G', :type => 'raw'
      domain.boot 'hd'
      domain.boot 'cdrom'
    end
  end
end

Bring up the nodes

Check the status of vagrant VMs:

vagrant status

You should see the VMs in “not created” state:

Current machine states:

control-plane-node-1      not created (libvirt)
control-plane-node-2      not created (libvirt)
control-plane-node-3      not created (libvirt)
worker-node-1             not created (libvirt)

Bring up the vagrant environment:

vagrant up --provider=libvirt

Check the status again:

vagrant status

Now you should see the VMs in “running” state:

Current machine states:

control-plane-node-1      running (libvirt)
control-plane-node-2      running (libvirt)
control-plane-node-3      running (libvirt)
worker-node-1             running (libvirt)

Find out the IP addresses assigned by the libvirt DHCP by running:

virsh list | grep vagrant | awk '{print $2}' | xargs -t -L1 virsh domifaddr

Output will look like the following:

virsh domifaddr vagrant_control-plane-node-2
 Name       MAC address          Protocol     Address
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 vnet0      52:54:00:f9:10:e5    ipv4         192.168.121.119/24

virsh domifaddr vagrant_control-plane-node-1
 Name       MAC address          Protocol     Address
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 vnet1      52:54:00:0f:ae:59    ipv4         192.168.121.203/24

virsh domifaddr vagrant_worker-node-1
 Name       MAC address          Protocol     Address
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 vnet2      52:54:00:6f:28:95    ipv4         192.168.121.69/24

virsh domifaddr vagrant_control-plane-node-3
 Name       MAC address          Protocol     Address
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 vnet3      52:54:00:03:45:10    ipv4         192.168.121.125/24

Our control plane nodes have the IPs: 192.168.121.203, 192.168.121.119, 192.168.121.125 and the worker node has the IP 192.168.121.69. Now you should be able to interact with Talos nodes that are in maintenance mode:

talosctl -n 192.168.121.203 get disks --insecure

Sample output:

DEV        MODEL   SERIAL   TYPE   UUID   WWID   MODALIAS                    NAME   SIZE     BUS_PATH
/dev/vda   -       -        HDD    -      -      virtio:d00000002v00001AF4   -      8.6 GB   /pci0000:00/0000:00:03.0/virtio0/

Installing Talos

Pick an endpoint IP in the vagrant-libvirt subnet but not used by any nodes, for example 192.168.121.100. Generate a machine configuration:

talosctl gen config my-cluster https://192.168.121.100:6443 --install-disk /dev/vda

Edit controlplane.yaml to add the virtual IP you picked to a network interface under .machine.network.interfaces, for example:

machine:
  network:
    interfaces:
      - deviceSelector:
          physical: true # should select any hardware network device, if you have just one, it will be selected
        dhcp: true
        vip:
          ip: 192.168.121.100

Apply the configuration to the initial control plane node:

talosctl -n 192.168.121.203 apply-config --insecure --file controlplane.yaml

You can tail the logs of the node:

sudo tail -f /tmp/control-plane-node-1.log

Set up your shell to use the generated talosconfig and configure its endpoints (use the IPs of the control plane nodes):

export TALOSCONFIG=$(realpath ./talosconfig)
talosctl config endpoint 192.168.121.203 192.168.121.119 192.168.121.125

Bootstrap the Kubernetes cluster from the initial control plane node:

talosctl -n 192.168.121.203 bootstrap

Finally, apply the machine configurations to the remaining nodes:

talosctl -n 192.168.121.119 apply-config --insecure --file controlplane.yaml
talosctl -n 192.168.121.125 apply-config --insecure --file controlplane.yaml
talosctl -n 192.168.121.69 apply-config --insecure --file worker.yaml

After a while, you should see that all the members have joined:

talosctl -n 192.168.121.203 get members

The output will be like the following:

NODE              NAMESPACE   TYPE     ID                      VERSION   HOSTNAME                MACHINE TYPE   OS               ADDRESSES
192.168.121.203   cluster     Member   talos-192-168-121-119   1         talos-192-168-121-119   controlplane   Talos (v1.1.0)   ["192.168.121.119"]
192.168.121.203   cluster     Member   talos-192-168-121-69    1         talos-192-168-121-69    worker         Talos (v1.1.0)   ["192.168.121.69"]
192.168.121.203   cluster     Member   talos-192-168-121-203   6         talos-192-168-121-203   controlplane   Talos (v1.1.0)   ["192.168.121.100","192.168.121.203"]
192.168.121.203   cluster     Member   talos-192-168-121-125   1         talos-192-168-121-125   controlplane   Talos (v1.1.0)   ["192.168.121.125"]

Interacting with Kubernetes cluster

Retrieve the kubeconfig from the cluster:

talosctl -n 192.168.121.203 kubeconfig ./kubeconfig

List the nodes in the cluster:

kubectl --kubeconfig ./kubeconfig get node -owide

You will see an output similar to:

NAME                    STATUS   ROLES                  AGE     VERSION   INTERNAL-IP       EXTERNAL-IP   OS-IMAGE         KERNEL-VERSION   CONTAINER-RUNTIME
talos-192-168-121-203   Ready    control-plane,master   3m10s   v1.24.2   192.168.121.203   <none>        Talos (v1.1.0)   5.15.48-talos    containerd://1.6.6
talos-192-168-121-69    Ready    <none>                 2m25s   v1.24.2   192.168.121.69    <none>        Talos (v1.1.0)   5.15.48-talos    containerd://1.6.6
talos-192-168-121-119   Ready    control-plane,master   8m46s   v1.24.2   192.168.121.119   <none>        Talos (v1.1.0)   5.15.48-talos    containerd://1.6.6
talos-192-168-121-125   Ready    control-plane,master   3m11s   v1.24.2   192.168.121.125   <none>        Talos (v1.1.0)   5.15.48-talos    containerd://1.6.6

Congratulations, you have a highly-available Talos cluster running!

Cleanup

You can destroy the vagrant environment by running:

vagrant destroy -f

And remove the ISO image you downloaded:

sudo rm -f /tmp/metal-amd64.iso

Overview

Getting Started

Platform specific installation

Deploying and managing workloads

Kubernetes infrastructure and management

Networking

Security

Build and extend Talos

Configure your Talos cluster

Advanced guides

Troubleshooting and support

Learn more

Pre-requisities

Overview

Preparing the environment

Bring up the nodes

Installing Talos

Interacting with Kubernetes cluster

Cleanup

Overview

Getting Started

Platform specific installation

Deploying and managing workloads

Kubernetes infrastructure and management

Networking

Security

Build and extend Talos

Configure your Talos cluster

Advanced guides

Troubleshooting and support

Learn more

​Pre-requisities

​Overview

​Preparing the environment

​Bring up the nodes

​Installing Talos

​Interacting with Kubernetes cluster

​Cleanup

Pre-requisities

Overview

Preparing the environment

Bring up the nodes

Installing Talos

Interacting with Kubernetes cluster

Cleanup