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Creating a Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) cluster

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Instructions on setting up a managed k8s cluster on the Google Cloud Platform

Prerequisites

You will need the following:

A Google account and project

Log in to GCP, and select or create a Project where you will create the k8s cluster.

Gcloud

The Google Cloud CLI. Visit https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install for instructions to install.

Kubectl

The Kubernetes command-line tool, kubectl, allows you to run commands against Kubernetes clusters. Download it from Kubernetes.io.

Create a GKE Cluster

  1. Enable the Kubernetes Engine API

    If the kubernetes engine API is not enabled for your GCP project, you need to enable it from the GCP console

    Enable API
    The XP Operator does not support Autopilot clusters, so we will need to create the cluster from command line.

  2. Connect gcloud to your project

    gcloud auth login
gcloud config set project <PROJECT_ID>

  3. Create the cluster

    Run the following command:

    gcloud container clusters create mygkecluster \
    --release-channel regular \
    --zone europe-north1-c \
    --node-locations europe-north1-c,

    This will create a cluster called mygkecluster in the europe-north1 region, using zone c. For more details check out Googles own docs.

Connect kubectl

Once the k8s cluster is created, you can test connecting to it

  1. From the Cluster details page in the Google console, click Connect on the top of the page. This shows you the gcloud command you can use to connect to the k8s cluster from your computer. It should look something like this:

    gcloud container clusters get-credentials mygkecluster --zone europe-north1-c --project <PROJECT_ID>

  2. Copy and run the gcloud command.

    If the output says kubeconfig entry generated for mygkecluster, you are good to go.

  3. To verify your access to the k8s cluster run the command

    kubectl get namespaces

    This should display the list of namespaces in the newly created k8s cluster. The "Age" column in the output shows how long has it been since the namespaces are created.

Node pool

The cluster is created with a default node pool, using VMs (nodes) that are not suitable for running XP.

  1. To fix this, simply create a new node pool:

    gcloud container node-pools create custom-pool \
  --cluster=mygkecluster\
  --machine-type=n2-standard-4 \
  --num-nodes=1 \
  --enable-autoscaling \
  --min-nodes=1 --max-nodes=10 \
  --zone=europe-north1-c

    The new pool is based on 4vCPU VMs, suitable for production grade deployments of Enonic XP.

  2. When done, you may delete the old node pool:

    gcloud container node-pools delete default-pool \
  --cluster=mygkecluster\
  --zone=europe-north1-c
    These operation can also be done directly from the Cloud console UI.

Storage classes

XP will require specific storage classes in order to work properly. List the available storage classes using the following command:

kubectl get storageclasses

Output should look something like this:

NAME                     PROVISIONER             RECLAIMPOLICY   VOLUMEBINDINGMODE      ALLOWVOLUMEEXPANSION   AGE
premium-rwo              pd.csi.storage.gke.io   Delete          WaitForFirstConsumer   true                   89m
standard                 kubernetes.io/gce-pd    Delete          Immediate              true                   89m
standard-rwo (default)   pd.csi.storage.gke.io   Delete          WaitForFirstConsumer   true                   89m
We recommend using standard-rwo or premium-rwo when deploying XP.

Shared storage

If you plan to run XP clusters, you will also need a ReadWriteMany (RWM) storage class.

A cost effective solution is to deploy an NFS server in your cluster. Google also offers a managed RWM via the Filestore CSI driver. For more details, visit the storage chapter.

You are now ready to install the XP operator and start deploying XP instances.

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