If you’re interested in this project and would like to help in engineering efforts, or have general usage questions, we are happy to have you!
We hold a weekly meeting that all audiences are welcome to attend.
We would appreciate your feedback so that we can make Talos even better!
To do so, you can take our survey.
You can subscribe to this meeting by joining the community forum above.
Note: You can convert the meeting hours to your local time.
Enterprise
If you are using Talos in a production setting, and need consulting services to get started or to integrate Talos into your existing environment, we can help.
Sidero Labs, Inc. offers support contracts with SLA (Service Level Agreement)-bound terms for mission-critical environments.
A quick introduction in to what Talos is and why it should be used.
Talos is a container optimized Linux distro; a reimagining of Linux for distributed systems such as Kubernetes.
Designed to be as minimal as possible while still maintaining practicality.
For these reasons, Talos has a number of features unique to it:
it is immutable
it is atomic
it is ephemeral
it is minimal
it is secure by default
it is managed via a single declarative configuration file and gRPC API
Talos can be deployed on container, cloud, virtualized, and bare metal platforms.
Why Talos
In having less, Talos offers more.
Security.
Efficiency.
Resiliency.
Consistency.
All of these areas are improved simply by having less.
1.2 - Quickstart
A short guide on setting up a simple Talos Linux cluster locally with Docker.
Local Docker Cluster
The easiest way to try Talos is by using the CLI (talosctl) to create a cluster on a machine with docker installed.
Prerequisites
talosctl
Download talosctl (macOS or Linux):
brew install siderolabs/tap/talosctl
kubectl
Download kubectl via one of methods outlined in the documentation.
Create the Cluster
Now run the following:
talosctl cluster create
Note
If you are using Docker Desktop on a macOS computer, if you encounter the error: Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running? you may need to manually create the link for the Docker socket:
sudo ln -s "$HOME/.docker/run/docker.sock" /var/run/docker.sock
You can explore using Talos API commands:
talosctl dashboard --nodes 10.5.0.2
Verify that you can reach Kubernetes:
kubectl get nodes -o wide
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION INTERNAL-IP EXTERNAL-IP OS-IMAGE KERNEL-VERSION CONTAINER-RUNTIME
talos-default-controlplane-1 Ready master 115s v1.31.1 10.5.0.2 <none> Talos (v1.9.0-alpha.0) <host kernel> containerd://1.5.5
talos-default-worker-1 Ready <none> 115s v1.31.1 10.5.0.3 <none> Talos (v1.9.0-alpha.0) <host kernel> containerd://1.5.5
Destroy the Cluster
When you are all done, remove the cluster:
talosctl cluster destroy
1.3 - Getting Started
A guide to setting up a Talos Linux cluster.
This document will walk you through installing a simple Talos Cluster with a single control plane node and one or more worker nodes, explaining some of the concepts.
If this is your first use of Talos Linux, we recommend the Quickstart first, to quickly create a local virtual cluster in containers on your workstation.
For a production cluster, extra steps are needed - see Production Notes.
Regardless of where you run Talos, the steps to create a Kubernetes cluster are:
boot machines off the Talos Linux image
define the endpoint for the Kubernetes API and generate your machine configurations
configure Talos Linux by applying machine configurations to the machines
configure talosctl
bootstrap Kubernetes
Prerequisites
talosctl
talosctl is a CLI tool which interfaces with the Talos API.
Talos Linux has no SSH access: talosctl is the tool you use to interact with the operating system on the machines.
Note: If you boot systems off the ISO, Talos on the ISO image runs in RAM and acts as an installer.
The version of talosctl that is used to create the machine configurations controls the version of Talos Linux that is installed on the machines - NOT the image that the machines are initially booted off.
For example, booting a machine off the Talos 1.3.7 ISO, but creating the initial configuration with talosctl binary of version 1.4.1, will result in a machine running Talos Linux version 1.4.1.
It is advisable to use the same version of talosctl as the version of the boot media used.
Network access
This guide assumes that the systems being installed have outgoing access to the internet, allowing them to pull installer and container images, query NTP, etc.
If needed, see the documentation on registry proxies, local registries, and airgapped installation.
Acquire the Talos Linux image and boot machines
The most general way to install Talos Linux is to use the ISO image.
The latest ISO image can be found on the Github Releases page:
When booted from the ISO, Talos will run in RAM and will not install to disk until provided a configuration.
Thus, it is safe to boot any machine from the ISO.
At this point, you should:
boot one machine off the ISO to be the control plane node
boot one or more machines off the same ISO to be the workers
Alternative Booting
For network booting and self-built media, see Production Notes.
There are installation methods specific to specific platforms, such as pre-built AMIs for AWS - check the specific Installation Guides.)
Define the Kubernetes Endpoint
In order to configure Kubernetes, Talos needs to know
what the endpoint of the Kubernetes API Server will be.
Because we are only creating a single control plane node in this guide, we can use the control plane node directly as the Kubernetes API endpoint.
Identify the IP address or DNS name of the control plane node that was booted above, and convert it to a fully-qualified HTTPS URL endpoint address for the Kubernetes API Server which (by default) runs on port 6443.
The endpoint should be formatted like:
https://192.168.0.2:6443
https://kube.mycluster.mydomain.com:6443
NOTE: For a production cluster, you should have three control plane nodes, and have the endpoint allocate traffic to all three - see Production Notes.
Configure Talos Linux
When Talos boots without a configuration, such as when booting off the Talos ISO, it
enters maintenance mode and waits for a configuration to be provided.
A configuration can be passed in on boot via kernel parameters or metadata servers.
See Production Notes.
Unlike traditional Linux, Talos Linux is not configured by SSHing to the server and issuing commands.
Instead, the entire state of the machine is defined by a machine config file which is passed to the server.
This allows machines to be managed in a declarative way, and lends itself to GitOps and modern operations paradigms.
The state of a machine is completely defined by, and can be reproduced from, the machine configuration file.
To generate the machine configurations for a cluster, run this command on the workstation where you installed talosctl:
talosctl gen config <cluster-name> <cluster-endpoint>
cluster-name is an arbitrary name, used as a label in your local client configuration.
It should be unique in the configuration on your local workstation.
cluster-endpoint is the Kubernetes Endpoint you constructed from the control plane node’s IP address or DNS name above.
It should be a complete URL, with https://
and port.
For example:
$ talosctl gen config mycluster https://192.168.0.2:6443
generating PKI and tokens
created /Users/taloswork/controlplane.yaml
created /Users/taloswork/worker.yaml
created /Users/taloswork/talosconfig
When you run this command, three files are created in your current
directory:
controlplane.yaml
worker.yaml
talosconfig
The .yaml files are Machine Configs: they describe everything from what disk Talos should be installed on, to network settings.
The controlplane.yaml file also describes how Talos should form a Kubernetes cluster.
The talosconfig file is your local client configuration file, used to connect to and authenticate access to the cluster.
Controlplane and Worker
The two types of Machine Configs correspond to the two roles of Talos nodes, control plane nodes (which run both the Talos and Kubernetes control planes) and worker nodes (which run the workloads).
The main difference between Controlplane Machine Config files and Worker Machine Config files is that the former contains information about how to form the
Kubernetes cluster.
Modifying the Machine configs
The generated Machine Configs have defaults that work for most cases.
They use DHCP for interface configuration, and install to /dev/sda.
Sometimes, you will need to modify the generated files to work with your systems.
A common case is needing to change the installation disk.
If you try to to apply the machine config to a node, and get an error like the below, you need to specify a different installation disk:
$ talosctl apply-config --insecure -n 192.168.0.2 --file controlplane.yaml
error applying new configuration: rpc error: code= InvalidArgument desc= configuration validation failed: 1 error occurred:
* specified install disk does not exist: "/dev/sda"
You can verify which disks your nodes have by using the talosctl disks --insecure command.
Insecure mode is needed at this point as the PKI infrastructure has not yet been set up.
For example, the talosctl disks command below shows that the system has a vda drive, not an sda:
$ talosctl -n 192.168.0.2 disks --insecure
DEV MODEL SERIAL TYPE UUID WWID MODALIAS NAME SIZE BUS_PATH
/dev/vda - - HDD - - virtio:d00000002v00001AF4 - 69 GB /pci0000:00/0000:00:06.0/virtio2/
In this case, you would modify the controlplane.yaml and worker.yaml files and edit the line:
install:
disk: /dev/sda # The disk used for installations.
to reflect vda instead of sda.
For information on customizing your machine configurations (such as to specify the version of Kubernetes), using machine configuration patches, or customizing configurations for individual machines (such as setting static IP addresses), see the Production Notes.
Accessing the Talos API
Administrative tasks are performed by calling the Talos API (usually with talosctl) on Talos Linux control plane nodes, who may forward the requests to other nodes.
Thus:
ensure your control plane node is directly reachable on TCP port 50000 from the workstation where you run the talosctl client.
until a node is a member of the cluster, it does not have the PKI infrastructure set up, and so will not accept API requests that are proxied through a control plane node.
Thus you will need direct access to the worker nodes on port 50000 from the workstation where you run talosctl in order to apply the initial configuration.
Once the cluster is established, you will no longer need port 50000 access to the workers.
(You can avoid requiring such access by passing in the initial configuration in one of other methods, such as by cloud userdata or via talos.config= kernel argument on a metal platform)
This may require changing firewall rules or cloud provider access-lists.
Understand how talosctl treats endpoints and nodes
In short: endpoints are where talosctlsends commands to, but the command operates on the specified nodes.
The endpoint will forward the command to the nodes, if needed.
Endpoints
Endpoints are the IP addresses of control plane nodes, to which the talosctl client directly talks.
Endpoints automatically proxy requests destined to another node in the cluster.
This means that you only need access to the control plane nodes in order to manage the rest of the cluster.
You can pass in --endpoints <Control Plane IP Address> or -e <Control Plane IP Address> to the current talosctl command.
In this tutorial setup, the endpoint will always be the single control plane node.
Nodes
Nodes are the target(s) you wish to perform the operation on.
When specifying nodes, the IPs and/or hostnames are as seen by the endpoint servers, not as from the client.
This is because all connections are proxied through the endpoints.
You may provide -n or --nodes to any talosctl command to supply the node or (comma-separated) nodes on which you wish to perform the operation.
For example, to see the containers running on node 192.168.0.200, by routing the containers command through the control plane endpoint 192.168.0.2:
For a more in-depth discussion of Endpoints and Nodes, please see talosctl.
Apply Configuration
To apply the Machine Configs, you need to know the machines’ IP addresses.
Talos prints the IP addresses of the machines on the console during the boot process:
[4.605369] [talos] task loadConfig (1/1): this machine is reachable at:
[4.607358] [talos] task loadConfig (1/1): 192.168.0.2
If you do not have console access, the IP address may also be discoverable from your DHCP server.
Once you have the IP address, you can then apply the correct configuration.
Apply the controlplane.yaml file to the control plane node, and the worker.yaml file to all the worker node(s).
The --insecure flag is necessary because the PKI infrastructure has not yet been made available to the node.
Note: the connection will be encrypted, but not authenticated.
When using the --insecure flag, you cannot specify an endpoint, and must directly access the node on port 50000.
Default talosconfig configuration file
You reference which configuration file to use by the --talosconfig parameter:
talosctl --talosconfig=./talosconfig \
--nodes 192.168.0.2 -e 192.168.0.2 version
Note that talosctl comes with tooling to help you integrate and merge this configuration into the default talosctl configuration file.
See Production Notes for more information.
While getting started, a common mistake is referencing a configuration context for a different cluster, resulting in authentication or connection failures.
Thus it is recommended to explicitly pass in the configuration file while becoming familiar with Talos Linux.
Kubernetes Bootstrap
Bootstrapping your Kubernetes cluster with Talos is as simple as calling talosctl bootstrap on your control plane node:
The bootstrap operation should only be called ONCE on a SINGLE control plane node.
(If you have multiple control plane nodes, it doesn’t matter which one you issue the bootstrap command against.)
At this point, Talos will form an etcd cluster, and start the Kubernetes control plane components.
After a few moments, you will be able to download your Kubernetes client configuration and get started:
Note that to use alternate booting, there are a number of required kernel parameters.
Please see the kernel docs for more information.
Control plane nodes
For a production, highly available Kubernetes cluster, it is recommended to use three control plane nodes.
Using five nodes can provide greater fault tolerance, but imposes more replication overhead and can result in worse performance.
Boot all three control plane nodes at this point.
They will boot Talos Linux, and come up in maintenance mode, awaiting a configuration.
Decide the Kubernetes Endpoint
The Kubernetes API Server endpoint, in order to be highly available, should be configured in a way that uses all available control plane nodes.
There are three common ways to do this: using a load-balancer, using Talos Linux’s built in VIP functionality, or using multiple DNS records.
Dedicated Load-balancer
If you are using a cloud provider or have your own load-balancer
(such as HAProxy, Nginx reverse proxy, or an F5 load-balancer), a dedicated load balancer is a natural choice.
Create an appropriate frontend for the endpoint, listening on TCP port 6443, and point the backends at the addresses of each of the Talos control plane nodes.
Your Kubernetes endpoint will be the IP address or DNS name of the load balancer front end, with the port appended (e.g. https://myK8s.mydomain.io:6443).
Note: an HTTP load balancer can’t be used, as Kubernetes API server does TLS termination and mutual TLS authentication.
Layer 2 VIP Shared IP
Talos has integrated support for serving Kubernetes from a shared/virtual IP address.
This requires Layer 2 connectivity between control plane nodes.
Choose an unused IP address on the same subnet as the control plane nodes for the VIP.
For instance, if your control plane node IPs are:
192.168.0.10
192.168.0.11
192.168.0.12
you could choose the IP 192.168.0.15 as your VIP IP address.
(Make sure that 192.168.0.15 is not used by any other machine and is excluded from DHCP ranges.)
Once chosen, form the full HTTPS URL from this IP:
https://192.168.0.15:6443
If you create a DNS record for this IP, note you will need to use the IP address itself, not the DNS name, to configure the shared IP (machine.network.interfaces[].vip.ip) in the Talos configuration.
After the machine configurations are generated, you will want to edit the controlplane.yaml file to activate the VIP:
For more information about using a shared IP, see the related
Guide
DNS records
Add multiple A or AAAA records (one for each control plane node) to a DNS name.
For instance, you could add:
kube.cluster1.mydomain.com IN A 192.168.0.10
kube.cluster1.mydomain.com IN A 192.168.0.11
kube.cluster1.mydomain.com IN A 192.168.0.12
where the IP addresses are those of the control plane nodes.
Then, your endpoint would be:
https://kube.cluster1.mydomain.com:6443
Multihoming
If your machines are multihomed, i.e., they have more than one IPv4 and/or IPv6 addresss other than loopback, then additional configuration is required.
A point to note is that the machines may become multihomed via privileged workloads.
Multihoming and etcd
The etcd cluster needs to establish a mesh of connections among the members.
It is done using the so-called advertised address - each node learns the others’ addresses as they are advertised.
It is crucial that these IP addresses are stable, i.e., that each node always advertises the same IP address.
Moreover, it is beneficial to control them to establish the correct routes between the members and, e.g., avoid congested paths.
In Talos, these addresses are controlled using the cluster.etcd.advertisedSubnets configuration key.
Multihoming and kubelets
Stable IP addressing for kubelets (i.e., nodeIP) is not strictly necessary but highly recommended as it ensures that, e.g., kube-proxy and CNI routing take the desired routes.
Analogously to etcd, for kubelets this is controlled via machine.kubelet.nodeIP.validSubnets.
Example
Let’s assume that we have a cluster with two networks:
public network
private network 192.168.0.0/16
We want to use the private network for etcd and kubelet communication:
machine:
kubelet:
nodeIP:
validSubnets:
- 192.168.0.0/16
#...cluster:
etcd:
advertisedSubnets: # listenSubnets defaults to advertisedSubnets if not set explicitly - 192.168.0.0/16
This way we ensure that the etcd cluster will use the private network for communication and the kubelets will use the private network for communication with the control plane.
Load balancing the Talos API
The talosctl tool provides built-in client-side load-balancing across control plane nodes, so usually you do not need to configure a load balancer for the Talos API.
However, if the control plane nodes are not directly reachable from the workstation where you run talosctl, then configure a load balancer to forward TCP port 50000 to the control plane nodes.
Note: Because the Talos Linux API uses gRPC and mutual TLS, it cannot be proxied by a HTTP/S proxy, but only by a TCP load balancer.
If you create a load balancer to forward the Talos API calls, the load balancer IP or hostname will be used as the endpoint for talosctl.
Add the load balancer IP or hostname to the .machine.certSANs field of the machine configuration file.
Do not use Talos Linux’s built in VIP function for accessing the Talos API.
In the event of an error in etcd, the VIP will not function, and you will not be able to access the Talos API to recover.
Configure Talos
In many installation methods, a configuration can be passed in on boot.
For example, Talos can be booted with the talos.config kernel
argument set to an HTTP(s) URL from which it should receive its
configuration.
Where a PXE server is available, this is much more efficient than
manually configuring each node.
If you do use this method, note that Talos requires a number of other
kernel commandline parameters.
See required kernel parameters.
Similarly, if creating EC2 kubernetes clusters, the configuration file can be passed in as --user-data to the aws ec2 run-instances command.
See generally the Installation Guide for the platform being deployed.
Separating out secrets
When generating the configuration files for a Talos Linux cluster, it is recommended to start with generating a secrets bundle which should be saved in a secure location.
This bundle can be used to generate machine or client configurations at any time:
talosctl gen secrets -o secrets.yaml
The secrets.yaml can also be extracted from the existing controlplane machine configuration with
talosctl gen secrets --from-controlplane-config controlplane.yaml -o secrets.yaml command.
Now, we can generate the machine configuration for each node:
talosctl gen config --with-secrets secrets.yaml <cluster-name> <cluster-endpoint>
Here, cluster-name is an arbitrary name for the cluster, used
in your local client configuration as a label.
It should be unique in the configuration on your local workstation.
The cluster-endpoint is the Kubernetes Endpoint you
selected from above.
This is the Kubernetes API URL, and it should be a complete URL, with https://
and port.
(The default port is 6443, but you may have configured your load balancer to forward a different port.)
For example:
$ talosctl gen config --with-secrets secrets.yaml my-cluster https://192.168.64.15:6443
generating PKI and tokens
created controlplane.yaml
created worker.yaml
created talosconfig
Customizing Machine Configuration
The generated machine configuration provides sane defaults for most cases, but can be modified to fit specific needs.
Some machine configuration options are available as flags for the talosctl gen config command,
for example setting a specific Kubernetes version:
talosctl gen config --with-secrets secrets.yaml --kubernetes-version 1.25.4 my-cluster https://192.168.64.15:6443
Other modifications are done with machine configuration patches.
Machine configuration patches can be applied with talosctl gen config command:
talosctl gen config --with-secrets secrets.yaml --config-patch-control-plane @cni.patch my-cluster https://192.168.64.15:6443
Note: @cni.patch means that the patch is read from a file named cni.patch.
Machine Configs as Templates
Individual machines may need different settings: for instance, each may have a
different static IP address.
When different files are needed for machines of the same type, there are two supported flows:
Use the talosctl gen config command to generate a template, and then patch
the template for each machine with talosctl machineconfig patch.
Generate each machine configuration file separately with talosctl gen config while applying patches.
For example, given a machine configuration patch which sets the static machine hostname:
Using the fingerprint allows you to be sure you are sending the configuration to the correct machine, but is completely optional.
After the configuration is applied to a node, it will reboot.
Repeat this process for each of the nodes in your cluster.
Further details about talosctl, endpoints and nodes
Endpoints
When passed multiple endpoints, talosctl will automatically load balance requests to, and fail over between, all endpoints.
You can pass in --endpoints <IP Address1>,<IP Address2> as a comma separated list of IP/DNS addresses to the current talosctl command.
You can also set the endpoints in your talosconfig, by calling talosctl config endpoint <IP Address1> <IP Address2>.
Note: these are space separated, not comma separated.
As an example, if the IP addresses of our control plane nodes are:
The node is the target you wish to perform the API call on.
It is possible to set a default set of nodes in the talosconfig file, but our recommendation is to explicitly pass in the node or nodes to be operated on with each talosctl command.
For a more in-depth discussion of Endpoints and Nodes, please see talosctl.
Default configuration file
You can reference which configuration file to use directly with the --talosconfig parameter:
talosctl --talosconfig=./talosconfig \
--nodes 192.168.0.2 version
However, talosctl comes with tooling to help you integrate and merge this configuration into the default talosctl configuration file.
This is done with the merge option.
talosctl config merge ./talosconfig
This will merge your new talosconfig into the default configuration file ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME/talos/config.yaml), creating it if necessary.
Like Kubernetes, the talosconfig configuration files has multiple “contexts” which correspond to multiple clusters.
The <cluster-name> you chose above will be used as the context name.
Kubernetes Bootstrap
Bootstrapping your Kubernetes cluster by simply calling the bootstrap command against any of your control plane nodes (or the loadbalancer, if used for the Talos API endpoint).:
talosctl bootstrap --nodes 192.168.0.2
The bootstrap operation should only be called ONCE and only on a SINGLE control plane node!
At this point, Talos will form an etcd cluster, generate all of the core Kubernetes assets, and start the Kubernetes control plane components.
After a few moments, you will be able to download your Kubernetes client configuration and get started:
talosctl kubeconfig
Running this command will add (merge) you new cluster into your local Kubernetes configuration.
If you would prefer the configuration to not be merged into your default Kubernetes configuration file, pass in a filename:
talosctl kubeconfig alternative-kubeconfig
You should now be able to connect to Kubernetes and see your nodes:
kubectl get nodes
And use talosctl to explore your cluster:
talosctl -n <NODEIP> dashboard
For a list of all the commands and operations that talosctl provides, see the CLI reference.
1.5 - System Requirements
Hardware requirements for running Talos Linux.
Minimum Requirements
Role
Memory
Cores
System Disk
Control Plane
2 GiB
2
10 GiB
Worker
1 GiB
1
10 GiB
Recommended
Role
Memory
Cores
System Disk
Control Plane
4 GiB
4
100 GiB
Worker
2 GiB
2
100 GiB
These requirements are similar to that of Kubernetes.
Storage
Talos Linux itself only requires less than 100 MB of disk space, but the EPHEMERAL partition is used to store pulled images, container work directories, and so on.
Thus a minimum is 10 GiB of disk space is required.
100 GiB is desired.
Note, however, that because Talos Linux assumes complete control of the disk it is installed on, so that it can control the partition table for image based upgrades, you cannot partition the rest of the disk for use by workloads.
Thus it is recommended to install Talos Linux on a small, dedicated disk - using a Terabyte sized SSD for the Talos install disk would be wasteful.
Sidero Labs recommends having separate disks (apart from the Talos install disk) to be used for storage.
x86: BIOS, UEFI; arm64: UEFI; boot: ISO, PXE, disk image
- virtualized
VMware, Hyper-V, KVM, Proxmox, Xen
VMware, Hyper-V, KVM, Proxmox, Xen
- SBCs
Banana Pi M64, Jetson Nano, Libre Computer Board ALL-H3-CC, Nano Pi R4S, Pine64, Pine64 Rock64, Radxa ROCK Pi 4c, Radxa Rock4c+, Raspberry Pi 4B, Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4
Banana Pi M64, Jetson Nano, Libre Computer Board ALL-H3-CC, Nano Pi R4S, Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS, Pine64, Pine64 Rock64, Radxa ROCK Pi 4c, Raspberry Pi 4B, Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4
Tier 2: Tested from time to time, medium-priority bugfixes.
Tier 3: Not tested by core Talos team, community tested.
Tier 1
Metal
AWS
Azure
GCP
Tier 2
Digital Ocean
OpenStack
VMWare
Tier 3
Akamai
CloudStack
Exoscale
Hetzner
nocloud
OpenNebula
Oracle Cloud
Scaleway
Vultr
Upcloud
1.8 - Troubleshooting
Troubleshoot control plane and other failures for Talos Linux clusters.
In this guide we assume that Talos is configured with default features enabled, such as Discovery Service and KubePrism.
If these features are disabled, some of the troubleshooting steps may not apply or may need to be adjusted.
This guide is structured so that it can be followed step-by-step, skip sections which are not relevant to your issue.
Network Configuration
As Talos Linux is an API-based operating system, it is important to have networking configured so that the API can be accessed.
Some information can be gathered from the Interactive Dashboard which is available on the machine console.
When running in the cloud the networking should be configured automatically.
Whereas when running on bare-metal it may need more specific configuration, see networking metal configuration guide.
Talos API
The Talos API runs on port 50000.
Control plane nodes should always serve the Talos API, while worker nodes require access to the control plane nodes to issue TLS certificates for the workers.
Firewall Issues
Make sure that the firewall is not blocking port 50000, and communication on ports 50000/50001 inside the cluster.
Client Configuration Issues
Make sure to use correct talosconfig client configuration file matching your cluster.
See getting started for more information.
The most common issue is that talosctl gen config writes talosconfig to the file in the current directory, while talosctl by default picks up the configuration from the default location (~/.talos/config).
The path to the configuration file can be specified with --talosconfig flag to talosctl.
Conflict on Kubernetes and Host Subnets
If talosctl returns an error saying that certificate IPs are empty, it might be due to a conflict between Kubernetes and host subnets.
The Talos API runs on the host network, but it automatically excludes Kubernetes pod & network subnets from the useable set of addresses.
Talos default machine configuration specifies the following Kubernetes pod and subnet IPv4 CIDRs: 10.244.0.0/16 and 10.96.0.0/12.
If the host network is configured with one of these subnets, change the machine configuration to use a different subnet.
Wrong Endpoints
The talosctl CLI connects to the Talos API via the specified endpoints, which should be a list of control plane machine addresses.
The client will automatically retry on other endpoints if there are unavailable endpoints.
Worker nodes should not be used as the endpoint, as they are not able to forward request to other nodes.
The VIP should never be used as Talos API endpoint.
TCP Loadbalancer
When using a TCP loadbalancer, make sure the loadbalancer endpoint is included in the .machine.certSANs list in the machine configuration.
System Requirements
If minimum system requirements are not met, this might manifest itself in various ways, such as random failures when starting services, or failures to pull images from the container registry.
Running Health Checks
Talos Linux provides a set of basic health checks with talosctl health command which can be used to check the health of the cluster.
In the default mode, talosctl health uses information from the discovery to get the information about cluster members.
This can be overridden with command line flags --control-plane-nodes and --worker-nodes.
Gathering Logs
While the logs and state of the system can be queried via the Talos API, it is often useful to gather the logs from all nodes in the cluster, and analyze them offline.
The talosctl support command can be used to gather logs and other information from the nodes specified with --nodes flag (multiple nodes are supported).
Discovery and Cluster Membership
Talos Linux uses Discovery Service to discover other nodes in the cluster.
The list of members on each machine should be consistent: talosctl -n <IP> get members.
Some Members are Missing
Ensure connectivity to the discovery service (default is discovery.talos.dev:443), and that the discovery registry is not disabled.
Duplicate Members
Don’t use same base secrets to generate machine configuration for multiple clusters, as some secrets are used to identify members of the same cluster.
So if the same machine configuration (or secrets) are used to repeatedly create and destroy clusters, the discovery service will see the same nodes as members of different clusters.
Removed Members are Still Present
Talos Linux removes itself from the discovery service when it is reset.
If the machine was not reset, it might show up as a member of the cluster for the maximum TTL of the discovery service (30 minutes), and after that it will be automatically removed.
etcd Issues
etcd is the distributed key-value store used by Kubernetes to store its state.
Talos Linux provides automation to manage etcd members running on control plane nodes.
If etcd is not healthy, the Kubernetes API server will not be able to function correctly.
It is always recommended to run an odd number of etcd members, as with 3 or more members it provides fault tolerance for less than quorum member failures.
Common troubleshooting steps:
check etcd service state with talosctl -n IP service etcd for each control plane node
check etcd membership on each control plane node with talosctl -n IP etcd member list
check etcd logs with talosctl -n IP logs etcd
check etcd alarms with talosctl -n IP etcd alarm list
etcd will only run on control plane nodes.
If a node is designated as a worker node, you should not expect etcd to be running on it.
When a node boots for the first time, the etcd data directory (/var/lib/etcd) is empty, and it will only be populated when etcd is launched.
If the etcd service is crashing and restarting, check its logs with talosctl -n <IP> logs etcd.
The most common reasons for crashes are:
wrong arguments passed via extraArgs in the configuration;
booting Talos on non-empty disk with an existing Talos installation, /var/lib/etcd contains data from the old cluster.
kubelet and Kubernetes Node Issues
The kubelet service should be running on all Talos nodes, and it is responsible for running Kubernetes pods,
static pods (including control plane components), and registering the node with the Kubernetes API server.
If the kubelet doesn’t run on a control plane node, it will block the control plane components from starting.
The node will not be registered in Kubernetes until the Kubernetes API server is up and initial Kubernetes manifests are applied.
kubelet is not running
Check that kubelet image is available (talosctl image ls --namespace system).
Check kubelet logs with talosctl -n IP logs kubelet for startup errors:
make sure Kubernetes version is supported with this Talos release
make sure kubelet extra arguments and extra configuration supplied with Talos machine configuration is valid
Talos Complains about Node Not Found
kubelet hasn’t yet registered the node with the Kubernetes API server, this is expected during initial cluster bootstrap, the error will go away.
If the message persists, check Kubernetes API health.
The Kubernetes controller manager (kube-controller-manager) is responsible for monitoring the certificate
signing requests (CSRs) and issuing certificates for each of them.
The kubelet is responsible for generating and submitting the CSRs for its
associated node.
The state of any CSRs can be checked with kubectl get csr:
$ kubectl get csr
NAME AGE SIGNERNAME REQUESTOR CONDITION
csr-jcn9j 14m kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet system:bootstrap:q9pyzr Approved,Issued
csr-p6b9q 14m kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet system:bootstrap:q9pyzr Approved,Issued
csr-sw6rm 14m kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet system:bootstrap:q9pyzr Approved,Issued
csr-vlghg 14m kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet system:bootstrap:q9pyzr Approved,Issued
Talos Linux doesn’t manage the external IP, it is managed with the Kubernetes Cloud Controller Manager.
kubectl get nodes Reports Wrong Node Name
By default, the Kubernetes node name is derived from the hostname.
Update the hostname using the machine configuration, cloud configuration, or via DHCP server.
Node Is Not Ready
A Node in Kubernetes is marked as Ready only once its CNI is up.
It takes a minute or two for the CNI images to be pulled and for the CNI to start.
If the node is stuck in this state for too long, check CNI pods and logs with kubectl.
Usually, CNI-related resources are created in kube-system namespace.
For example, for the default Talos Flannel CNI:
$ kubectl -n kube-system get pods
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
...
kube-flannel-25drx 1/1 Running 0 23m
kube-flannel-8lmb6 1/1 Running 0 23m
kube-flannel-gl7nx 1/1 Running 0 23m
kube-flannel-jknt9 1/1 Running 0 23m
...
Duplicate/Stale Nodes
Talos Linux doesn’t remove Kubernetes nodes automatically, so if a node is removed from the cluster, it will still be present in Kubernetes.
Remove the node from Kubernetes with kubectl delete node <node-name>.
Talos Complains about Certificate Errors on kubelet API
This error might appear during initial cluster bootstrap, and it will go away once the Kubernetes API server is up and the node is registered.
The example of Talos logs:
[talos] controller failed {"component": "controller-runtime", "controller": "k8s.KubeletStaticPodController", "error": "error refreshing pod status: error fetching pod status: Get \"https://127.0.0.1:10250/pods/?timeout=30s\": remote error: tls: internal error"}
By default configuration, kubelet issues a self-signed server certificate, but when rotate-server-certificates feature is enabled,
kubelet issues its certificate using kube-apiserver.
Make sure the kubelet CSR is approved by the Kubernetes API server.
In either case, this error is not critical, as it only affects reporting of the pod status to Talos Linux.
Kubernetes Control Plane
The Kubernetes control plane consists of the following components:
kube-apiserver - the Kubernetes API server
kube-controller-manager - the Kubernetes controller manager
kube-scheduler - the Kubernetes scheduler
Optionally, kube-proxy runs as a DaemonSet to provide pod-to-service communication.
coredns provides name resolution for the cluster.
CNI is not part of the control plane, but it is required for Kubernetes pods using pod networking.
Troubleshooting should always start with kube-apiserver, and then proceed to other components.
Talos Linux configures kube-apiserver to talk to the etcd running on the same node, so etcd must be healthy before kube-apiserver can start.
The kube-controller-manager and kube-scheduler are configured to talk to the kube-apiserver on the same node, so they will not start until kube-apiserver is healthy.
Control Plane Static Pods
Talos should generate the static pod definitions for the Kubernetes control plane
as resources:
$ talosctl -n <IP> get staticpods
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION
172.20.0.2 k8s StaticPod kube-apiserver 1172.20.0.2 k8s StaticPod kube-controller-manager 1172.20.0.2 k8s StaticPod kube-scheduler 1
Talos should report that the static pod definitions are rendered for the kubelet:
$ talosctl -n <IP> dmesg | grep 'rendered new'172.20.0.2: user: warning: [2023-04-26T19:17:52.550527204Z]: [talos] rendered new static pod {"component": "controller-runtime", "controller": "k8s.StaticPodServerController", "id": "kube-apiserver"}172.20.0.2: user: warning: [2023-04-26T19:17:52.552186204Z]: [talos] rendered new static pod {"component": "controller-runtime", "controller": "k8s.StaticPodServerController", "id": "kube-controller-manager"}172.20.0.2: user: warning: [2023-04-26T19:17:52.554607204Z]: [talos] rendered new static pod {"component": "controller-runtime", "controller": "k8s.StaticPodServerController", "id": "kube-scheduler"}
If the static pod definitions are not rendered, check etcd and kubelet service health (see above)
and the controller runtime logs (talosctl logs controller-runtime).
Control Plane Pod Status
Initially the kube-apiserver component will not be running, and it takes some time before it becomes fully up
during bootstrap (image should be pulled from the Internet, etc.)
The status of the control plane components on each of the control plane nodes can be checked with talosctl containers -k:
If the control plane component reports error on startup, check that:
make sure Kubernetes version is supported with this Talos release
make sure extra arguments and extra configuration supplied with Talos machine configuration is valid
Kubernetes Bootstrap Manifests
As part of the bootstrap process, Talos injects bootstrap manifests into Kubernetes API server.
There are two kinds of these manifests: system manifests built-in into Talos and extra manifests downloaded (custom CNI, extra manifests in the machine config):
Once the Kubernetes API server is up, other control plane components issues can be troubleshooted with kubectl:
kubectl get nodes -o wide
kubectl get pods -o wide --all-namespaces
kubectl describe pod -n NAMESPACE POD
kubectl logs -n NAMESPACE POD
Kubernetes API
The Kubernetes API client configuration (kubeconfig) can be retrieved using Talos API with talosctl -n <IP> kubeconfig command.
Talos Linux mostly doesn’t depend on the Kubernetes API endpoint for the cluster, but Kubernetes API endpoint should be configured
correctly for external access to the cluster.
Kubernetes Control Plane Endpoint
The Kubernetes control plane endpoint is the single canonical URL by which the
Kubernetes API is accessed.
Especially with high-availability (HA) control planes, this endpoint may point to a load balancer or a DNS name which may
have multiple A and AAAA records.
Like Talos’ own API, the Kubernetes API uses mutual TLS, client
certs, and a common Certificate Authority (CA).
Unlike general-purpose websites, there is no need for an upstream CA, so tools
such as cert-manager, Let’s Encrypt, or products such
as validated TLS certificates are not required.
Encryption, however, is, and hence the URL scheme will always be https://.
By default, the Kubernetes API server in Talos runs on port 6443.
As such, the control plane endpoint URLs for Talos will almost always be of the form
https://endpoint:6443.
(The port, since it is not the https default of 443 is required.)
The endpoint above may be a DNS name or IP address, but it should be
directed to the set of all controlplane nodes, as opposed to a
single one.
As mentioned above, this can be achieved by a number of strategies, including:
BGP peering of a shared IP (such as with kube-vip)
Using a DNS name here is a good idea, since it allows any other option, while offering
a layer of abstraction.
It allows the underlying IP addresses to change without impacting the
canonical URL.
Unlike most services in Kubernetes, the API server runs with host networking,
meaning that it shares the network namespace with the host.
This means you can use the IP address(es) of the host to refer to the Kubernetes
API server.
For availability of the API, it is important that any load balancer be aware of
the health of the backend API servers, to minimize disruptions during
common node operations like reboots and upgrades.
Miscellaneous
Checking Controller Runtime Logs
Talos runs a set of controllers which operate on resources to build and support machine operations.
Some debugging information can be queried from the controller logs with talosctl logs controller-runtime:
talosctl -n <IP> logs controller-runtime
Controllers continuously run a reconcile loop, so at any time, they may be starting, failing, or restarting.
This is expected behavior.
If there are no new messages in the controller-runtime log, it means that the controllers have successfully finished reconciling, and that the current system state is the desired system state.
2 - Talos Linux Guides
Documentation on how to manage Talos Linux
2.1 - Installation
How to install Talos Linux on various platforms
2.1.1 - Bare Metal Platforms
Installation of Talos Linux on various bare-metal platforms.
2.1.1.1 - Equinix Metal
Creating Talos clusters with Equinix Metal.
You can create a Talos Linux cluster on Equinix Metal in a variety of ways, such as through the EM web UI, or the metal command line tool.
Regardless of the method, the process is:
Create a DNS entry for your Kubernetes endpoint.
Generate the configurations using talosctl.
Provision your machines on Equinix Metal.
Push the configurations to your servers (if not done as part of the machine provisioning).
Configure your Kubernetes endpoint to point to the newly created control plane nodes.
Bootstrap the cluster.
Define the Kubernetes Endpoint
There are a variety of ways to create an HA endpoint for the Kubernetes cluster.
Some of the ways are:
DNS
Load Balancer
BGP
Whatever way is chosen, it should result in an IP address/DNS name that routes traffic to all the control plane nodes.
We do not know the control plane node IP addresses at this stage, but we should define the endpoint DNS entry so that we can use it in creating the cluster configuration.
After the nodes are provisioned, we can use their addresses to create the endpoint A records, or bind them to the load balancer, etc.
Create the Machine Configuration Files
Generating Configurations
Using the DNS name of the loadbalancer defined above, generate the base configuration files for the Talos machines:
$ talosctl gen config talos-k8s-em-tutorial https://<load balancer IP or DNS>:<port>
created controlplane.yaml
created worker.yaml
created talosconfig
The port used above should be 6443, unless your load balancer maps a different port to port 6443 on the control plane nodes.
Validate the Configuration Files
talosctl validate --config controlplane.yaml --mode metal
talosctl validate --config worker.yaml --mode metal
Note: Validation of the install disk could potentially fail as validation
is performed on your local machine and the specified disk may not exist.
Passing in the configuration as User Data
You can use the metadata service provide by Equinix Metal to pass in the machines configuration.
It is required to add a shebang to the top of the configuration file.
The convention we use is #!talos.
Provision the machines in Equinix Metal
Talos Linux can be PXE-booted on Equinix Metal using Image Factory, using the equinixMetal platform: e.g.
https://pxe.factory.talos.dev/pxe/376567988ad370138ad8b2698212367b8edcb69b5fd68c80be1f2ec7d603b4ba/v1.9.0-alpha.0/equinixMetal-amd64 (this URL references the default schematic and amd64 architecture).
Follow the Image Factory guide to create a custom schematic, e.g. with CPU microcode updates.
The PXE boot URL can be used as the iPXE script URL.
Using the Equinix Metal UI
Simply select the location and type of machines in the Equinix Metal web interface.
Select ‘Custom iPXE’ as the Operating System and enter the Image Factory PXE URL as the iPXE script URL, then select the number of servers to create, and name them (in lowercase only.)
Under optional settings, you can optionally paste in the contents of controlplane.yaml that was generated, above (ensuring you add a first line of #!talos).
You can repeat this process to create machines of different types for control plane and worker nodes (although you would pass in worker.yaml for the worker nodes, as user data).
If you did not pass in the machine configuration as User Data, you need to provide it to each machine, with the following command:
e.g. metal device create -p <projectID> -f da11 -O custom_ipxe -P c3.small.x86 -H steve.test.11 --userdata-file ./controlplane.yaml --ipxe-script-url "https://pxe.factory.talos.dev/pxe/376567988ad370138ad8b2698212367b8edcb69b5fd68c80be1f2ec7d603b4ba/v1.9.0-alpha.0/equinixMetal-amd64"
Repeat this to create each control plane node desired: there should usually be 3 for a HA cluster.
Update the Kubernetes endpoint
Now our control plane nodes have been created, and we know their IP addresses, we can associate them with the Kubernetes endpoint.
Configure your load balancer to route traffic to these nodes, or add A records to your DNS entry for the endpoint, for each control plane node.
e.g.
host endpoint.mydomain.com
endpoint.mydomain.com has address 145.40.90.201
endpoint.mydomain.com has address 147.75.109.71
endpoint.mydomain.com has address 145.40.90.177
This only needs to be issued to one control plane node.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
At this point we can retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig kubeconfig .
2.1.1.2 - ISO
Booting Talos on bare-metal with ISO.
Talos can be installed on bare-metal machine using an ISO image.
ISO images for amd64 and arm64 architectures are available on the Talos releases page.
Talos doesn’t install itself to disk when booted from an ISO until the machine configuration is applied.
Please follow the getting started guide for the generic steps on how to install Talos.
Note: If there is already a Talos installation on the disk, the machine will boot into that installation when booting from a Talos ISO.
The boot order should prefer disk over ISO, or the ISO should be removed after the installation to make Talos boot from disk.
metal-<arch>.iso supports booting on BIOS and UEFI systems (for x86, UEFI only for arm64)
metal-<arch>-secureboot.iso supports booting on only UEFI systems in SecureBoot mode (via Image Factory)
2.1.1.3 - Matchbox
In this guide we will create an HA Kubernetes cluster with 3 worker nodes using an existing load balancer and matchbox deployment.
Creating a Cluster
In this guide we will create an HA Kubernetes cluster with 3 worker nodes.
We assume an existing load balancer, matchbox deployment, and some familiarity with iPXE.
We leave it up to the user to decide if they would like to use static networking, or DHCP.
The setup and configuration of DHCP will not be covered.
Create the Machine Configuration Files
Generating Base Configurations
Using the DNS name of the load balancer, generate the base configuration files for the Talos machines:
$ talosctl gen config talos-k8s-metal-tutorial https://<load balancer IP or DNS>:<port>
created controlplane.yaml
created worker.yaml
created talosconfig
At this point, you can modify the generated configs to your liking.
Optionally, you can specify --config-patch with RFC6902 jsonpatch which will be applied during the config generation.
Validate the Configuration Files
$ talosctl validate --config controlplane.yaml --mode metal
controlplane.yaml is valid for metal mode
$ talosctl validate --config worker.yaml --mode metal
worker.yaml is valid for metal mode
Publishing the Machine Configuration Files
In bare-metal setups it is up to the user to provide the configuration files over HTTP(S).
A special kernel parameter (talos.config) must be used to inform Talos about where it should retrieve its configuration file.
To keep things simple we will place controlplane.yaml, and worker.yaml into Matchbox’s assets directory.
This directory is automatically served by Matchbox.
Create the Matchbox Configuration Files
The profiles we will create will reference vmlinuz, and initramfs.xz.
Download these files from the release of your choice, and place them in /var/lib/matchbox/assets.
Now that we have our configuration files in place, boot all the machines.
Talos will come up on each machine, grab its configuration file, and bootstrap itself.
At this point we can retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig kubeconfig .
2.1.1.4 - Network Configuration
In this guide we will describe how network can be configured on bare-metal platforms.
By default, Talos will run DHCP client on all interfaces which have a link, and that might be enough for most of the cases.
If some advanced network configuration is required, it can be done via the machine configuration file.
But sometimes it is required to apply network configuration even before the machine configuration can be fetched from the network.
Kernel Command Line
Talos supports some kernel command line parameters to configure network before the machine configuration is fetched.
Note: Kernel command line parameters are not persisted after Talos installation, so proper network configuration should be done via the machine configuration.
Address, default gateway and DNS servers can be configured via ip= kernel command line parameter:
Some platforms (e.g. AWS, Google Cloud, etc.) have their own network configuration mechanisms, which can be used to perform the initial network configuration.
There is no such mechanism for bare-metal platforms, so Talos provides a way to use platform network config on the metal platform to submit the initial network configuration.
The platform network configuration is a YAML document which contains resource specifications for various network resources.
For the metal platform, the interactive dashboard can be used to edit the platform network configuration, also the configuration can be
created manually.
The current value of the platform network configuration can be retrieved using the MetaKeys resource (key 0xa):
talosctl get meta 0xa
The platform network configuration can be updated using the talosctl meta command for the running node:
talosctl meta write 0xa '{"externalIPs": ["1.2.3.4"]}'talosctl meta delete 0xa
The initial platform network configuration for the metal platform can be also included into the generated Talos image:
docker run --rm -i ghcr.io/siderolabs/imager:v1.9.0-alpha.0 iso --arch amd64 --tar-to-stdout --meta 0xa='{...}' | tar xz
docker run --rm -i --privileged ghcr.io/siderolabs/imager:v1.9.0-alpha.0 image --platform metal --arch amd64 --tar-to-stdout --meta 0xa='{...}' | tar xz
The platform network configuration gets merged with other sources of network configuration, the details can be found in the network resources guide.
2.1.1.5 - PXE
Booting Talos over the network on bare-metal with PXE.
Talos can be installed on bare-metal using PXE service.
There are more detailed guides for PXE booting using Matchbox.
This guide describes generic steps for PXE booting Talos on bare-metal.
First, download the vmlinuz and initramfs assets from the Talos releases page.
Set up the machines to PXE boot from the network (usually by setting the boot order in the BIOS).
There might be options specific to the hardware being used, booting in BIOS or UEFI mode, using iPXE, etc.
Talos requires the following kernel parameters to be set on the initial boot:
talos.platform=metal
slab_nomerge
pti=on
When booted from the network without machine configuration, Talos will start in maintenance mode.
Please follow the getting started guide for the generic steps on how to install Talos.
Note: If there is already a Talos installation on the disk, the machine will boot into that installation when booting from network.
The boot order should prefer disk over network.
Talos can automatically fetch the machine configuration from the network on the initial boot using talos.config kernel parameter.
A metadata service (HTTP service) can be implemented to deliver customized configuration to each node for example by using the MAC address of the node:
Note: The talos.config kernel parameter supports other substitution variables, see kernel parameters reference for the full list.
PXE booting can be also performed via Image Factory.
2.1.1.6 - SecureBoot
Booting Talos in SecureBoot mode on UEFI platforms.
Talos now supports booting on UEFI systems in SecureBoot mode.
When combined with TPM-based disk encryption, this provides Trusted Boot experience.
Note: SecureBoot is not supported on x86 platforms in BIOS mode.
The implementation is using systemd-boot as a boot menu implementation, while the
Talos kernel, initramfs and cmdline arguments are combined into the Unified Kernel Image (UKI) format.
UEFI firmware loads the systemd-boot bootloader, which then loads the UKI image.
Both systemd-boot and Talos UKI image are signed with the key, which is enrolled into the UEFI firmware.
As Talos Linux is fully contained in the UKI image, the full operating system is verified and booted by the UEFI firmware.
Note: There is no support at the moment to upgrade non-UKI (GRUB-based) Talos installation to use UKI/SecureBoot, so a fresh installation is required.
Note: The SecureBoot images are available for Talos releases starting from v1.5.0.
The easiest way to get started with SecureBoot is to download the ISO, and
boot it on a UEFI-enabled system which has SecureBoot enabled in setup mode.
The ISO bootloader will enroll the keys in the UEFI firmware, and boot the Talos Linux in SecureBoot mode.
The install should performed using SecureBoot installer (put it Talos machine configuration): factory.talos.dev/installer-secureboot/376567988ad370138ad8b2698212367b8edcb69b5fd68c80be1f2ec7d603b4ba:v1.9.0-alpha.0.
Note: SecureBoot images can also be generated with custom keys.
Booting Talos Linux in SecureBoot Mode
In this guide we will use the ISO image to boot Talos Linux in SecureBoot mode, followed by submitting machine configuration to the machine in maintenance mode.
We will use one the ways to generate and submit machine configuration to the node, please refer to the Production Notes for the full guide.
First, make sure SecureBoot is enabled in the UEFI firmware.
For the first boot, the UEFI firmware should be in the setup mode, so that the keys can be enrolled into the UEFI firmware automatically.
If the UEFI firmware does not support automatic enrollment, you may need to hit Esc to force the boot menu to appear, and select the Enroll Secure Boot keys: auto option.
Note: There are other ways to enroll the keys into the UEFI firmware, but this is out of scope of this guide.
Once Talos is running in maintenance mode, verify that secure boot is enabled:
$ talosctl -n <IP> get securitystate --insecure
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION SECUREBOOT
runtime SecurityState securitystate 1true
Now we will generate the machine configuration for the node supplying the installer-secureboot container image, and applying the patch to enable TPM-based disk encryption (requires TPM 2.0):
Talos will perform the installation to the disk and reboot the node.
Please make sure that the ISO image is not attached to the node anymore, otherwise the node will boot from the ISO image again.
Once the node is rebooted, verify that the node is running in secure boot mode:
talosctl -n <IP> --talosconfig=talosconfig get securitystate
Upgrading Talos Linux
Any change to the boot asset (kernel, initramfs, kernel command line) requires the UKI to be regenerated and the installer image to be rebuilt.
Follow the steps above to generate new installer image updating the boot assets: use new Talos version, add a system extension, or modify the kernel command line.
Once the new installer image is pushed to the registry, upgrade the node using the new installer image.
It is important to preserve the UKI signing key and the PCR signing key, otherwise the node will not be able to boot with the new UKI and unlock the encrypted partitions.
Disk Encryption with TPM
When encrypting the disk partition for the first time, Talos Linux generates a random disk encryption key and seals (encrypts) it with the TPM device.
The TPM unlock policy is configured to trust the expected policy signed by the PCR signing key.
This way TPM unlocking doesn’t depend on the exact PCR measurements, but rather on the expected policy signed by the PCR signing key and the state of SecureBoot (PCR 7 measurement, including secureboot status and the list of enrolled keys).
When the UKI image is generated, the UKI is measured and expected measurements are combined into TPM unlock policy and signed with the PCR signing key.
During the boot process, systemd-stub component of the UKI performs measurements of the UKI sections into the TPM device.
Talos Linux during the boot appends to the PCR register the measurements of the boot phases, and once the boot reaches the point of mounting the encrypted disk partition,
the expected signed policy from the UKI is matched against measured values to unlock the TPM, and TPM unseals the disk encryption key which is then used to unlock the disk partition.
During the upgrade, as long as the new UKI is contains PCR policy signed with the same PCR signing key, and SecureBoot state has not changed the disk partition will be unlocked successfully.
Disk encryption is also tied to the state of PCR register 7, so that it unlocks only if SecureBoot is enabled and the set of enrolled keys hasn’t changed.
Other Boot Options
Unified Kernel Image (UKI) is a UEFI-bootable image which can be booted directly from the UEFI firmware skipping the systemd-boot bootloader.
In network boot mode, the UKI can be used directly as well, as it contains the full set of boot assets required to boot Talos Linux.
When SecureBoot is enabled, the UKI image ignores any kernel command line arguments passed to it, but rather uses the kernel command line arguments embedded into the UKI image itself.
If kernel command line arguments need to be changed, the UKI image needs to be rebuilt with the new kernel command line arguments.
SecureBoot with Custom Keys
Generating the Keys
Talos requires two set of keys to be used for the SecureBoot process:
SecureBoot key is used to sign the boot assets and it is enrolled into the UEFI firmware.
PCR Signing Key is used to sign the TPM policy, which is used to seal the disk encryption key.
The same key might be used for both, but it is recommended to use separate keys for each purpose.
Talos provides a utility to generate the keys, but existing PKI infrastructure can be used as well:
The generated certificate and private key are written to disk in PEM-encoded format (RSA 4096-bit key).
The certificate is also written in DER format for the systems which expect the certificate in DER format.
PCR signing key can be generated with:
$ talosctl gen secureboot pcr
writing _out/pcr-signing-key.pem
The file containing the private key is written to disk in PEM-encoded format (RSA 2048-bit key).
Optionally, UEFI automatic key enrollment database can be generated using the _out/uki-signing-* files as input:
These files can be used to enroll the keys into the UEFI firmware automatically when booting from a SecureBoot ISO while UEFI firmware is in the setup mode.
Generating the SecureBoot Assets
Once the keys are generated, they can be used to sign the Talos boot assets to generate required ISO images, PXE boot assets, disk images, installer containers, etc.
In this guide we will generate a SecureBoot ISO image and an installer image.
The generated ISO and installer images might be further customized with system extensions, extra kernel command line arguments, etc.
2.1.2 - Virtualized Platforms
Installation of Talos Linux for virtualization platforms.
2.1.2.1 - Hyper-V
Creating a Talos Kubernetes cluster using Hyper-V.
Pre-requisities
Download the latest metal-amd64.iso ISO from github releases page
Create a New-TalosVM folder in any of your PS Module Path folders $env:PSModulePath -split ';' and save the New-TalosVM.psm1 there
Plan Overview
Here we will create a basic 3 node cluster with a single control-plane node and two worker nodes.
The only difference between control plane and worker node is the amount of RAM and an additional storage VHD.
This is personal preference and can be configured to your liking.
We are using a VMNamePrefix argument for a VM Name prefix and not the full hostname.
This command will find any existing VM with that prefix and “+1” the highest suffix it finds.
For example, if VMs talos-cp01 and talos-cp02 exist, this will create VMs starting from talos-cp03, depending on NumberOfVMs argument.
Setup a Control Plane Node
Use the following command to create a single control plane node:
This will create two VMs: talos-worker01 and talos-wworker02 and attach an additional VHD of 50GB for storage (which in my case will be passed to Mayastor).
Pushing Config to the Nodes
Now that our VMs are ready, find their IP addresses from console of VM.
With that information, push config to the control plane node with:
# set control plane IP variable$CONTROL_PLANE_IP='10.10.10.x'# Generate talos configtalosctl gen config talos-cluster https://$($CONTROL_PLANE_IP):6443 --output-dir .
# Apply config to control plane nodetalosctl apply-config --insecure --nodes $CONTROL_PLANE_IP --file .\controlplane.yaml
Now that our nodes are ready, we are ready to bootstrap the Kubernetes cluster.
# Use following command to set node and endpoint permanantly in config so you dont have to type it everytimetalosctl config endpoint $CONTROL_PLANE_IPtalosctl config node $CONTROL_PLANE_IP# Bootstrap clustertalosctl bootstrap
# Generate kubeconfigtalosctl kubeconfig .
This will generate the kubeconfig file, you can use to connect to the cluster.
2.1.2.2 - KVM
Talos is known to work on KVM.
We don’t yet have a documented guide specific to KVM; however, you can have a look at our
Vagrant & Libvirt guide which uses KVM for virtualization.
If you run into any issues, our community can probably help!
Scroll down and select your Talos version (v1.9.0-alpha.0 for example)
Then tick the box for siderolabs/qemu-guest-agent and submit
This will provide you with a link to the bare metal ISO
The lines we’re interested in are as follows
Metal ISO
amd64 ISO
https://factory.talos.dev/image/ce4c980550dd2ab1b17bbf2b08801c7eb59418eafe8f279833297925d67c7515/v1.9.0-alpha.0/metal-amd64.iso
arm64 ISO
https://factory.talos.dev/image/ce4c980550dd2ab1b17bbf2b08801c7eb59418eafe8f279833297925d67c7515/v1.9.0-alpha.0/metal-arm64.iso
Installer Image
For the initial Talos install or upgrade use the following installer image:
factory.talos.dev/installer/ce4c980550dd2ab1b17bbf2b08801c7eb59418eafe8f279833297925d67c7515:v1.9.0-alpha.0
Download the above ISO (this will most likely be amd64 for you)
Take note of the factory.talos.dev/installer URL as you’ll need it later
Upload ISO
From the Proxmox UI, select the “local” storage and enter the “Content” section.
Click the “Upload” button:
Select the ISO you downloaded previously, then hit “Upload”
Create VMs
Before starting, familiarise yourself with the
system requirements for Talos and assign VM
resources accordingly.
Create a new VM by clicking the “Create VM” button in the Proxmox UI:
Fill out a name for the new VM:
In the OS tab, select the ISO we uploaded earlier:
Keep the defaults set in the “System” tab.
Keep the defaults in the “Hard Disk” tab as well, only changing the size if desired.
In the “CPU” section, give at least 2 cores to the VM:
Note: As of Talos v1.0 (which requires the x86-64-v2 microarchitecture), prior to Proxmox V8.0, booting with the
default Processor Type kvm64 will not work.
You can enable the required CPU features after creating the VM by
adding the following line in the corresponding /etc/pve/qemu-server/<vmid>.conf file:
Alternatively, you can set the Processor Type to host if your Proxmox host supports these CPU features,
this however prevents using live VM migration.
Verify that the RAM is set to at least 2GB:
Keep the default values for networking, verifying that the VM is set to come up on the bridge interface:
Finish creating the VM by clicking through the “Confirm” tab and then “Finish”.
Repeat this process for a second VM to use as a worker node.
You can also repeat this for additional nodes desired.
Note: Talos doesn’t support memory hot plugging, if creating the VM programmatically don’t enable memory hotplug on your
Talos VM’s.
Doing so will cause Talos to be unable to see all available memory and have insufficient memory to complete
installation of the cluster.
Start Control Plane Node
Once the VMs have been created and updated, start the VM that will be the first control plane node.
This VM will boot the ISO image specified earlier and enter “maintenance mode”.
With DHCP server
Once the machine has entered maintenance mode, there will be a console log that details the IP address that the node received.
Take note of this IP address, which will be referred to as $CONTROL_PLANE_IP for the rest of this guide.
If you wish to export this IP as a bash variable, simply issue a command like export CONTROL_PLANE_IP=1.2.3.4.
Without DHCP server
To apply the machine configurations in maintenance mode, VM has to have IP on the network.
So you can set it on boot time manually.
Press e on the boot time.
And set the IP parameters for the VM.
Format is:
With the IP address above, you can now generate the machine configurations to use for installing Talos and Kubernetes.
Issue the following command, updating the output directory, cluster name, and control plane IP as you see fit:
talosctl gen config talos-proxmox-cluster https://$CONTROL_PLANE_IP:6443 --output-dir _out
This will create several files in the _out directory: controlplane.yaml, worker.yaml, and talosconfig.
Note: The Talos config by default will install to /dev/sda.
Depending on your setup the virtual disk may be mounted differently Eg: /dev/vda.
You can check for disks running the following command:
You should now see some action in the Proxmox console for this VM.
Talos will be installed to disk, the VM will reboot, and then Talos will configure the Kubernetes control plane on this VM.
Note: This process can be repeated multiple times to create an HA control plane.
Create Worker Node
Create at least a single worker node using a process similar to the control plane creation above.
Start the worker node VM and wait for it to enter “maintenance mode”.
Take note of the worker node’s IP address, which will be referred to as $WORKER_IP
Note: This process can be repeated multiple times to add additional workers.
Using the Cluster
Once the cluster is available, you can make use of talosctl and kubectl to interact with the cluster.
For example, to view current running containers, run talosctl containers for a list of containers in the system namespace, or talosctl containers -k for the k8s.io namespace.
To view the logs of a container, use talosctl logs <container> or talosctl logs -k <container>.
First, configure talosctl to talk to your control plane node by issuing the following, updating paths and IPs as necessary:
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.
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)
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
2.1.2.6 - VMware
Creating Talos Kubernetes cluster using VMware.
Creating a Cluster via the govc CLI
In this guide we will create an HA Kubernetes cluster with 2 worker nodes.
We will use the govc cli which can be downloaded here.
Prereqs/Assumptions
This guide will use the virtual IP (“VIP”) functionality that is built into Talos in order to provide a stable, known IP for the Kubernetes control plane.
This simply means the user should pick an IP on their “VM Network” to designate for this purpose and keep it handy for future steps.
Create the Machine Configuration Files
Generating Base Configurations
Using the VIP chosen in the prereq steps, we will now generate the base configuration files for the Talos machines.
This can be done with the talosctl gen config ... command.
Take note that we will also use a JSON6902 patch when creating the configs so that the control plane nodes get some special information about the VIP we chose earlier, as well as a daemonset to install vmware tools on talos nodes.
First, download cp.patch.yaml to your local machine and edit the VIP to match your chosen IP.
You can do this by issuing: curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/siderolabs/talos/master/website/content/v1.9/talos-guides/install/virtualized-platforms/vmware/cp.patch.yaml.
It’s contents should look like the following:
With the patch in hand, generate machine configs with:
$ talosctl gen config vmware-test https://<VIP>:<port> --config-patch-control-plane @cp.patch.yaml
created controlplane.yaml
created worker.yaml
created talosconfig
At this point, you can modify the generated configs to your liking if needed.
Optionally, you can specify additional patches by adding to the cp.patch.yaml file downloaded earlier, or create your own patch files.
Validate the Configuration Files
$ talosctl validate --config controlplane.yaml --mode cloud
controlplane.yaml is valid for cloud mode
$ talosctl validate --config worker.yaml --mode cloud
worker.yaml is valid for cloud mode
Set Environment Variables
govc makes use of the following environment variables
As part of this guide, we have a more automated install script that handles some of the complexity of importing OVAs and creating VMs.
If you wish to use this script, we will detail that next.
If you wish to carry out the manual approach, simply skip ahead to the “Manual Approach” section.
Scripted Install
Download the vmware.sh script to your local machine.
You can do this by issuing curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/siderolabs/talos/master/website/content/v1.9/talos-guides/install/virtualized-platforms/vmware/vmware.sh" | sed s/latest/v1.9.0-alpha.0/ > vmware.sh.
This script has default variables for things like Talos version and cluster name that may be interesting to tweak before deploying.
The script downloads VMWare OVA with talos-vmtoolsd from Image Factory extension pre-installed.
Import OVA
To create a content library and import the Talos OVA corresponding to the mentioned Talos version, simply issue:
./vmware.sh upload_ova
Create Cluster
With the OVA uploaded to the content library, you can create a 5 node (by default) cluster with 3 control plane and 2 worker nodes:
./vmware.sh create
This step will create a VM from the OVA, edit the settings based on the env variables used for VM size/specs, then power on the VMs.
You may now skip past the “Manual Approach” section down to “Bootstrap Cluster”.
Manual Approach
Import the OVA into vCenter
A talos.ova asset is available from Image Factory.
We will refer to the version of the release as $TALOS_VERSION below.
It can be easily exported with export TALOS_VERSION="v0.3.0-alpha.10" or similar.
The download link already includes the talos-vmtoolsd extension.
Talos makes use of the guestinfo facility of VMware to provide the machine/cluster configuration.
This can be set using the govc vm.change command.
To facilitate persistent storage using the vSphere cloud provider integration with Kubernetes, disk.enableUUID=1 is used.
In the vSphere UI, open a console to one of the control plane nodes.
You should see some output stating that etcd should be bootstrapped.
This text should look like:
"etcd is waiting to join the cluster, if this node is the first node in the cluster, please run `talosctl bootstrap` against one of the following IPs:
The talos-vmtoolsd application was deployed as a daemonset as part of the cluster creation; however, we must now provide a talos credentials file for it to use.
Once configured, you should now see these daemonset pods go into “Running” state and in vCenter, you will now see IPs and info from the Talos nodes present in the UI.
2.1.2.7 - Xen
Talos is known to work on Xen.
We don’t yet have a documented guide specific to Xen; however, you can follow the General Getting Started Guide.
If you run into any issues, our community can probably help!
2.1.3 - Cloud Platforms
Installation of Talos Linux on many cloud platforms.
2.1.3.1 - Akamai
Creating a cluster via the CLI on Akamai Cloud (Linode).
Creating a Talos Linux Cluster on Akamai Connected Cloud via the CLI
This guide will demonstrate how to create a highly available Kubernetes cluster with one worker using the Akamai Connected Cloud provider.
Akamai Connected Cloud has a very well-documented REST API, and an open-source CLI tool to interact with the API which will be used in this guide.
Make sure to follow installation and authentication instructions for the linode-cli tool.
Using the IP address (or DNS name, if you have created one) of the load balancer, generate the base configuration files for the Talos machines.
Also note that the load balancer forwards port 443 to port 6443 on the associated nodes, so we should use 443 as the port in the config definition:
exportNODEBALANCER_IP=$(linode-cli nodebalancers list --label talos --format ipv4 --text --no-headers)talosctl gen config talos-kubernetes-akamai https://${NODEBALANCER_IP} --with-examples=false
Create the Linodes
Create the Control Plane Nodes
Although root passwords are not used by Talos, Linode requires that a root password be associated with a linode during creation.
Run the following commands to create three control plane nodes:
exportIMAGE_ID=$(linode-cli images list --label talos --format id --text --no-headers)exportNODEBALANCER_ID=$(linode-cli nodebalancers list --label talos --format id --text --no-headers)exportNODEBALANCER_CONFIG_ID=$(linode-cli nodebalancers configs-list ${NODEBALANCER_ID} --format id --text --no-headers)exportREGION=us-ord
exportLINODE_TYPE=g6-standard-4
exportROOT_PW=$(pwgen 16)for id in $(seq 3); dolinode_label="talos-control-plane-${id}"# create linode linode-cli linodes create \
--no-defaults \
--root_pass ${ROOT_PW}\
--type ${LINODE_TYPE}\
--region ${REGION}\
--image ${IMAGE_ID}\
--label ${linode_label}\
--private_ip true\
--tags talos-control-plane \
--group "talos-control-plane"\
--metadata.user_data "$(base64 -i ./controlplane.yaml)"# change kernel to "direct disk"linode_id=$(linode-cli linodes list --label ${linode_label} --format id --text --no-headers)confiig_id=$(linode-cli linodes configs-list ${linode_id} --format id --text --no-headers) linode-cli linodes config-update ${linode_id}${confiig_id} --kernel "linode/direct-disk"# add machine to nodebalancerprivate_ip=$(linode-cli linodes list --label ${linode_label} --format ipv4 --json | jq -r ".[0].ipv4[1]") linode-cli nodebalancers node-create ${NODEBALANCER_ID}${NODEBALANCER_CONFIG_ID} --label ${linode_label} --address ${private_ip}:6443
done
Create the Worker Nodes
Although root passwords are not used by Talos, Linode requires that a root password be associated with a linode during creation.
At this point, we can retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig kubeconfig .
We can also watch the cluster bootstrap via:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig health
Alternatively, we can also watch the node overview, logs and real-time metrics dashboard via:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig dashboard
2.1.3.2 - AWS
Creating a cluster via the AWS CLI.
Creating a Cluster via the AWS CLI
In this guide we will create an HA Kubernetes cluster with 3 control plane nodes across 3 availability zones.
You should have an existing AWS account and have the AWS CLI installed and configured.
If you need more information on AWS specifics, please see the official AWS documentation.
To install the dependencies for this tutorial you can use homebrew on macOS or Linux:
If you would like to create infrastructure via terraform or opentofu please see the example in the contrib repository.
Note: this guide is not a production set up and steps were tested in bash and zsh shells.
Create AWS Resources
We will be creating a control plane with 3 Ec2 instances spread across 3 availability zones.
It is recommended to not use the default VPC so we will create a new one for this tutorial.
Change to your desired region and CIDR block and create a VPC:
AWS_REGION="us-west-2"IPV4_CIDR="10.1.0.0/18"VPC_ID=$(aws ec2 create-vpc \
--cidr-block $IPV4_CIDR\
--output text --query 'Vpc.VpcId')
Create the Subnets
Create 3 smaller CIDRs to use for each subnet in different availability zones.
Make sure to adjust these CIDRs if you changed the default value from the last command.
In this guide we will create an HA Kubernetes cluster with 1 worker node.
We assume existing Blob Storage, and some familiarity with Azure.
If you need more information on Azure specifics, please see the official Azure documentation.
Environment Setup
We’ll make use of the following environment variables throughout the setup.
Edit the variables below with your correct information.
# Storage account to useexportSTORAGE_ACCOUNT="StorageAccountName"# Storage container to upload toexportSTORAGE_CONTAINER="StorageContainerName"# Resource group nameexportGROUP="ResourceGroupName"# LocationexportLOCATION="centralus"# Get storage account connection string based on info aboveexportCONNECTION=$(az storage account show-connection-string \
-n $STORAGE_ACCOUNT\
-g $GROUP\
-o tsv)
Choose an Image
There are two methods of deployment in this tutorial.
If you would like to use the official Talos image uploaded to Azure Community Galleries by SideroLabs, you may skip ahead to setting up your network infrastructure.
Now that the image is present in our blob storage, we’ll register it.
az image create \
--name talos \
--source https://$STORAGE_ACCOUNT.blob.core.windows.net/$STORAGE_CONTAINER/talos-azure.vhd \
--os-type linux \
-g $GROUP
Network Infrastructure
Virtual Networks and Security Groups
Once the image is prepared, we’ll want to work through setting up the network.
Issue the following to create a network security group and add rules to it.
In Azure, we have to pre-create the NICs for our control plane so that they can be associated with our load balancer.
for i in $( seq 012); do# Create public IP for each nic az network public-ip create \
--resource-group $GROUP\
--name talos-controlplane-public-ip-$i\
--allocation-method static
# Create nic az network nic create \
--resource-group $GROUP\
--name talos-controlplane-nic-$i\
--vnet-name talos-vnet \
--subnet talos-subnet \
--network-security-group talos-sg \
--public-ip-address talos-controlplane-public-ip-$i\
--lb-name talos-lb \
--lb-address-pools talos-be-pool
done# NOTES:# Talos can detect PublicIPs automatically if PublicIP SKU is Basic.# Use `--sku Basic` to set SKU to Basic.
Cluster Configuration
With our networking bits setup, we’ll fetch the IP for our load balancer and create our configuration files.
LB_PUBLIC_IP=$(az network public-ip show \
--resource-group $GROUP\
--name talos-public-ip \
--query "ipAddress"\
--output tsv)talosctl gen config talos-k8s-azure-tutorial https://${LB_PUBLIC_IP}:6443
Compute Creation
We are now ready to create our azure nodes.
Azure allows you to pass Talos machine configuration to the virtual machine at bootstrap time via
user-data or custom-data methods.
Talos supports only custom-data method, machine configuration is available to the VM only on the first boot.
Use the steps below depending on whether you have manually uploaded a Talos image or if you are using the Community Gallery image.
# Create availability setaz vm availability-set create \
--name talos-controlplane-av-set \
-g $GROUP# Create the controlplane nodesfor i in $( seq 012); do az vm create \
--name talos-controlplane-$i\
--image talos \
--custom-data ./controlplane.yaml \
-g $GROUP\
--admin-username talos \
--generate-ssh-keys \
--verbose \
--boot-diagnostics-storage $STORAGE_ACCOUNT\
--os-disk-size-gb 20\
--nics talos-controlplane-nic-$i\
--availability-set talos-controlplane-av-set \
--no-wait
done# Create worker node az vm create \
--name talos-worker-0 \
--image talos \
--vnet-name talos-vnet \
--subnet talos-subnet \
--custom-data ./worker.yaml \
-g $GROUP\
--admin-username talos \
--generate-ssh-keys \
--verbose \
--boot-diagnostics-storage $STORAGE_ACCOUNT\
--nsg talos-sg \
--os-disk-size-gb 20\
--no-wait
# NOTES:# `--admin-username` and `--generate-ssh-keys` are required by the az cli,# but are not actually used by talos# `--os-disk-size-gb` is the backing disk for Kubernetes and any workload containers# `--boot-diagnostics-storage` is to enable console output which may be necessary# for troubleshooting
Azure Community Gallery Image
Talos is updated in Azure’s Community Galleries (Preview) on every release.
To use the Talos image for the current release create the following environment variables.
Edit the variables below if you would like to use a different architecture or version.
# The architecture you would like to use. Options are "talos-x64" or "talos-arm64"ARCHITECTURE="talos-x64"# This will use the latest version of Talos. The version must be "latest" or in the format Major(int).Minor(int).Patch(int), e.g. 1.5.0VERSION="latest"
Create the Virtual Machines.
# Create availability setaz vm availability-set create \
--name talos-controlplane-av-set \
-g $GROUP# Create the controlplane nodesfor i in $( seq 012); do az vm create \
--name talos-controlplane-$i\
--image /CommunityGalleries/siderolabs-c4d707c0-343e-42de-b597-276e4f7a5b0b/Images/${ARCHITECTURE}/Versions/${VERSION}\
--custom-data ./controlplane.yaml \
-g $GROUP\
--admin-username talos \
--generate-ssh-keys \
--verbose \
--boot-diagnostics-storage $STORAGE_ACCOUNT\
--os-disk-size-gb 20\
--nics talos-controlplane-nic-$i\
--availability-set talos-controlplane-av-set \
--no-wait
done# Create worker node az vm create \
--name talos-worker-0 \
--image /CommunityGalleries/siderolabs-c4d707c0-343e-42de-b597-276e4f7a5b0b/Images/${ARCHITECTURE}/Versions/${VERSION}\
--vnet-name talos-vnet \
--subnet talos-subnet \
--custom-data ./worker.yaml \
-g $GROUP\
--admin-username talos \
--generate-ssh-keys \
--verbose \
--boot-diagnostics-storage $STORAGE_ACCOUNT\
--nsg talos-sg \
--os-disk-size-gb 20\
--no-wait
# NOTES:# `--admin-username` and `--generate-ssh-keys` are required by the az cli,# but are not actually used by talos# `--os-disk-size-gb` is the backing disk for Kubernetes and any workload containers# `--boot-diagnostics-storage` is to enable console output which may be necessary# for troubleshooting
Bootstrap Etcd
You should now be able to interact with your cluster with talosctl.
We will need to discover the public IP for our first control plane node first.
Download the Talos CloudStack image cloudstack-amd64.raw.gz from the Image Factory.
Note: the minimum version of Talos required to support Apache CloudStack is v1.8.0.
Using an upload method of your choice, upload the image to a Apache CloudStack.
You might be able to use the “Register Template from URL” to download the image directly from the Image Factory.
Note: CloudStack does not seem to like compressed images, so you might have to download the image to a local webserver, uncompress it and let CloudStack fetch the image from there instead.
Alternatively, you can try to remove .gz from URL to fetch an uncompressed image from the Image Factory.
Get Required Variables
Next we will get a number of required variables and export them for later use:
Finally it’s time to generate the Talos configuration files, using the Public IP address assigned to the loadbalancer.
$ talosctl gen config talos-cloudstack https://${PUBLIC_IPADDRESS}:6443 --with-docs=false --with-examples=falsecreated controlplane.yaml
created worker.yaml
created talosconfig
Make any adjustments to the controlplane.yaml and/or worker.yaml as you like.
Note: Remember to validate!
Create Talos VM
Next we will create the actual VM and supply the controlplane.yaml as base64 encoded userdata.
At this point we can retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig kubeconfig .
We can also watch the cluster bootstrap via:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig dashboard
2.1.3.5 - DigitalOcean
Creating a cluster via the CLI on DigitalOcean.
Creating a Talos Linux Cluster on Digital Ocean via the CLI
In this guide we will create an HA Kubernetes cluster with 1 worker node, in the NYC region.
We assume an existing Space, and some familiarity with DigitalOcean.
If you need more information on DigitalOcean specifics, please see the official DigitalOcean documentation.
Create the Image
Download the DigitalOcean image digital-ocean-amd64.raw.gz from the Image Factory.
Note: the minimum version of Talos required to support Digital Ocean is v1.3.3.
Using an upload method of your choice (doctl does not have Spaces support), upload the image to a space.
(It’s easy to drag the image file to the space using DigitalOcean’s web console.)
Note: Make sure you upload the file as public.
Now, create an image using the URL of the uploaded image:
We will need the IP of the load balancer.
Using the ID of the load balancer, run:
doctl compute load-balancer get --format IP <load balancer ID>
Note that it may take a few minutes before the load balancer is provisioned, so repeat this command until it returns with the IP address.
Create the Machine Configuration Files
Using the IP address (or DNS name, if you have created one) of the loadbalancer, generate the base configuration files for the Talos machines.
Also note that the load balancer forwards port 443 to port 6443 on the associated nodes, so we should use 443 as the port in the config definition:
$ talosctl gen config talos-k8s-digital-ocean-tutorial https://<load balancer IP or DNS>:443
created controlplane.yaml
created worker.yaml
created talosconfig
Create the Droplets
Create a dummy SSH key
Although SSH is not used by Talos, DigitalOcean requires that an SSH key be associated with a droplet during creation.
We will create a dummy key that can be used to satisfy this requirement.
At this point we can retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig kubeconfig .
We can also watch the cluster bootstrap via:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig health
2.1.3.6 - Exoscale
Creating a cluster via the CLI using exoscale.com
Talos is known to work on exoscale.com; however, it is currently undocumented.
2.1.3.7 - GCP
Creating a cluster via the CLI on Google Cloud Platform.
Creating a Cluster via the CLI
In this guide, we will create an HA Kubernetes cluster in GCP with 1 worker node.
We will assume an existing Cloud Storage bucket, and some familiarity with Google Cloud.
If you need more information on Google Cloud specifics, please see the official Google documentation.
Once the image is prepared, we’ll want to work through setting up the network.
Issue the following to create a firewall, load balancer, and their required components.
Using GCP deployment manager automatically creates a Google Storage bucket and uploads the Talos image to it.
Once the deployment is complete the generated talosconfig and kubeconfig files are uploaded to the bucket.
By default this setup creates a three node control plane and a single worker in us-west1-b
First we need to create a folder to store our deployment manifests and perform all subsequent operations from that folder.
mkdir -p talos-gcp-deployment
cd talos-gcp-deployment
Getting the deployment manifests
We need to download two deployment manifests for the deployment from the Talos github repository.
curl -fsSLO "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/siderolabs/talos/master/website/content/v1.9/talos-guides/install/cloud-platforms/gcp/config.yaml"curl -fsSLO "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/siderolabs/talos/master/website/content/v1.9/talos-guides/install/cloud-platforms/gcp/talos-ha.jinja"# if using ccmcurl -fsSLO "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/siderolabs/talos/master/website/content/v1.9/talos-guides/install/cloud-platforms/gcp/gcp-ccm.yaml"
Updating the config
Now we need to update the local config.yaml file with any required changes such as changing the default zone, Talos version, machine sizes, nodes count etc.
Note: The externalCloudProvider property is set to false by default.
The manifest used for deploying the ccm (cloud controller manager) is currently using the GCP ccm provided by openshift since there are no public images for the ccm yet.
Since the routes controller is disabled while deploying the CCM, the CNI pods needs to be restarted after the CCM deployment is complete to remove the node.kubernetes.io/network-unavailable taint.
See Nodes network-unavailable taint not removed after installing ccm for more information
Use a custom built image for the ccm deployment if required.
Creating the deployment
Now we are ready to create the deployment.
Confirm with y for any prompts.
Run the following command to create the deployment:
# use a unique name for the deployment, resources are prefixed with the deployment nameexportDEPLOYMENT_NAME="<deployment name>"gcloud deployment-manager deployments create "${DEPLOYMENT_NAME}" --config config.yaml
Retrieving the outputs
First we need to get the deployment outputs.
# first get the outputsOUTPUTS=$(gcloud deployment-manager deployments describe "${DEPLOYMENT_NAME}" --format json | jq '.outputs[]')BUCKET_NAME=$(jq -r '. | select(.name == "bucketName").finalValue'<<<"${OUTPUTS}")# used when cloud controller is enabledSERVICE_ACCOUNT=$(jq -r '. | select(.name == "serviceAccount").finalValue'<<<"${OUTPUTS}")PROJECT=$(jq -r '. | select(.name == "project").finalValue'<<<"${OUTPUTS}")
Note: If cloud controller manager is enabled, the below command needs to be run to allow the controller custom role to access cloud resources
In addition to the talosconfig and kubeconfig files, the storage bucket contains the controlplane.yaml and worker.yaml files used to join additional nodes to the cluster.
kubectl \
--kubeconfig kubeconfig \
--namespace kube-system \
apply \
--filename gcp-ccm.yaml
# wait for the ccm to be upkubectl \
--kubeconfig kubeconfig \
--namespace kube-system \
rollout status \
daemonset cloud-controller-manager
If the cloud controller manager is enabled, we need to restart the CNI pods to remove the node.kubernetes.io/network-unavailable taint.
# restart the CNI pods, in this case flannelkubectl \
--kubeconfig kubeconfig \
--namespace kube-system \
rollout restart \
daemonset kube-flannel
# wait for the pods to be restartedkubectl \
--kubeconfig kubeconfig \
--namespace kube-system \
rollout status \
daemonset kube-flannel
Check cluster status
kubectl \
--kubeconfig kubeconfig \
get nodes
Cleanup deployment
Warning: This will delete the deployment and all resources associated with it.
# delete the objects in the bucket firstgsutil -m rm -r "gs://${BUCKET_NAME}"gcloud deployment-manager deployments delete "${DEPLOYMENT_NAME}" --quiet
2.1.3.8 - Hetzner
Creating a cluster via the CLI (hcloud) on Hetzner.
Upload image
Hetzner Cloud does not support uploading custom images.
You can email their support to get a Talos ISO uploaded by following issues:3599 or you can prepare image snapshot by yourself.
There are two options to upload your own.
Run an instance in rescue mode and replace the system OS with the Talos image
Create a new Server in the Hetzner console.
Enable the Hetzner Rescue System for this server and reboot.
Upon a reboot, the server will boot a special minimal Linux distribution designed for repair and reinstall.
Once running, login to the server using ssh to prepare the system disk by doing the following:
# Check that you in Rescue modedf
### Result is like:# udev 987432 0 987432 0% /dev# 213.133.99.101:/nfs 308577696 247015616 45817536 85% /root/.oldroot/nfs# overlay 995672 8340 987332 1% /# tmpfs 995672 0 995672 0% /dev/shm# tmpfs 398272 572 397700 1% /run# tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock# tmpfs 199132 0 199132 0% /run/user/0# Download the Talos imagecd /tmp
wget -O /tmp/talos.raw.xz https://factory.talos.dev/image/376567988ad370138ad8b2698212367b8edcb69b5fd68c80be1f2ec7d603b4ba/v1.9.0-alpha.0/hcloud-amd64.raw.xz
# Replace systemxz -d -c /tmp/talos.raw.xz | dd of=/dev/sda && sync
# shutdown the instanceshutdown -h now
To make sure disk content is consistent, it is recommended to shut the server down before taking an image (snapshot).
Once shutdown, simply create an image (snapshot) from the console.
You can now use this snapshot to run Talos on the cloud.
Create a new image by issuing the commands shown below.
Note that to create a new API token for your Project, switch into the Hetzner Cloud Console choose a Project, go to Access → Security, and create a new token.
# First you need set API TokenexportHCLOUD_TOKEN=${TOKEN}# Upload imagepacker init .
packer build .
# Save the image IDexportIMAGE_ID=<image-id-in-packer-output>
After doing this, you can find the snapshot in the console interface.
Using the IP/DNS name of the loadbalancer created earlier, generate the base configuration files for the Talos machines by issuing:
$ talosctl gen config talos-k8s-hcloud-tutorial https://<load balancer IP or DNS>:6443 \
--with-examples=false --with-docs=falsecreated controlplane.yaml
created worker.yaml
created talosconfig
Generating the config without examples and docs is necessary because otherwise you can easily exceed the 32 kb limit on uploadable userdata (see issue 8805).
At this point, you can modify the generated configs to your liking.
Optionally, you can specify --config-patch with RFC6902 jsonpatches which will be applied during the config generation.
Validate the Configuration Files
Validate any edited machine configs with:
$ talosctl validate --config controlplane.yaml --mode cloud
controlplane.yaml is valid for cloud mode
$ talosctl validate --config worker.yaml --mode cloud
worker.yaml is valid for cloud mode
Create the Servers
We can now create our servers.
Note that you can find IMAGE_ID in the snapshot section of the console: https://console.hetzner.cloud/projects/$PROJECT_ID/servers/snapshots.
talosctl patch machineconfig --patch-file patch.yaml --nodes <comma separated list of all your nodes' IP addresses>
With that in place, we can now follow the official instructions, ignoring the kubeadm related steps.
2.1.3.9 - Kubernetes
Running Talos Linux as a pod in Kubernetes.
Talos Linux can be run as a pod in Kubernetes similar to running Talos in Docker.
This can be used e.g. to run controlplane nodes inside an existing Kubernetes cluster.
Talos Linux running in Kubernetes is not full Talos Linux experience, as it is running in a container using the host’s kernel and network stack.
Some operations like upgrades and reboots are not supported.
Prerequisites
a running Kubernetes cluster
a talos container image: ghcr.io/siderolabs/talos:v1.9.0-alpha.0
Machine Configuration
Machine configuration can be generated using Getting Started guide.
Machine install disk will ge ignored, as the install image.
The Talos version will be driven by the container image being used.
The required machine configuration patch to enable using container runtime DNS:
Initial machine configuration can be submitted using talosctl apply-config --insecure when the pod is running, or it can be submitted
via an environment variable USERDATA with base64-encoded machine configuration.
Volume Mounts
Three ephemeral mounts are required for /run, /system, and /tmp directories:
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /run
name: run
- mountPath: /system
name: system
- mountPath: /tmp
name: tmp
volumes:
- emptyDir: {}
name: run
- emptyDir: {}
name: system
- emptyDir: {}
name: tmp
Several other mountpoints are required, and they should persist across pod restarts, so one should use PersistentVolume for them:
Where serial holds the base64-encoded string version of ds=nocloud-net;s=http://10.10.0.1/configs/.
The serial can also be set from a root shell on the Proxmox server:
# qm set $VM --smbios1 "uuid=5b0f7dcf-cfe3-4bf3-87a2-1cad29bd51f9,serial=$(printf '%s' 'ds=nocloud-net;s=http://10.10.0.1/configs/' | base64),base64=1"
update VM 105: -smbios1 uuid=5b0f7dcf-cfe3-4bf3-87a2-1cad29bd51f9,serial=ZHM9bm9jbG91ZC1uZXQ7cz1odHRwOi8vMTAuMTAuMC4xL2NvbmZpZ3Mv,base64=1
Keep in mind that if you set the serial from the command line, you must encode it as base64, and you must include the UUID and any other settings that are already set for the smbios1 option or they will be removed.
CDROM/USB
Talos can also get machine config from local attached storage without any prior network connection being established.
You can provide configs to the server via files on a VFAT or ISO9660 filesystem.
The filesystem volume label must be cidata or CIDATA.
Example: QEMU
Create and prepare Talos machine config:
exportCONTROL_PLANE_IP=192.168.1.10
talosctl gen config talos-nocloud https://$CONTROL_PLANE_IP:6443 --output-dir _out
Proxmox can create cloud-init disk for you.
Edit the cloud-init config information in Proxmox as follows, substitute your own information as necessary:
and then add a cicustom param to the virtual machine’s configuration from a root shell:
# qm set 100 --cicustom user=local:snippets/controlplane-1.yml
update VM 100: -cicustom user=local:snippets/controlplane-1.yml
Note: snippets/controlplane-1.yml is Talos machine config.
It is usually located at /var/lib/vz/snippets/controlplane-1.yml.
This file must be placed to this path manually, as Proxmox does not support snippet uploading via API/GUI.
Click on Regenerate Image button after the above changes are made.
2.1.3.11 - OpenStack
Creating a cluster via the CLI on OpenStack.
Creating a Cluster via the CLI
In this guide, we will create an HA Kubernetes cluster in OpenStack with 1 worker node.
We will assume an existing some familiarity with OpenStack.
If you need more information on OpenStack specifics, please see the official OpenStack documentation.
Environment Setup
You should have an existing openrc file.
This file will provide environment variables necessary to talk to your OpenStack cloud.
See here for instructions on fetching this file.
Create the Image
First, download the OpenStack image from a Talos release.
These images are called openstack-$ARCH.tar.gz.
Untar this file with tar -xvf openstack-$ARCH.tar.gz.
The resulting file will be called disk.raw.
Upload the Image
Once you have the image, you can upload to OpenStack with:
openstack image create --public --disk-format raw --file disk.raw talos
Network Infrastructure
Load Balancer and Network Ports
Once the image is prepared, you will need to work through setting up the network.
Issue the following to create a load balancer, the necessary network ports for each control plane node, and associations between the two.
Creating loadbalancer:
# Create load balancer, updating vip-subnet-id if necessaryopenstack loadbalancer create --name talos-control-plane --vip-subnet-id public
# Create listeneropenstack loadbalancer listener create --name talos-control-plane-listener --protocol TCP --protocol-port 6443 talos-control-plane
# Pool and health monitoringopenstack loadbalancer pool create --name talos-control-plane-pool --lb-algorithm ROUND_ROBIN --listener talos-control-plane-listener --protocol TCP
openstack loadbalancer healthmonitor create --delay 5 --max-retries 4 --timeout 10 --type TCP talos-control-plane-pool
Creating ports:
# Create ports for control plane nodes, updating network name if necessaryopenstack port create --network shared talos-control-plane-1
openstack port create --network shared talos-control-plane-2
openstack port create --network shared talos-control-plane-3
# Create floating IPs for the ports, so that you will have talosctl connectivity to each control planeopenstack floating ip create --port talos-control-plane-1 public
openstack floating ip create --port talos-control-plane-2 public
openstack floating ip create --port talos-control-plane-3 public
Note: Take notice of the private and public IPs associated with each of these ports, as they will be used in the next step.
Additionally, take node of the port ID, as it will be used in server creation.
Associate port’s private IPs to loadbalancer:
# Create members for each port IP, updating subnet-id and address as necessary.openstack loadbalancer member create --subnet-id shared-subnet --address <PRIVATE IP OF talos-control-plane-1 PORT> --protocol-port 6443 talos-control-plane-pool
openstack loadbalancer member create --subnet-id shared-subnet --address <PRIVATE IP OF talos-control-plane-2 PORT> --protocol-port 6443 talos-control-plane-pool
openstack loadbalancer member create --subnet-id shared-subnet --address <PRIVATE IP OF talos-control-plane-3 PORT> --protocol-port 6443 talos-control-plane-pool
Security Groups
This example uses the default security group in OpenStack.
Ports have been opened to ensure that connectivity from both inside and outside the group is possible.
You will want to allow, at a minimum, ports 6443 (Kubernetes API server) and 50000 (Talos API) from external sources.
It is also recommended to allow communication over all ports from within the subnet.
Cluster Configuration
With our networking bits setup, we’ll fetch the IP for our load balancer and create our configuration files.
LB_PUBLIC_IP=$(openstack loadbalancer show talos-control-plane -f json | jq -r .vip_address)talosctl gen config talos-k8s-openstack-tutorial https://${LB_PUBLIC_IP}:6443
Additionally, you can specify --config-patch with RFC6902 jsonpatch which will be applied during the config generation.
Compute Creation
We are now ready to create our OpenStack nodes.
Create control plane:
# Create control planes 2 and 3, substituting the same info.for i in $( seq 13); do openstack server create talos-control-plane-$i --flavor m1.small --nic port-id=talos-control-plane-$i --image talos --user-data /path/to/controlplane.yaml
done
Create worker:
# Update network name as necessary.openstack server create talos-worker-1 --flavor m1.small --network shared --image talos --user-data /path/to/worker.yaml
Note: This step can be repeated to add more workers.
Bootstrap Etcd
You should now be able to interact with your cluster with talosctl.
We will use one of the floating IPs we allocated earlier.
It does not matter which one.
Using the IP/DNS name of the loadbalancer created earlier, generate the base configuration files for the Talos machines by issuing:
$ talosctl gen config talos-k8s-oracle-tutorial https://<load balancer IP or DNS>:6443 --additional-sans <load balancer IP or DNS>
created controlplane.yaml
created worker.yaml
created talosconfig
At this point, you can modify the generated configs to your liking.
Optionally, you can specify --config-patch with RFC6902 jsonpatches which will be applied during the config generation.
Validate the Configuration Files
Validate any edited machine configs with:
$ talosctl validate --config controlplane.yaml --mode cloud
controlplane.yaml is valid for cloud mode
$ talosctl validate --config worker.yaml --mode cloud
worker.yaml is valid for cloud mode
Set the endpoints and nodes for your talosconfig with:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig config endpoint <load balancer IP or DNS>
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig config node <control-plane-1-IP>
Bootstrap etcd on the first control plane node with:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig bootstrap
Retrieve the kubeconfig
At this point we can retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig kubeconfig .
2.1.3.13 - Scaleway
Creating a cluster via the CLI (scw) on scaleway.com.
Talos is known to work on scaleway.com; however, it is currently undocumented.
2.1.3.14 - UpCloud
Creating a cluster via the CLI (upctl) on UpCloud.com.
In this guide we will create an HA Kubernetes cluster 3 control plane nodes and 1 worker node.
We assume some familiarity with UpCloud.
If you need more information on UpCloud specifics, please see the official UpCloud documentation.
Create the Image
The best way to create an image for UpCloud, is to build one using
Hashicorp packer, with the
upcloud-amd64.raw.xz image found on the Talos Releases.
Using the general ISO is also possible, but the UpCloud image has some UpCloud
specific features implemented, such as the fetching of metadata and user data to configure the nodes.
To create the cluster, you need a few things locally installed:
NOTE: Make sure your account allows API connections.
To do so, log into
UpCloud control panel and go to People
-> Account -> Permissions -> Allow API connections checkbox.
It is recommended
to create a separate subaccount for your API access and only set the API permission.
To use the UpCloud CLI, you need to create a config in $HOME/.config/upctl.yaml
To use the UpCloud packer plugin, you need to also export these credentials to your
environment variables, by e.g. putting the following in your .bashrc or .zshrc
Now create a new image by issuing the commands shown below.
packer init .
packer build .
After doing this, you can find the custom image in the console interface under storage.
Creating a Cluster via the CLI
Create an Endpoint
To communicate with the Talos cluster you will need a single endpoint that is used
to access the cluster.
This can either be a loadbalancer that will sit in front of
all your control plane nodes, a DNS name with one or more A or AAAA records pointing
to the control plane nodes, or directly the IP of a control plane node.
Which option is best for you will depend on your needs.
Endpoint selection has been further documented here.
After you decide on which endpoint to use, note down the domain name or IP, as
we will need it in the next step.
Create the Machine Configuration Files
Generating Base Configurations
Using the DNS name of the endpoint created earlier, generate the base
configuration files for the Talos machines:
$ talosctl gen config talos-upcloud-tutorial https://<load balancer IP or DNS>:<port> --install-disk /dev/vda
created controlplane.yaml
created worker.yaml
created talosconfig
At this point, you can modify the generated configs to your liking.
Depending on the Kubernetes version you want to run, you might need to select a different Talos version, as not all versions are compatible.
You can find the support matrix here.
Optionally, you can specify --config-patch with RFC6902 jsonpatch or yamlpatch
which will be applied during the config generation.
Validate the Configuration Files
$ talosctl validate --config controlplane.yaml --mode cloud
controlplane.yaml is valid for cloud mode
$ talosctl validate --config worker.yaml --mode cloud
worker.yaml is valid for cloud mode
Create the Servers
Create the Control Plane Nodes
Run the following to create three total control plane nodes:
for ID in $(seq 3); do upctl server create \
--zone us-nyc1 \
--title talos-us-nyc1-master-$ID\
--hostname talos-us-nyc1-master-$ID\
--plan 2xCPU-4GB \
--os "Talos (v1.9.0-alpha.0)"\
--user-data "$(cat controlplane.yaml)"\
--enable-metada
done
Note: modify the zone and OS depending on your preferences.
The OS should match the template name generated with packer in the previous step.
Note the IP address of the first control plane node, as we will need it later.
To configure talosctl we will need the first control plane node’s IP, as noted earlier.
We only add one node IP, as that is the entry into our cluster against which our commands will be run.
All requests to other nodes are proxied through the endpoint, and therefore not
all nodes need to be manually added to the config.
You don’t want to run your commands against all nodes, as this can destroy your
cluster if you are not careful (further documentation).
At this point we can retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig kubeconfig
It will take a few minutes before Kubernetes has been fully bootstrapped, and is accessible.
You can check if the nodes are registered in Talos by running
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig get members
To check if your nodes are ready, run
kubectl get nodes
2.1.3.15 - Vultr
Creating a cluster via the CLI (vultr-cli) on Vultr.com.
Creating a Cluster using the Vultr CLI
This guide will demonstrate how to create a highly-available Kubernetes cluster with one worker using the Vultr cloud provider.
Vultr have a very well documented REST API, and an open-source CLI tool to interact with the API which will be used in this guide.
Make sure to follow installation and authentication instructions for the vultr-cli tool.
Boot Options
Upload an ISO Image
First step is to make the Talos ISO available to Vultr by uploading the latest release of the ISO to the Vultr ISO server.
vultr-cli iso create --url https://factory.talos.dev/image/376567988ad370138ad8b2698212367b8edcb69b5fd68c80be1f2ec7d603b4ba/v1.9.0-alpha.0vultr-amd64.iso
Make a note of the ID in the output, it will be needed later when creating the instances.met
PXE Booting via Image Factory
Talos Linux can be PXE-booted on Vultr using Image Factory, using the vultr platform: e.g.
https://pxe.factory.talos.dev/pxe/376567988ad370138ad8b2698212367b8edcb69b5fd68c80be1f2ec7d603b4ba/v1.9.0-alpha.0/vultr-amd64 (this URL references the default schematic and amd64 architecture).
Make a note of the ID in the output, it will be needed later when creating the instances.
Create a Load Balancer
A load balancer is needed to serve as the Kubernetes endpoint for the cluster.
Make a note of the ID of the load balancer from the output of the above command, it will be needed after the control plane instances are created.
vultr-cli load-balancer get $LOAD_BALANCER_ID | grep ^IP
Make a note of the IP address, it will be needed later when generating the configuration.
Create the Machine Configuration
Generate Base Configuration
Using the IP address (or DNS name if one was created) of the load balancer created above, generate the machine configuration files for the new cluster.
talosctl gen config talos-kubernetes-vultr https://$LOAD_BALANCER_ADDRESS
Once generated, the machine configuration can be modified as necessary for the new cluster, for instance updating disk installation, or adding SANs for the certificates.
First a control plane needs to be created, with the example below creating 3 instances in a loop.
The instance type (noted by the --plan vc2-2c-4gb argument) in the example is for a minimum-spec control plane node, and should be updated to suit the cluster being created.
for id in $(seq 3); do vultr-cli instance create \
--plan vc2-2c-4gb \
--region $REGION\
--iso $TALOS_ISO_ID\
--host talos-k8s-cp${id}\
--label "Talos Kubernetes Control Plane"\
--tags talos,kubernetes,control-plane
done
Make a note of the instance IDs, as they are needed to attach to the load balancer created earlier.
Now worker nodes can be created and configured in a similar way to the control plane nodes, the difference being mainly in the machine configuration file.
Note that like with the control plane nodes, the instance type (here set by --plan vc2-1-1gb) should be changed for the actual cluster requirements.
for id in $(seq 1); do vultr-cli instance create \
--plan vc2-1c-1gb \
--region $REGION\
--iso $TALOS_ISO_ID\
--host talos-k8s-worker${id}\
--label "Talos Kubernetes Worker"\
--tags talos,kubernetes,worker
done
Once the worker is booted and in maintenance mode, the machine configuration can be applied in the following manner.
Once all the cluster nodes are correctly configured, the cluster can be bootstrapped to become functional.
It is important that the talosctl bootstrap command be executed only once and against only a single control plane node.
Finally, with the cluster fully running, the administrative kubeconfig can be retrieved from the Talos API to be saved locally.
talosctl --talosconfig talosconfig kubeconfig .
Now the kubeconfig can be used by any of the usual Kubernetes tools to interact with the Talos-based Kubernetes cluster as normal.
2.1.4 - Local Platforms
Installation of Talos Linux on local platforms, helpful for testing and developing.
2.1.4.1 - Docker
Creating Talos Kubernetes cluster using Docker.
In this guide we will create a Kubernetes cluster in Docker, using a containerized version of Talos.
Running Talos in Docker is intended to be used in CI pipelines, and local testing when you need a quick and easy cluster.
Furthermore, if you are running Talos in production, it provides an excellent way for developers to develop against the same version of Talos.
Requirements
The follow are requirements for running Talos in Docker:
If you are using Docker Desktop on a macOS computer, and you encounter the error: Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running? you may need to manually create the link for the Docker socket:
sudo ln -s "$HOME/.docker/run/docker.sock" /var/run/docker.sock
Caveats
Due to the fact that Talos will be running in a container, certain APIs are not available.
For example upgrade, reset, and similar APIs don’t apply in container mode.
Further, when running on a Mac in docker, due to networking limitations, VIPs are not supported.
Create the Cluster
Creating a local cluster is as simple as:
talosctl cluster create
Once the above finishes successfully, your talosconfig (~/.talos/config) and kubeconfig (~/.kube/config) will be configured to point to the new cluster.
Note: Startup times can take up to a minute or more before the cluster is available.
Finally, we just need to specify which nodes you want to communicate with using talosctl.
Talosctl can operate on one or all the nodes in the cluster – this makes cluster wide commands much easier.
talosctl config nodes 10.5.0.2 10.5.0.3
Talos and Kubernetes API are mapped to a random port on the host machine, the retrieved talosconfig and kubeconfig are configured automatically to point to the new cluster.
Talos API endpoint can be found using talosctl config info:
$ talosctl config info
...
Endpoints: 127.0.0.1:38423
Kubernetes API endpoint is available with talosctl cluster show:
$ talosctl cluster show
...
KUBERNETES ENDPOINT https://127.0.0.1:43083
Using the Cluster
Once the cluster is available, you can make use of talosctl and kubectl to interact with the cluster.
For example, to view current running containers, run talosctl containers for a list of containers in the system namespace, or talosctl containers -k for the k8s.io namespace.
To view the logs of a container, use talosctl logs <container> or talosctl logs -k <container>.
Cleaning Up
To cleanup, run:
talosctl cluster destroy
Multiple Clusters
Multiple Talos Linux cluster can be created on the same host, each cluster will need to have:
The machine configuration submitted to the container should have a host DNS feature enabled with forwardKubeDNSToHost enabled.
It is used to forward DNS requests to the resolver provided by Docker (or other container runtime).
2.1.4.2 - QEMU
Creating Talos Kubernetes cluster using QEMU VMs.
In this guide we will create a Kubernetes cluster using QEMU.
Video Walkthrough
To see a live demo of this writeup, see the video below:
Requirements
Linux
a kernel with
KVM enabled (/dev/kvm must exist)
CONFIG_NET_SCH_NETEM enabled
CONFIG_NET_SCH_INGRESS enabled
at least CAP_SYS_ADMIN and CAP_NET_ADMIN capabilities
QEMU
bridge, static and firewall CNI plugins from the standard CNI plugins, and tc-redirect-tap CNI plugin from the awslabs tc-redirect-tap installed to /opt/cni/bin (installed automatically by talosctl)
iptables
/var/run/netns directory should exist
Installation
How to get QEMU
Install QEMU with your operating system package manager.
For example, on Ubuntu for x86:
Before the first cluster is created, talosctl will download the CNI bundle for the VM provisioning and install it to ~/.talos/cni directory.
Once the above finishes successfully, your talosconfig (~/.talos/config) will be configured to point to the new cluster, and kubeconfig will be
downloaded and merged into default kubectl config location (~/.kube/config).
Once the cluster is available, you can make use of talosctl and kubectl to interact with the cluster.
For example, to view current running containers, run talosctl -n 10.5.0.2 containers for a list of containers in the system namespace, or talosctl -n 10.5.0.2 containers -k for the k8s.io namespace.
To view the logs of a container, use talosctl -n 10.5.0.2 logs <container> or talosctl -n 10.5.0.2 logs -k <container>.
A bridge interface will be created, and assigned the default IP 10.5.0.1.
Each node will be directly accessible on the subnet specified at cluster creation time.
A loadbalancer runs on 10.5.0.1 by default, which handles loadbalancing for the Kubernetes APIs.
You can see a summary of the cluster state by running:
$ talosctl cluster show --provisioner qemu
PROVISIONER qemu
NAME talos-default
NETWORK NAME talos-default
NETWORK CIDR 10.5.0.0/24
NETWORK GATEWAY 10.5.0.1
NETWORK MTU 1500NODES:
NAME TYPE IP CPU RAM DISK
talos-default-controlplane-1 ControlPlane 10.5.0.2 1.00 1.6 GB 4.3 GB
talos-default-controlplane-2 ControlPlane 10.5.0.3 1.00 1.6 GB 4.3 GB
talos-default-controlplane-3 ControlPlane 10.5.0.4 1.00 1.6 GB 4.3 GB
talos-default-worker-1 Worker 10.5.0.5 1.00 1.6 GB 4.3 GB
Note: In that case that the host machine is rebooted before destroying the cluster, you may need to manually remove ~/.talos/clusters/talos-default.
Manual Clean Up
The talosctl cluster destroy command depends heavily on the clusters state directory.
It contains all related information of the cluster.
The PIDs and network associated with the cluster nodes.
If you happened to have deleted the state folder by mistake or you would like to cleanup
the environment, here are the steps how to do it manually:
Remove VM Launchers
Find the process of talosctl qemu-launch:
ps -elf | grep 'talosctl qemu-launch'
To remove the VMs manually, execute:
sudo kill -s SIGTERM <PID>
Example output, where VMs are running with PIDs 157615 and 157617
This is more tricky part as if you have already deleted the state folder.
If you didn’t then it is written in the state.yaml in the
~/.talos/clusters/<cluster-name> directory.
Start by creating a new VM by clicking the “New” button in the VirtualBox UI:
Supply a name for this VM, and specify the Type and Version:
Edit the memory to supply at least 2GB of RAM for the VM:
Proceed through the disk settings, keeping the defaults.
You can increase the disk space if desired.
Once created, select the VM and hit “Settings”:
In the “System” section, supply at least 2 CPUs:
In the “Network” section, switch the network “Attached To” section to “Bridged Adapter”:
Finally, in the “Storage” section, select the optical drive and, on the right, select the ISO by browsing your filesystem:
Repeat this process for a second VM to use as a worker node.
You can also repeat this for additional nodes desired.
Start Control Plane Node
Once the VMs have been created and updated, start the VM that will be the first control plane node.
This VM will boot the ISO image specified earlier and enter “maintenance mode”.
Once the machine has entered maintenance mode, there will be a console log that details the IP address that the node received.
Take note of this IP address, which will be referred to as $CONTROL_PLANE_IP for the rest of this guide.
If you wish to export this IP as a bash variable, simply issue a command like export CONTROL_PLANE_IP=1.2.3.4.
Generate Machine Configurations
With the IP address above, you can now generate the machine configurations to use for installing Talos and Kubernetes.
Issue the following command, updating the output directory, cluster name, and control plane IP as you see fit:
talosctl gen config talos-vbox-cluster https://$CONTROL_PLANE_IP:6443 --output-dir _out
This will create several files in the _out directory: controlplane.yaml, worker.yaml, and talosconfig.
Create Control Plane Node
Using the controlplane.yaml generated above, you can now apply this config using talosctl.
Issue:
You should now see some action in the VirtualBox console for this VM.
Talos will be installed to disk, the VM will reboot, and then Talos will configure the Kubernetes control plane on this VM.
Note: This process can be repeated multiple times to create an HA control plane.
Create Worker Node
Create at least a single worker node using a process similar to the control plane creation above.
Start the worker node VM and wait for it to enter “maintenance mode”.
Take note of the worker node’s IP address, which will be referred to as $WORKER_IP
Note: This process can be repeated multiple times to add additional workers.
Using the Cluster
Once the cluster is available, you can make use of talosctl and kubectl to interact with the cluster.
For example, to view current running containers, run talosctl containers for a list of containers in the system namespace, or talosctl containers -k for the k8s.io namespace.
To view the logs of a container, use talosctl logs <container> or talosctl logs -k <container>.
First, configure talosctl to talk to your control plane node by issuing the following, updating paths and IPs as necessary:
The default schematic id for “vanilla” Banana Pi M64 is 8e11dcb3c2803fbe893ab201fcadf1ef295568410e7ced95c6c8b122a5070ce4.
Refer to the Image Factory documentation for more information.
Insert the SD card to your board, turn it on and wait for the console to show you the instructions for bootstrapping the node.
Following the instructions in the console output to connect to the interactive installer:
talosctl apply-config --insecure --mode=interactive --nodes <node IP or DNS name>
Once the interactive installation is applied, the cluster will form and you can then use kubectl.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
Retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl kubeconfig
Upgrading
For example, to upgrade to the latest version of Talos, you can run:
talosctl -n <node IP or DNS name> upgrade --image=factory.talos.dev/installer/8e11dcb3c2803fbe893ab201fcadf1ef295568410e7ced95c6c8b122a5070ce4:v1.9.0-alpha.0
2.1.5.2 - Friendlyelec Nano PI R4S
Installing Talos on a Nano PI R4S SBC using raw disk image.
The default schematic id for “vanilla” NanoPi R4S is 5f74a09891d5830f0b36158d3d9ea3b1c9cc019848ace08ff63ba255e38c8da4.
Refer to the Image Factory documentation for more information.
Insert the SD card to your board, turn it on and wait for the console to show you the instructions for bootstrapping the node.
Following the instructions in the console output to connect to the interactive installer:
talosctl apply-config --insecure --mode=interactive --nodes <node IP or DNS name>
Once the interactive installation is applied, the cluster will form and you can then use kubectl.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
Retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl kubeconfig
Upgrading
For example, to upgrade to the latest version of Talos, you can run:
talosctl -n <node IP or DNS name> upgrade --image=factory.talos.dev/installer/5f74a09891d5830f0b36158d3d9ea3b1c9cc019848ace08ff63ba255e38c8da4:v1.9.0-alpha.0
2.1.5.3 - Jetson Nano
Installing Talos on Jetson Nano SBC using raw disk image.
We will use the R32.7.2 release for the Jetson Nano.
Most of the instructions is similar to this doc except that we’d be using a upstream version of u-boot with patches from NVIDIA u-boot so that USB boot also works.
Before flashing we need the following:
A USB-A to micro USB cable
A jumper wire to enable recovery mode
A HDMI monitor to view the logs if the USB serial adapter is not available
A USB to Serial adapter with 3.3V TTL (optional)
A 5V DC barrel jack
If you’re planning to use the serial console follow the documentation here
First start by downloading the Jetson Nano L4T release.
Next we will extract the L4T release and replace the u-boot binary with the patched version.
tar xf jetson-210_linux_r32.6.1_aarch64.tbz2
cd Linux_for_Tegra
crane --platform=linux/arm64 export ghcr.io/siderolabs/sbc-jetson:v0.1.0 - | tar xf - --strip-components=4 -C bootloader/t210ref/p3450-0000/ artifacts/arm64/u-boot/jetson_nano/u-boot.bin
Next we will flash the firmware to the Jetson Nano SPI flash.
In order to do that we need to put the Jetson Nano into Force Recovery Mode (FRC).
We will use the instructions from here
Ensure that the Jetson Nano is powered off.
There is no need for the SD card/USB storage/network cable to be connected
Connect the micro USB cable to the micro USB port on the Jetson Nano, don’t plug the other end to the PC yet
Enable Force Recovery Mode (FRC) by placing a jumper across the FRC pins on the Jetson Nano
For board revision A02, these are pins 3 and 4 of header J40
For board revision B01, these are pins 9 and 10 of header J50
Place another jumper across J48 to enable power from the DC jack and connect the Jetson Nano to the DC jack J25
Now connect the other end of the micro USB cable to the PC and remove the jumper wire from the FRC pins
Now the Jetson Nano is in Force Recovery Mode (FRC) and can be confirmed by running the following command
lsusb | grep -i "nvidia"
Now we can move on the flashing the firmware.
sudo ./flash p3448-0000-max-spi external
This will flash the firmware to the Jetson Nano SPI flash and you’ll see a lot of output.
If you’ve connected the serial console you’ll also see the progress there.
Once the flashing is done you can disconnect the USB cable and power off the Jetson Nano.
Download the Image
The default schematic id for “vanilla” Jetson Nano is c7d6f36c6bdfb45fd63178b202a67cff0dd270262269c64886b43f76880ecf1e.
Refer to the Image Factory documentation for more information.
| Replace /dev/mmcblk0 with the name of your SD card/USB storage.
Bootstrapping the Node
Insert the SD card/USB storage to your board, turn it on and wait for the console to show you the instructions for bootstrapping the node.
Following the instructions in the console output to connect to the interactive installer:
talosctl apply-config --insecure --mode=interactive --nodes <node IP or DNS name>
Once the interactive installation is applied, the cluster will form and you can then use kubectl.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
Retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl kubeconfig
Upgrading
For example, to upgrade to the latest version of Talos, you can run:
talosctl -n <node IP or DNS name> upgrade --image=factory.talos.dev/installer/c7d6f36c6bdfb45fd63178b202a67cff0dd270262269c64886b43f76880ecf1e:v1.9.0-alpha.0
2.1.5.4 - Libre Computer Board ALL-H3-CC
Installing Talos on Libre Computer Board ALL-H3-CC SBC using raw disk image.
The default schematic id for “vanilla” Libretech H3 CC H5 is 5689d7795f91ac5bf6ccc85093fad8f8b27f6ea9d96a9ac5a059997bffd8ad5c.
Refer to the Image Factory documentation for more information.
Insert the SD card to your board, turn it on and wait for the console to show you the instructions for bootstrapping the node.
Create a installer-patch.yaml containing reference to the installer image generated from an overlay:
Following the instructions in the console output to connect to the interactive installer:
talosctl apply-config --insecure --mode=interactive --nodes <node IP or DNS name>
Once the interactive installation is applied, the cluster will form and you can then use kubectl.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
Retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl kubeconfig
Upgrading
For example, to upgrade to the latest version of Talos, you can run:
talosctl -n <node IP or DNS name> upgrade --image=factory.talos.dev/installer/5689d7795f91ac5bf6ccc85093fad8f8b27f6ea9d96a9ac5a059997bffd8ad5c:v1.9.0-alpha.0
2.1.5.5 - Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS
Installing Talos on Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS SBC using raw disk image.
The default schematic id for “vanilla” Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS is da388062cd9318efdc7391982a77ebb2a97ed4fbda68f221354c17839a750509.
Refer to the Image Factory documentation for more information.
Insert the SD card to your board, turn it on and wait for the console to show you the instructions for bootstrapping the node.
Following the instructions in the console output to connect to the interactive installer:
talosctl apply-config --insecure --mode=interactive --nodes <node IP or DNS name>
Once the interactive installation is applied, the cluster will form and you can then use kubectl.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
Retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl kubeconfig
Upgrading
For example, to upgrade to the latest version of Talos, you can run:
talosctl -n <node IP or DNS name> upgrade --image=factory.talos.dev/installer/da388062cd9318efdc7391982a77ebb2a97ed4fbda68f221354c17839a750509:v1.9.0-alpha.0
2.1.5.6 - Pine64
Installing Talos on a Pine64 SBC using raw disk image.
The default schematic id for “vanilla” Pine64 is 185431e0f0bf34c983c6f47f4c6d3703aa2f02cd202ca013216fd71ffc34e175.
Refer to the Image Factory documentation for more information.
Insert the SD card to your board, turn it on and wait for the console to show you the instructions for bootstrapping the node.
Following the instructions in the console output to connect to the interactive installer:
talosctl apply-config --insecure --mode=interactive --nodes <node IP or DNS name>
Once the interactive installation is applied, the cluster will form and you can then use kubectl.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
Retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl kubeconfig
Upgrading
For example, to upgrade to the latest version of Talos, you can run:
talosctl -n <node IP or DNS name> upgrade --image=factory.talos.dev/installer/185431e0f0bf34c983c6f47f4c6d3703aa2f02cd202ca013216fd71ffc34e175:v1.9.0-alpha.0
2.1.5.7 - Pine64 Rock64
Installing Talos on Pine64 Rock64 SBC using raw disk image.
The default schematic id for “vanilla” Pine64 Rock64 is 0e162298269125049a51ec0a03c2ef85405a55e1d2ac36a7ef7292358cf3ce5a.
Refer to the Image Factory documentation for more information.
Insert the SD card to your board, turn it on and wait for the console to show you the instructions for bootstrapping the node.
Following the instructions in the console output to connect to the interactive installer:
talosctl apply-config --insecure --mode=interactive --nodes <node IP or DNS name>
Once the interactive installation is applied, the cluster will form and you can then use kubectl.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
Retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl kubeconfig
Upgrading
For example, to upgrade to the latest version of Talos, you can run:
talosctl -n <node IP or DNS name> upgrade --image=factory.talos.dev/installer/0e162298269125049a51ec0a03c2ef85405a55e1d2ac36a7ef7292358cf3ce5a:v1.9.0-alpha.0
2.1.5.8 - Radxa ROCK 4C Plus
Installing Talos on Radxa ROCK 4c Plus SBC using raw disk image.
Prerequisites
You will need
talosctl
an SD card or an eMMC or USB drive or an nVME drive
The default schematic id for “vanilla” Rock 4c Plus is ed7091ab924ef1406dadc4623c90f245868f03d262764ddc2c22c8a19eb37c1c.
Refer to the Image Factory documentation for more information.
Wait for the console to show you the instructions for bootstrapping the node.
Following the instructions in the console output to connect to the interactive installer:
talosctl apply-config --insecure --mode=interactive --nodes <node IP or DNS name>
Once the interactive installation is applied, the cluster will form and you can then use kubectl.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
Retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl kubeconfig
Upgrading
For example, to upgrade to the latest version of Talos, you can run:
talosctl -n <node IP or DNS name> upgrade --image=factory.talos.dev/installer/ed7091ab924ef1406dadc4623c90f245868f03d262764ddc2c22c8a19eb37c1c:v1.9.0-alpha.0
2.1.5.9 - Radxa ROCK PI 4
Installing Talos on Radxa ROCK PI 4a/4b SBC using raw disk image.
Prerequisites
You will need
talosctl
an SD card or an eMMC or USB drive or an nVME drive
The default schematic id for “vanilla” RockPi 4 is 25d2690bb48685de5939edd6dee83a0e09591311e64ad03c550de00f8a521f51.
Refer to the Image Factory documentation for more information.
After these above steps, Talos will boot from the nVME/USB and enter maintenance mode.
Proceed to bootstrapping the node.
Bootstrapping the Node
Wait for the console to show you the instructions for bootstrapping the node.
Following the instructions in the console output to connect to the interactive installer:
talosctl apply-config --insecure --mode=interactive --nodes <node IP or DNS name>
Once the interactive installation is applied, the cluster will form and you can then use kubectl.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
Retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl kubeconfig
Upgrading
For example, to upgrade to the latest version of Talos, you can run:
talosctl -n <node IP or DNS name> upgrade --image=factory.talos.dev/installer/25d2690bb48685de5939edd6dee83a0e09591311e64ad03c550de00f8a521f51:v1.9.0-alpha.0
2.1.5.10 - Radxa ROCK PI 4C
Installing Talos on Radxa ROCK PI 4c SBC using raw disk image.
Prerequisites
You will need
talosctl
an SD card or an eMMC or USB drive or an nVME drive
The default schematic id for “vanilla” RockPi 4c is 08e72e242b71f42c9db5bed80e8255b2e0d442a372bc09055b79537d9e3ce191.
Refer to the Image Factory documentation for more information.
After these above steps, Talos will boot from the nVME/USB and enter maintenance mode.
Proceed to bootstrapping the node.
Bootstrapping the Node
Wait for the console to show you the instructions for bootstrapping the node.
Following the instructions in the console output to connect to the interactive installer:
talosctl apply-config --insecure --mode=interactive --nodes <node IP or DNS name>
Once the interactive installation is applied, the cluster will form and you can then use kubectl.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
Retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl kubeconfig
Upgrading
For example, to upgrade to the latest version of Talos, you can run:
talosctl -n <node IP or DNS name> upgrade --image=factory.talos.dev/installer/08e72e242b71f42c9db5bed80e8255b2e0d442a372bc09055b79537d9e3ce191:v1.9.0-alpha.0
2.1.5.11 - Raspberry Pi Series
Installing Talos on Raspberry Pi SBC’s using raw disk image.
Talos disk image for the Raspberry Pi generic should in theory work for the boards supported by u-bootrpi_arm64_defconfig.
This has only been officialy tested on the Raspberry Pi 4 and community tested on one variant of the Compute Module 4 using Super 6C boards.
If you have tested this on other Raspberry Pi boards, please let us know.
Video Walkthrough
To see a live demo of this writeup, see the video below:
Prerequisites
You will need
talosctl
an SD card
Download the latest talosctl.
curl -sL 'https://www.talos.dev/install' | bash
Updating the EEPROM
Use Raspberry Pi Imager to write an EEPROM update image to a spare SD card.
Select Misc utility images under the Operating System tab.
Remove the SD card from your local machine and insert it into the Raspberry Pi.
Power the Raspberry Pi on, and wait at least 10 seconds.
If successful, the green LED light will blink rapidly (forever), otherwise an error pattern will be displayed.
If an HDMI display is attached to the port closest to the power/USB-C port,
the screen will display green for success or red if a failure occurs.
Power off the Raspberry Pi and remove the SD card from it.
Note: Updating the bootloader only needs to be done once.
Download the Image
The default schematic id for “vanilla” Raspberry Pi generic image is ee21ef4a5ef808a9b7484cc0dda0f25075021691c8c09a276591eedb638ea1f9.Refer to the Image Factory documentation for more information.
Insert the SD card to your board, turn it on and wait for the console to show you the instructions for bootstrapping the node.
Following the instructions in the console output to connect to the interactive installer:
talosctl apply-config --insecure --mode=interactive --nodes <node IP or DNS name>
Once the interactive installation is applied, the cluster will form and you can then use kubectl.
Note: if you have an HDMI display attached and it shows only a rainbow splash,
please use the other HDMI port, the one closest to the power/USB-C port.
Retrieve the kubeconfig
Retrieve the admin kubeconfig by running:
talosctl kubeconfig
Upgrading
For example, to upgrade to the latest version of Talos, you can run:
talosctl -n <node IP or DNS name> upgrade --image=factory.talos.dev/installer/ee21ef4a5ef808a9b7484cc0dda0f25075021691c8c09a276591eedb638ea1f9:v1.9.0-alpha.0
Troubleshooting
The following table can be used to troubleshoot booting issues:
Long Flashes
Short Flashes
Status
0
3
Generic failure to boot
0
4
start*.elf not found
0
7
Kernel image not found
0
8
SDRAM failure
0
9
Insufficient SDRAM
0
10
In HALT state
2
1
Partition not FAT
2
2
Failed to read from partition
2
3
Extended partition not FAT
2
4
File signature/hash mismatch - Pi 4
4
4
Unsupported board type
4
5
Fatal firmware error
4
6
Power failure type A
4
7
Power failure type B
2.1.6 - Boot Assets
Creating customized Talos boot assets, disk images, ISO and installer images.
Talos Linux provides boot images via Image Factory, but these images
can be customized further for a specific use case:
Image Factory is easier to use, but it only produces images for official Talos Linux releases, official Talos Linux system extensions
and official Talos Overlays.
The imager container can be used to generate images from main branch, with local changes, or with custom system extensions.
Image Factory
Image Factory is a service that generates Talos boot assets on-demand.
Image Factory allows to generate boot assets for the official Talos Linux releases, official Talos Linux system extensions
and official Talos Overlays.
The main concept of the Image Factory is a schematic which defines the customization of the boot asset.
Once the schematic is configured, Image Factory can be used to pull various Talos Linux images, ISOs, installer images, PXE booting bare-metal machines across different architectures,
versions of Talos and platforms.
Sidero Labs maintains a public Image Factory instance at https://factory.talos.dev.
Image Factory provides a simple UI to prepare schematics and retrieve asset links.
Example: Bare-metal with Image Factory
Let’s assume we want to boot Talos on a bare-metal machine with Intel CPU and add a gvisor container runtime to the image.
Also we want to disable predictable network interface names with net.ifnames=0 kernel argument.
First, let’s create the schematic file bare-metal.yaml:
The Image Factory URL contains both schematic ID and Talos version, and both can be changed to generate different boot assets.
Once the bare-metal machine is booted up for the first time, it will require Talos Linux installer image to be installed on the disk.
The installer image will be produced by the Image Factory as well:
Same way upgrade process can be used to transition to a new set of system extensions: generate new schematic with the new set of system extensions, and upgrade the machine to the new schematic ID:
Same way upgrade process can be used to transition to a new set of system extensions: generate new schematic with the new set of system extensions, and upgrade the machine to the new schematic ID:
Talos Linux is installed on AWS from a disk image (AWS AMI), so only a single boot asset is required.
Let’s assume we want to boot Talos on AWS with gvisor container runtime system extension.
Now the aws-amd64.raw.xz file contains the customized Talos AWS disk image which can be uploaded as an AMI to the AWS.
Once the AWS VM is created from the AMI, it can be upgraded to a different Talos version or a different schematic using talosctl upgrade:
# upgrade to a new Talos versiontalosctl upgrade --image factory.talos.dev/installer/d9ff89777e246792e7642abd3220a616afb4e49822382e4213a2e528ab826fe5:<new_version>
# upgrade to a new schematictalosctl upgrade --image factory.talos.dev/installer/<new_schematic_id>:v1.9.0-alpha.0
Imager
A custom disk image, boot asset can be generated by using the Talos Linux imager container: ghcr.io/siderolabs/imager:v1.9.0-alpha.0.
The imager container image can be checked by verifying its signature.
The generation process can be run with a simple docker run command:
secureboot-iso builds a Talos ISO image with SecureBoot (see SecureBoot)
metal builds a generic disk image for bare-metal machines
secureboot-metal builds a generic disk image for bare-metal machines with SecureBoot
secureboot-installer builds an installer container image with SecureBoot (see SecureBoot)
aws, gcp, azure, etc. builds a disk image for a specific Talos platform
The base profile can be customized with the additional flags to the imager:
--arch specifies the architecture of the image to be generated (default: host architecture)
--meta allows to set initial META values
--extra-kernel-arg allows to customize the kernel command line arguments.
Default kernel arg can be removed by prefixing the argument with a -.
For example -console removes all console=<value> arguments, whereas -console=tty0 removes the console=tty0 default argument.
--system-extension-image allows to install a system extension into the image
Extension Image Reference
While Image Factory automatically resolves the extension name into a matching container image for a specific version of Talos, imager requires the full explicit container image reference.
The imager also allows to install custom extensions which are not part of the official Talos Linux system extensions.
To get the official Talos Linux system extension container image reference matching a Talos release, use the following command:
crane export ghcr.io/siderolabs/extensions:v1.9.0-alpha.0 | tar x -O image-digests | grep EXTENSION-NAME
Note: this command is using crane tool, but any other tool which allows
to export the image contents can be used.
For each Talos release, the ghcr.io/siderolabs/extensions:VERSION image contains a pinned reference to each system extension container image.
Overlay Image Reference
While Image Factory automatically resolves the overlay name into a matching container image for a specific version of Talos, imager requires the full explicit container image reference.
The imager also allows to install custom overlays which are not part of the official Talos overlays.
To get the official Talos overlays container image reference matching a Talos release, use the following command:
crane export ghcr.io/siderolabs/overlays:v1.9.0-alpha.0 | tar x -O overlays.yaml
Note: this command is using crane tool, but any other tool which allows
to export the image contents can be used.
For each Talos release, the ghcr.io/siderolabs/overlays:VERSION image contains a pinned reference to each overlay container image.
Pulling from Private Registries
Talos Linux official images are all public, but when pulling a custom image from a private registry, the imager might need authentication to access the images.
The imager container when pulling images supports following methods to authenticate to an external registry:
for ghcr.io registry, GITHUB_TOKEN can be provided as an environment variable;
for other registries, ~/.docker/config.json can be mounted into the container from the host:
another option is to use a DOCKER_CONFIG environment variable, and the path will be $DOCKER_CONFIG/config.json in the container;
the third option is to mount Podman’s auth file at $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/containers/auth.json.
Example: Bare-metal with Imager
Let’s assume we want to boot Talos on a bare-metal machine with Intel CPU and add a gvisor container runtime to the image.
Also we want to disable predictable network interface names with net.ifnames=0 kernel argument and replace the Talos default console arguments and add a custom console arg.
First, let’s lookup extension images for Intel CPU microcode updates and gvisor container runtime in the extensions repository:
$ crane export ghcr.io/siderolabs/extensions:v1.9.0-alpha.0 | tar x -O image-digests | grep -E 'gvisor|intel-ucode'ghcr.io/siderolabs/gvisor:20231214.0-v1.9.0-alpha.0@sha256:548b2b121611424f6b1b6cfb72a1669421ffaf2f1560911c324a546c7cee655e
ghcr.io/siderolabs/intel-ucode:20231114@sha256:ea564094402b12a51045173c7523f276180d16af9c38755a894cf355d72c249d
Now we can generate the ISO image with the following command:
Now the _out/metal-amd64.iso contains the customized Talos ISO image.
If the machine is going to be booted using PXE, we can instead generate kernel and initramfs images:
docker run --rm -t -v $PWD/_out:/out ghcr.io/siderolabs/imager:v1.9.0-alpha.0 iso --output-kind kernel
docker run --rm -t -v $PWD/_out:/out ghcr.io/siderolabs/imager:v1.9.0-alpha.0 iso --output-kind initramfs --system-extension-image ghcr.io/siderolabs/gvisor:20231214.0-v1.9.0-alpha.0@sha256:548b2b121611424f6b1b6cfb72a1669421ffaf2f1560911c324a546c7cee655e --system-extension-image ghcr.io/siderolabs/intel-ucode:20231114@sha256:ea564094402b12a51045173c7523f276180d16af9c38755a894cf355d72c249d
Now the _out/kernel-amd64 and _out/initramfs-amd64 contain the customized Talos kernel and initramfs images.
Note: the extra kernel args are not used now, as they are set via the PXE boot process, and can’t be embedded into the kernel or initramfs.
As the next step, we should generate a custom installer image which contains all required system extensions (kernel args can’t be specified with the installer image, but they are set in the machine configuration):
Now we can use the customized installer image to install Talos on the bare-metal machine.
When it’s time to upgrade a machine, a new installer image can be generated using the new version of imager, and updating the system extension images to the matching versions.
The custom installer image can now be used to upgrade Talos machine.
Example: Raspberry Pi overlay with Imager
Let’s assume we want to boot Talos on Raspberry Pi with rpi_generic overlay and iscsi-tools system extension.
Now the _out/metal-arm64.raw.xz is the compressed disk image which can be written to a boot media.
As the next step, we should generate a custom installer image which contains all required system extensions (kernel args can’t be specified with the installer image, but they are set in the machine configuration):
Now we can use the customized installer image to install Talos on Raspvberry Pi.
When it’s time to upgrade a machine, a new installer image can be generated using the new version of imager, and updating the system extension and overlay images to the matching versions.
The custom installer image can now be used to upgrade Talos machine.
Example: AWS with Imager
Talos is installed on AWS from a disk image (AWS AMI), so only a single boot asset is required.
Let’s assume we want to boot Talos on AWS with gvisor container runtime system extension.
First, let’s lookup extension images for the gvisor container runtime in the extensions repository:
$ crane export ghcr.io/siderolabs/extensions:v1.9.0-alpha.0 | tar x -O image-digests | grep gvisor
ghcr.io/siderolabs/gvisor:20231214.0-v1.9.0-alpha.0@sha256:548b2b121611424f6b1b6cfb72a1669421ffaf2f1560911c324a546c7cee655e
Next, let’s generate AWS disk image with that system extension:
Now the _out/aws-amd64.raw.xz contains the customized Talos AWS disk image which can be uploaded as an AMI to the AWS.
If the AWS machine is later going to be upgraded to a new version of Talos (or a new set of system extensions), generate a customized installer image following the steps above, and upgrade Talos to that installer image.
Example: Assets with system extensions from image tarballs with Imager
Some advanced features of imager are currently not exposed via command line arguments like --system-extension-image.
To access them nonetheless it is possible to supply imager with a profile.yaml instead.
Let’s use these advanced features to build a bare-metal installer using a system extension from a private registry.
First use crane on a host with access to the private registry to export the extension image into a tarball.
When can then reference the tarball in a suitable profile.yaml for our intended architecture and output.
In this case we want to build an amd64, bare-metal installer.
# profile.yamlarch: amd64
platform: metal
secureboot: falseversion: v1.9.0-alpha.0
input:
kernel:
path: /usr/install/amd64/vmlinuz
initramfs:
path: /usr/install/amd64/initramfs.xz
baseInstaller:
imageRef: ghcr.io/siderolabs/installer:v1.9.0-alpha.0
systemExtensions:
- tarballPath: <your-extension> # notice we use 'tarballPath' instead of 'imageRef'output:
kind: installer
outFormat: raw
To build the asset we pass profile.yaml to imager via stdin
Omni is a project created by the Talos team that has native support for Talos Linux.
Omni allows you to start with bare metal, virtual machines or a cloud provider, and create clusters spanning all of your locations, with a few clicks.
You provide the machines – edge compute, bare metal, VMs, or in your cloud account.
Boot from an Omni Talos Linux image.
Click to allocate to a cluster.
That’s it!
Vanilla Kubernetes, on your machines, under your control.
Elegant UI for management and operations
Security taken care of – ties into your Enterprise ID provider
Highly Available Kubernetes API end point built in
Firewall friendly: manage Edge nodes securely
From single-node clusters to the largest scale
Support for GPUs and most CSIs.
The Omni SaaS is available to run locally, to support air-gapped security and data sovereignty concerns.
Omni handles the lifecycle of Talos Linux machines, provides unified access to the Talos and Kubernetes API tied to the identity provider of your choice,
and provides a UI for cluster management and operations.
Omni automates scaling the clusters up and down, and provides a unified view of the state of your clusters.
The client can be installed and updated via the Homebrew package manager for macOS and Linux.
You will need to install brew and then you can install talosctl from the Sidero Labs tap.
brew install siderolabs/tap/talosctl
This will also keep your version of talosctl up to date with new releases.
This homebrew tap also has formulae for omnictl if you need to install that package.
Note: Your talosctl version should match the version of Talos Linux you are running on a host.
To install a specific version of talosctl with brew you can follow this github issue.
Alternative install
You can automatically install the correct version of talosctl for your operating system and architecture with an installer script.
This script won’t keep your version updated with releases and you will need to re-run the script to download a new version.
curl -sL https://talos.dev/install | sh
This script will work on macOS, Linux, and WSL on Windows.
It supports amd64 and arm64 architecture.
Manual and Windows install
All versions can be manually downloaded from the talos releases page including Linux, macOS, and Windows.
You will need to add the binary to a folder part of your executable $PATH to use it without providing the full path to the executable.
Updating the binary will be a manual process.
2.2 - Configuration
Guides on how to configure Talos Linux machines
2.2.1 - Configuration Patches
In this guide, we’ll patch the generated machine configuration.
Talos generates machine configuration for two types of machines: controlplane and worker machines.
Many configuration options can be adjusted using talosctl gen config but not all of them.
Configuration patching allows modifying machine configuration to fit it for the cluster or a specific machine.
Configuration Patch Formats
Talos supports two configuration patch formats:
strategic merge patches
RFC6902 (JSON patches)
Strategic merge patches are the easiest to use, but JSON patches allow more precise configuration adjustments.
Note: Talos 1.5+ supports multi-document machine configuration.
JSON patches don’t support multi-document machine configuration, while strategic merge patches do.
Strategic Merge patches
Strategic merge patches look like incomplete machine configuration files:
machine:
network:
hostname: worker1
When applied to the machine configuration, the patch gets merged with the respective section of the machine configuration:
In general, machine configuration contents are merged with the contents of the strategic merge patch, with strategic merge patch
values overriding machine configuration values.
There are some special rules:
If the field value is a list, the patch value is appended to the list, with the following exceptions:
values of the fields cluster.network.podSubnets and cluster.network.serviceSubnets are overwritten on merge
network.interfaces section is merged with the value in the machine config if there is a match on interface: or deviceSelector: keys
network.interfaces.vlans section is merged with the value in the machine config if there is a match on the vlanId: key
cluster.apiServer.auditPolicy value is replaced on merge
ExtensionServiceConfig.configFiles section is merged matching on mountPath (replacing content if matches)
for each document in the patch, the document is merged with the respective document in the machine configuration (matching by kind, apiVersion and name for named documents)
if the patch document doesn’t exist in the machine configuration, it is appended to the machine configuration
The strategic merge patch itself might be a multi-document YAML, and each document will be applied as a patch to the base machine configuration.
Keep in mind that you can’t patch the same document multiple times with the same patch.
You can also delete parts from the configuration using $patch: delete syntax similar to the
Kubernetes
strategic merge patch.
This will remove the documents SideroLinkConfig and ExtensionServiceConfig with name foo from the configuration.
RFC6902 (JSON Patches)
JSON patches can be written either in JSON or YAML format.
A proper JSON patch requires an op field that depends on the machine configuration contents: whether the path already exists or not.
For example, the strategic merge patch from the previous section can be written either as:
Several talosctl commands accept config patches as command-line flags.
Config patches might be passed either as an inline value or as a reference to a file with @file.patch syntax:
If multiple config patches are specified, they are applied in the order of appearance.
The format of the patch (JSON patch or strategic merge patch) is detected automatically.
Talos machine configuration can be patched at the moment of generation with talosctl gen config:
Once the server reboots, metrics are now available:
$ curl ${IP}:11234/v1/metrics
# HELP container_blkio_io_service_bytes_recursive_bytes The blkio io service bytes recursive# TYPE container_blkio_io_service_bytes_recursive_bytes gaugecontainer_blkio_io_service_bytes_recursive_bytes{container_id="0677d73196f5f4be1d408aab1c4125cf9e6c458a4bea39e590ac779709ffbe14",device="/dev/dm-0",major="253",minor="0",namespace="k8s.io",op="Async"}0container_blkio_io_service_bytes_recursive_bytes{container_id="0677d73196f5f4be1d408aab1c4125cf9e6c458a4bea39e590ac779709ffbe14",device="/dev/dm-0",major="253",minor="0",namespace="k8s.io",op="Discard"}0...
...
Pause Image
This change is often required for air-gapped environments, as containerd CRI plugin has a reference to the pause image which is used
to create pods, and it can’t be controlled with Kubernetes pod definitions.
Multiple documents can be appended, and multiple CA certificates might be present in each configuration document.
This configuration can be also applied in maintenance mode.
2.2.4 - Disk Encryption
Guide on using system disk encryption
It is possible to enable encryption for system disks at the OS level.
Currently, only STATE and EPHEMERAL partitions can be encrypted.
STATE contains the most sensitive node data: secrets and certs.
The EPHEMERAL partition may contain sensitive workload data.
Data is encrypted using LUKS2, which is provided by the Linux kernel modules and cryptsetup utility.
The operating system will run additional setup steps when encryption is enabled.
If the disk encryption is enabled for the STATE partition, the system will:
Save STATE encryption config as JSON in the META partition.
Before mounting the STATE partition, load encryption configs either from the machine config or from the META partition.
Note that the machine config is always preferred over the META one.
Before mounting the STATE partition, format and encrypt it.
This occurs only if the STATE partition is empty and has no filesystem.
If the disk encryption is enabled for the EPHEMERAL partition, the system will:
Get the encryption config from the machine config.
Before mounting the EPHEMERAL partition, encrypt and format it.
This occurs only if the EPHEMERAL partition is empty and has no filesystem.
Talos Linux supports four encryption methods, which can be combined together for a single partition:
static - encrypt with the static passphrase (weakest protection, for STATE partition encryption it means that the passphrase will be stored in the META partition).
nodeID - encrypt with the key derived from the node UUID (weak, it is designed to protect against data being leaked or recovered from a drive that has been removed from a Talos Linux node).
kms - encrypt using key sealed with network KMS (strong, but requires network access to decrypt the data.)
tpm - encrypt with the key derived from the TPM (strong, when used with SecureBoot).
Note: nodeID encryption is not designed to protect against attacks where physical access to the machine, including the drive, is available.
It uses the hardware characteristics of the machine in order to decrypt the data, so drives that have been removed, or recycled from a cloud environment or attached to a different virtual machine, will maintain their protection and encryption.
Configuration
Disk encryption is disabled by default.
To enable disk encryption you should modify the machine configuration with the following options:
Note: What the LUKS2 docs call “keys” are, in reality, a passphrase.
When this passphrase is added, LUKS2 runs argon2 to create an actual key from that passphrase.
LUKS2 supports up to 32 encryption keys and it is possible to specify all of them in the machine configuration.
Talos always tries to sync the keys list defined in the machine config with the actual keys defined for the LUKS2 partition.
So if you update the keys list, keep at least one key that is not changed to be used for key management.
When you define a key you should specify the key kind and the slot:
Take a note that key order does not play any role on which key slot is used.
Every key must always have a slot defined.
Encryption Key Kinds
Talos supports two kinds of keys:
nodeID which is generated using the node UUID and the partition label (note that if the node UUID is not really random it will fail the entropy check).
static which you define right in the configuration.
kms which is sealed with the network KMS.
tpm which is sealed using the TPM and protected with SecureBoot.
Note: Use static keys only if your STATE partition is encrypted and only for the EPHEMERAL partition.
For the STATE partition it will be stored in the META partition, which is not encrypted.
Key Rotation
In order to completely rotate keys, it is necessary to do talosctl apply-config a couple of times, since there is a need to always maintain a single working key while changing the other keys around it.
That’s it!
After you run the last command, the partition will be wiped and the node will reboot.
During the next boot the system will encrypt the partition.
State Partition
Calling wipe against the STATE partition will make the node lose the config, so the previous flow is not going to work.
The flow should be to first wipe the STATE partition:
talosctl reset --system-labels-to-wipe STATE -n <node ip> --reboot=true
Node will enter into maintenance mode, then run apply-config with --insecure flag:
After installation is complete the node should encrypt the STATE partition.
2.2.5 - Disk Management
Guide on managing disks
Talos Linux version 1.8.0 introduces a new backend for managing system and user disks.
The machine configuration changes required are minimal, and the new backend is fully compatible with the existing machine configuration.
Listing Disks
To obtain a list of all available block devices (disks) on the machine, you can use the following command:
$ talosctl get disks
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION SIZE READ ONLY TRANSPORT ROTATIONAL WWID MODEL SERIAL
172.20.0.5 runtime Disk loop0 175 MB true172.20.0.5 runtime Disk nvme0n1 110 GB false nvme nvme.1b36-6465616462656566-51454d55204e564d65204374726c-00000001 QEMU NVMe Ctrl deadbeef
172.20.0.5 runtime Disk sda 110 GB false virtio true QEMU HARDDISK
172.20.0.5 runtime Disk sdb 110 GB false sata true t10.ATA QEMU HARDDISK QM00013 QEMU HARDDISK
172.20.0.5 runtime Disk sdc 110 GB false sata true t10.ATA QEMU HARDDISK QM00001 QEMU HARDDISK
172.20.0.5 runtime Disk vda 113 GB false virtio true
To obtain detailed information about a specific disk, execute the following command:
Talos Linux monitors all block devices and partitions on the machine.
Details about these devices, including their type, can be found in the DiscoveredVolume resource.
Talos Linux has built-in automatic detection for various filesystem types and GPT partition tables.
Currently, the following filesystem types are supported:
bluestore (Ceph)
ext2, ext3, ext4
iso9660
luks (LUKS encrypted partition)
lvm2
squashfs
swap
talosmeta (Talos Linux META partition)
vfat
xfs
zfs
The discovered volumes can include both Talos-managed volumes and any other volumes present on the machine, such as Ceph volumes.
Volume Management
Talos Linux implements disk management through the concept of volumes.
A volume represents a provisioned, located, mounted, or unmounted entity, such as a disk, partition, or tmpfs filesystem.
The configuration of volumes is defined using the VolumeConfig resource, while the current state of volumes is stored in the VolumeStatus resource.
Configuration
The volume configuration is managed by Talos Linux based on machine configuration.
To see configured volumes, use the following command:
$ talosctl get volumeconfigs
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION
172.20.0.5 runtime VolumeConfig /dev/disk/by-id/ata-QEMU_HARDDISK_QM00001-1 2172.20.0.5 runtime VolumeConfig /dev/disk/by-id/ata-QEMU_HARDDISK_QM00001-2 2172.20.0.5 runtime VolumeConfig /dev/disk/by-id/ata-QEMU_HARDDISK_QM00003-1 2172.20.0.5 runtime VolumeConfig EPHEMERAL 2172.20.0.5 runtime VolumeConfig META 2172.20.0.5 runtime VolumeConfig STATE 4
In the provided output, the volumes EPHEMERAL, META, and STATE are system volumes managed by Talos, while the remaining volumes are based on the machine configuration for machine.disks.
To get details about a specific volume configuration, use the following command:
Each volume goes through different phases during its lifecycle:
waiting: the volume is waiting to be provisioned
missing: all disks have been discovered, but the volume cannot be found
located: the volume is found without prior provisioning
provisioned: the volume has been provisioned (e.g., partitioned, resized if necessary)
prepared: the encrypted volume is open
ready: the volume is formatted and ready to be mounted
closed: the encrypted volume is closed
Machine Configuration
Note: In Talos Linux 1.8, only EPHEMERAL system volume configuration can be managed through the machine configuration.
Note: The volume configuration in the machine configuration is only applied when the volume has not been provisioned yet.
So applying changes after the initial provisioning will not have any effect.
To configure the EPHEMERAL (/var) volume, add the following document to the machine configuration:
By default, the EPHEMERAL volume is provisioned on the system disk, which is the disk where Talos Linux is installed.
It has a minimum size of 2 GiB and automatically grows to utilize the maximum available space on the disk.
Disk Selector
The diskSelector field is utilized to choose the disk where the volume will be provisioned.
It is a Common Expression Language (CEL) expression that evaluates against the available disks.
The volume will be provisioned on the first disk that matches the expression and has sufficient free space for the volume.
The expression is evaluated in the following context:
system_disk (bool) - indicates if the disk is the system disk
disk (Disks.block.talos.dev) - the disk resource being evaluated
For the disk resource, any field available in the resource specification can be used (use talosctl get disks -o yaml to see the output for your machine):
The disk expression is evaluated against each available disk, and the expression should either return true or false.
If the expression returns true, the disk is selected for provisioning.
Note: In CEL, signed and unsigned integers are not interchangeable.
Disk sizes are represented as unsigned integers, so suffix u should be used in constants to avoid type mismatch, e.g. disk.size > 10u * GiB.
Examples of disk selector expressions:
disk.transport == 'nvme': select the NVMe disks only
disk.serial.startsWith('deadbeef') && !cdrom: select disks with serial number starting with deadbeef and not of CD-ROM type
Minimum and Maximum Size
The minSize and maxSize fields define the minimum and maximum size of the volume, respectively.
Talos Linux will always ensure that the volume is at least minSize in size and will not exceed maxSize.
If maxSize is not set, the volume will grow to utilize the maximum available space on the disk.
If grow is set to true, the volume will automatically grow to utilize the maximum available space on the disk on each boot.
Setting minSize might influence disk selection - if the disk does not have enough free space to satisfy the minimum size requirement, it will not be selected for provisioning.
2.2.6 - Editing Machine Configuration
How to edit and patch Talos machine configuration, with reboot, immediately, or stage update on reboot.
Talos node state is fully defined by machine configuration.
Initial configuration is delivered to the node at bootstrap time, but configuration can be updated while the node is running.
There are three talosctl commands which facilitate machine configuration updates:
talosctl apply-config to apply configuration from the file
talosctl edit machineconfig to launch an editor with existing node configuration, make changes and apply configuration back
talosctl patch machineconfig to apply automated machine configuration via JSON patch
Each of these commands can operate in one of four modes:
apply change in automatic mode (default): reboot if the change can’t be applied without a reboot, otherwise apply the change immediately
apply change with a reboot (--mode=reboot): update configuration, reboot Talos node to apply configuration change
apply change immediately (--mode=no-reboot flag): change is applied immediately without a reboot, fails if the change contains any fields that can not be updated without a reboot
apply change on next reboot (--mode=staged): change is staged to be applied after a reboot, but node is not rebooted
apply change with automatic revert (--mode=try): change is applied immediately (if not possible, returns an error), and reverts it automatically in 1 minute if no configuration update is applied
apply change in the interactive mode (--mode=interactive; only for talosctl apply-config): launches TUI based interactive installer
Note: applying change on next reboot (--mode=staged) doesn’t modify current node configuration, so next call to
talosctl edit machineconfig --mode=staged will not see changes
Additionally, there is also talosctl get machineconfig -o yaml, which retrieves the current node configuration API resource and contains the machine configuration in the .spec field.
It can be used to modify the configuration locally before being applied to the node.
The list of config changes allowed to be applied immediately in Talos v1.9.0-alpha.0:
.debug
.cluster
.machine.time
.machine.ca
.machine.acceptedCAs
.machine.certCANs
.machine.install (configuration is only applied during install/upgrade)
.machine.network
.machine.nodeAnnotations
.machine.nodeLabels
.machine.nodeTaints
.machine.sysfs
.machine.sysctls
.machine.logging
.machine.controlplane
.machine.kubelet
.machine.pods
.machine.kernel
.machine.registries (CRI containerd plugin will not pick up the registry authentication settings without a reboot)
.machine.features.kubernetesTalosAPIAccess
talosctl apply-config
This command is traditionally used to submit initial machine configuration generated by talosctl gen config to the node.
It can also be used to apply configuration to running nodes.
The initial YAML for this is typically obtained using talosctl get machineconfig -o yaml | yq eval .spec >machs.yaml.
(We must use yq because for historical reasons, get returns the configuration as a full resource, while apply-config only accepts the raw machine config directly.)
Example:
talosctl -n <IP> apply-config -f config.yaml
Command apply-config can also be invoked as apply machineconfig:
Applying machine configuration immediately (without a reboot):
talosctl -n IP apply machineconfig -f config.yaml --mode=no-reboot
Starting the interactive installer:
talosctl -n IP apply machineconfig --mode=interactive
Note: when a Talos node is running in the maintenance mode it’s necessary to provide --insecure (-i) flag to connect to the API and apply the config.
talosctl edit machineconfig
Command talosctl edit loads current machine configuration from the node and launches configured editor to modify the config.
If config hasn’t been changed in the editor (or if updated config is empty), update is not applied.
Note: Talos uses environment variables TALOS_EDITOR, EDITOR to pick up the editor preference.
If environment variables are missing, vi editor is used by default.
Example:
talosctl -n <IP> edit machineconfig
Configuration can be edited for multiple nodes if multiple IP addresses are specified:
talosctl -n <IP1>,<IP2>,... edit machineconfig
Applying machine configuration change immediately (without a reboot):
Command talosctl patch works similar to talosctl edit command - it loads current machine configuration, but instead of launching configured editor it applies a set of JSON patches to the configuration and writes the result back to the node.
Example, updating kubelet version (in auto mode):
$ talosctl -n <IP> patch machineconfig -p '[{"op": "replace", "path": "/machine/kubelet/image", "value": "ghcr.io/siderolabs/kubelet:v1.31.1"}]'patched mc at the node <IP>
Updating kube-apiserver version in immediate mode (without a reboot):
$ talosctl -n <IP> patch machineconfig --mode=no-reboot -p '[{"op": "replace", "path": "/cluster/apiServer/image", "value": "registry.k8s.io/kube-apiserver:v1.31.1"}]'patched mc at the node <IP>
A patch might be applied to multiple nodes when multiple IPs are specified:
If a Talos node fails to boot because of wrong configuration (for example, control plane endpoint is incorrect), configuration can be updated to fix the issue.
2.2.7 - Logging
Dealing with Talos Linux logs.
Viewing logs
Kernel messages can be retrieved with talosctl dmesg command:
Service logs can be retrieved with talosctl logs command:
$ talosctl -n 172.20.1.2 services
NODE SERVICE STATE HEALTH LAST CHANGE LAST EVENT
172.20.1.2 apid Running OK 19m27s ago Health check successful
172.20.1.2 containerd Running OK 19m29s ago Health check successful
172.20.1.2 cri Running OK 19m27s ago Health check successful
172.20.1.2 etcd Running OK 19m22s ago Health check successful
172.20.1.2 kubelet Running OK 19m20s ago Health check successful
172.20.1.2 machined Running ? 19m30s ago Service started as goroutine
172.20.1.2 trustd Running OK 19m27s ago Health check successful
172.20.1.2 udevd Running OK 19m28s ago Health check successful
$ talosctl -n 172.20.1.2 logs machined
172.20.1.2: [talos] task setupLogger (1/1): done, 106.109µs
172.20.1.2: [talos] phase logger (1/7): done, 564.476µs
[...]
Container logs for Kubernetes pods can be retrieved with talosctl logs -k command:
Messages are newline-separated when sent over TCP.
Over UDP messages are sent with one message per packet.
msg, talos-level, talos-service, and talos-time fields are always present; there may be additional fields.
Every message sent can be enhanced with additional fields by using the extraTags field in the machine configuration:
The specified extraTags are added to every message sent to the destination verbatim.
Kernel logs
Kernel log delivery can be enabled with the talos.logging.kernel kernel command line argument, which can be specified
in the .machine.installer.extraKernelArgs:
Kernel log destination is specified in the same way as service log endpoint.
The only supported format is json_lines.
Sample message:
{
"clock":6252819, // time relative to the kernel boot time
"facility":"user",
"msg":"[talos] task startAllServices (1/1): waiting for 6 services\n",
"priority":"warning",
"seq":711,
"talos-level":"warn", // Talos-translated `priority` into common logging level
"talos-time":"2021-11-26T16:53:21.3258698Z"// Talos-translated `clock` using current time
}
extraKernelArgs in the machine configuration are only applied on Talos upgrades, not just by applying the config.
(Upgrading to the same version is fine).
Filebeat example
To forward logs to other Log collection services, one way to do this is sending
them to a Filebeat running in the
cluster itself (in the host network), which takes care of forwarding it to
other endpoints (and the necessary transformations).
If Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes
is being used, the following Beat (custom resource) configuration might be
helpful:
The input configuration ensures that messages and timestamps are extracted properly.
Refer to the Filebeat documentation on how to forward logs to other outputs.
Also note the hostNetwork: true in the daemonSet configuration.
This ensures filebeat uses the host network, and listens on 127.0.0.1:12345
(UDP) on every machine, which can then be specified as a logging endpoint in
the machine configuration.
Fluent-bit example
First, we’ll create a value file for the fluentd-bit Helm chart.
# fluentd-bit.yamlpodAnnotations:
fluentbit.io/exclude: 'true'extraPorts:
- port: 12345containerPort: 12345protocol: TCP
name: talos
config:
service: | [SERVICE]
Flush 5
Daemon Off
Log_Level warn
Parsers_File custom_parsers.confinputs: | [INPUT]
Name tcp
Listen 0.0.0.0
Port 12345
Format json
Tag talos.*
[INPUT]
Name tail
Alias kubernetes
Path /var/log/containers/*.log
Parser containerd
Tag kubernetes.*
[INPUT]
Name tail
Alias audit
Path /var/log/audit/kube/*.log
Parser audit
Tag audit.*filters: | [FILTER]
Name kubernetes
Alias kubernetes
Match kubernetes.*
Kube_Tag_Prefix kubernetes.var.log.containers.
Use_Kubelet Off
Merge_Log On
Merge_Log_Trim On
Keep_Log Off
K8S-Logging.Parser Off
K8S-Logging.Exclude On
Annotations Off
Labels On
[FILTER]
Name modify
Match kubernetes.*
Add source kubernetes
Remove logtagcustomParsers: | [PARSER]
Name audit
Format json
Time_Key requestReceivedTimestamp
Time_Format %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%L%z
[PARSER]
Name containerd
Format regex
Regex ^(?<time>[^ ]+) (?<stream>stdout|stderr) (?<logtag>[^ ]*) (?<log>.*)$
Time_Key time
Time_Format %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%L%zoutputs: | [OUTPUT]
Name stdout
Alias stdout
Match *
Format json_lines# If you wish to ship directly to Loki from Fluentbit,# Uncomment the following output, updating the Host with your Loki DNS/IP info as necessary.# [OUTPUT]# Name loki# Match *# Host loki.loki.svc# Port 3100# Labels job=fluentbit# Auto_Kubernetes_Labels ondaemonSetVolumes:
- name: varlog
hostPath:
path: /var/log
daemonSetVolumeMounts:
- name: varlog
mountPath: /var/log
tolerations:
- operator: Exists
effect: NoSchedule
Next, we will add the helm repo for FluentBit, and deploy it to the cluster.
$ kubectl -n kube-system get svc -l app.kubernetes.io/name=fluent-bit
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
fluent-bit ClusterIP 10.200.0.138 <none> 2020/TCP,5170/TCP 108m
Finally, we will change talos log destination with the command talosctl edit mc.
This example configuration was well tested with Cilium CNI, and it should work with iptables/ipvs based CNI plugins too.
Vector example
Vector is a lightweight observability pipeline ideal for a Kubernetes environment.
It can ingest (source) logs from multiple sources, perform remapping on the logs (transform), and forward the resulting pipeline to multiple destinations (sinks).
As it is an end to end platform, it can be run as a single-deployment ‘aggregator’ as well as a replicaSet of ‘Agents’ that run on each node.
As Talos can be set as above to send logs to a destination, we can run Vector as an Aggregator, and forward both kernel and service to a UDP socket in-cluster.
Below is an excerpt of a source/sink setup for Talos, with a ‘sink’ destination of an in-cluster Grafana Loki log aggregation service.
As Loki can create labels from the log input, we have set up the Loki sink to create labels based on the host IP, service and facility of the inbound logs.
Note that a method of exposing the Vector service will be required which may vary depending on your setup - a LoadBalancer is a good option.
In this guide we’ll follow the procedure to support NVIDIA GPU using OSS drivers on Talos.
Enabling NVIDIA GPU support on Talos is bound by NVIDIA EULA.
The Talos published NVIDIA OSS drivers are bound to a specific Talos release.
The extensions versions also needs to be updated when upgrading Talos.
We will be using the following NVIDIA OSS system extensions:
nvidia-open-gpu-kernel-modules
nvidia-container-toolkit
Create the boot assets which includes the system extensions mentioned above (or create a custom installer and perform a machine upgrade if Talos is already installed).
Make sure the driver version matches for both the nvidia-open-gpu-kernel-modules and nvidia-container-toolkit extensions.
The nvidia-open-gpu-kernel-modules extension is versioned as <nvidia-driver-version>-<talos-release-version> and the nvidia-container-toolkit extension is versioned as <nvidia-driver-version>-<nvidia-container-toolkit-version>.
Enabling the NVIDIA OSS modules
Patch Talos machine configuration using the patch gpu-worker-patch.yaml:
Now apply the patch to all Talos nodes in the cluster having NVIDIA GPU’s installed:
talosctl patch mc --patch @gpu-worker-patch.yaml
The NVIDIA modules should be loaded and the system extension should be installed.
This can be confirmed by running:
talosctl read /proc/modules
which should produce an output similar to below:
nvidia_uvm 1146880 - - Live 0xffffffffc2733000 (PO)
nvidia_drm 69632 - - Live 0xffffffffc2721000 (PO)
nvidia_modeset 1142784 - - Live 0xffffffffc25ea000 (PO)
nvidia 39047168 - - Live 0xffffffffc00ac000 (PO)
talosctl get extensions
which should produce an output similar to below:
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION NAME VERSION
172.31.41.27 runtime ExtensionStatus 000.ghcr.io-siderolabs-nvidia-container-toolkit-515.65.01-v1.10.0 1 nvidia-container-toolkit 515.65.01-v1.10.0
172.31.41.27 runtime ExtensionStatus 000.ghcr.io-siderolabs-nvidia-open-gpu-kernel-modules-515.65.01-v1.2.0 1 nvidia-open-gpu-kernel-modules 515.65.01-v1.2.0
talosctl read /proc/driver/nvidia/version
which should produce an output similar to below:
NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 515.65.01 Wed Mar 16 11:24:05 UTC 2022
GCC version: gcc version 12.2.0 (GCC)
Deploying NVIDIA device plugin
First we need to create the RuntimeClass
Apply the following manifest to create a runtime class that uses the extension:
In this guide we’ll follow the procedure to support NVIDIA GPU using proprietary drivers on Talos.
Enabling NVIDIA GPU support on Talos is bound by NVIDIA EULA.
The Talos published NVIDIA drivers are bound to a specific Talos release.
The extensions versions also needs to be updated when upgrading Talos.
We will be using the following NVIDIA system extensions:
nonfree-kmod-nvidia
nvidia-container-toolkit
To build a NVIDIA driver version not published by SideroLabs follow the instructions here
Create the boot assets which includes the system extensions mentioned above (or create a custom installer and perform a machine upgrade if Talos is already installed).
Make sure the driver version matches for both the nonfree-kmod-nvidia and nvidia-container-toolkit extensions.
The nonfree-kmod-nvidia extension is versioned as <nvidia-driver-version>-<talos-release-version> and the nvidia-container-toolkit extension is versioned as <nvidia-driver-version>-<nvidia-container-toolkit-version>.
Enabling the NVIDIA modules and the system extension
Patch Talos machine configuration using the patch gpu-worker-patch.yaml:
Now apply the patch to all Talos nodes in the cluster having NVIDIA GPU’s installed:
talosctl patch mc --patch @gpu-worker-patch.yaml
The NVIDIA modules should be loaded and the system extension should be installed.
This can be confirmed by running:
talosctl read /proc/modules
which should produce an output similar to below:
nvidia_uvm 1146880 - - Live 0xffffffffc2733000 (PO)
nvidia_drm 69632 - - Live 0xffffffffc2721000 (PO)
nvidia_modeset 1142784 - - Live 0xffffffffc25ea000 (PO)
nvidia 39047168 - - Live 0xffffffffc00ac000 (PO)
talosctl get extensions
which should produce an output similar to below:
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION NAME VERSION
172.31.41.27 runtime ExtensionStatus 000.ghcr.io-frezbo-nvidia-container-toolkit-510.60.02-v1.9.0 1 nvidia-container-toolkit 510.60.02-v1.9.0
talosctl read /proc/driver/nvidia/version
which should produce an output similar to below:
NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 510.60.02 Wed Mar 16 11:24:05 UTC 2022
GCC version: gcc version 11.2.0 (GCC)
Deploying NVIDIA device plugin
First we need to create the RuntimeClass
Apply the following manifest to create a runtime class that uses the extension:
How to set up local transparent container images caches.
In this guide we will create a set of local caching Docker registry proxies to minimize local cluster startup time.
When running Talos locally, pulling images from container registries might take a significant amount of time.
We spin up local caching pass-through registries to cache images and configure a local Talos cluster to use those proxies.
A similar approach might be used to run Talos in production in air-gapped environments.
It can be also used to verify that all the images are available in local registries.
Video Walkthrough
To see a live demo of this writeup, see the video below:
Requirements
The follow are requirements for creating the set of caching proxies:
Docker 18.03 or greater
Local cluster requirements for either docker or QEMU.
Launch the Caching Docker Registry Proxies
Talos pulls from docker.io, registry.k8s.io, gcr.io, and ghcr.io by default.
If your configuration is different, you might need to modify the commands below:
Note: Proxies are started as docker containers, and they’re automatically configured to start with Docker daemon.
As a registry container can only handle a single upstream Docker registry, we launch a container per upstream, each on its own
host port (5000, 5001, 5002, 5003 and 5004).
Using Caching Registries with QEMU Local Cluster
With a QEMU local cluster, a bridge interface is created on the host.
As registry containers expose their ports on the host, we can use bridge IP to direct proxy requests.
The Talos local cluster should now start pulling via caching registries.
This can be verified via registry logs, e.g. docker logs -f registry-docker.io.
The first time cluster boots, images are pulled and cached, so next cluster boot should be much faster.
Note: 10.5.0.1 is a bridge IP with default network (10.5.0.0/24), if using custom --cidr, value should be adjusted accordingly.
Using Caching Registries with docker Local Cluster
With a docker local cluster we can use docker bridge IP, default value for that IP is 172.17.0.1.
On Linux, the docker bridge address can be inspected with ip addr show docker0.
Note: Removing docker registry containers also removes the image cache.
So if you plan to use caching registries, keep the containers running.
Using Harbor as a Caching Registry
Harbor is an open source container registry that can be used as a caching proxy.
Harbor supports configuring multiple upstream registries, so it can be used to cache multiple registries at once behind a single endpoint.
As Harbor puts a registry name in the pull image path, we need to set overridePath: true to prevent Talos and containerd from appending /v2 to the path.
Talos v0.11 introduced initial support for role-based access control (RBAC).
This guide will explain what that is and how to enable it without losing access to the cluster.
RBAC in Talos
Talos uses certificates to authorize users.
The certificate subject’s organization field is used to encode user roles.
There is a set of predefined roles that allow access to different API methods:
os:admin grants access to all methods;
os:operator grants everything os:reader role does, plus additional methods: rebooting, shutting down, etcd backup, etcd alarm management, and so on;
os:reader grants access to “safe” methods (for example, that includes the ability to list files, but does not include the ability to read files content);
Roles in the current talosconfig can be checked with the following command:
$ talosctl config info
[...]Roles: os:admin
[...]
RBAC is enabled by default in new clusters created with talosctl v0.11+ and disabled otherwise.
Enabling RBAC
First, both the Talos cluster and talosctl tool should be upgraded.
Then the talosctl config new command should be used to generate a new client configuration with the os:admin role.
Additional configurations and certificates for different roles can be generated by passing --roles flag:
talosctl config new --roles=os:reader reader
That command will create a new client configuration file reader with a new certificate with os:reader role.
After that, RBAC should be enabled in the machine configuration:
machine:
features:
rbac: true
2.2.13 - System Extensions
Customizing the Talos Linux immutable root file system.
System extensions allow extending the Talos root filesystem, which enables a variety of features, such as including custom
container runtimes, loading additional firmware, etc.
System extensions are only activated during the installation or upgrade of Talos Linux.
With system extensions installed, the Talos root filesystem is still immutable and read-only.
Installing System Extensions
Note: the way to install system extensions in the .machine.install section of the machine configuration is now deprecated.
Starting with Talos v1.5.0, Talos supports generation of boot media with system extensions included, this removes the need to rebuild
the initramfs.xz on the machine itself during the installation or upgrade.
There are two kinds of boot assets that Talos can generate:
initial boot assets (ISO, PXE, etc.) that are used to boot the machine
disk images that have Talos pre-installed
installer container images that can be used to install or upgrade Talos on a machine (installation happens when booted from ISO or PXE)
Depending on the nature of the system extension (e.g. network device driver or containerd plugin), it may be necessary to include the extension in
both initial boot assets and disk images/installer, or just the installer.
The process of generating boot assets with extensions included is described in the boot assets guide.
Example: Booting from an ISO
Let’s assume NVIDIA extension is required on a bare metal machine which is going to be booted from an ISO.
As NVIDIA extension is not required for the initial boot and install step, it is sufficient to include the extension in the installer image only.
Use a generic Talos ISO to boot the machine.
Prepare a custom installer container image with NVIDIA extension included, push the image to a registry.
Ensure that machine configuration field .machine.install.image points to the custom installer image.
Boot the machine using the ISO, apply the machine configuration.
Talos pulls a custom installer image from the registry (containing NVIDIA extension), installs Talos on the machine, and reboots.
When it’s time to upgrade Talos, generate a custom installer container for a new version of Talos, push it to a registry, and perform upgrade
pointing to the custom installer image.
Example: Disk Image
Let’s assume NVIDIA extension is required on AWS VM.
Prepare an AWS disk image with NVIDIA extension included.
Upload the image to AWS, register it as an AMI.
Use the AMI to launch a VM.
Talos boots with NVIDIA extension included.
When it’s time to upgrade Talos, either repeat steps 1-4 to replace the VM with a new AMI, or
like in the previous example, generate a custom installer and use it to upgrade Talos in-place.
Authoring System Extensions
A Talos system extension is a container image with the specific folder structure.
System extensions can be built and managed using any tool that produces container images, e.g. docker build.
Use talosctl get extensions to get a list of system extensions:
$ talosctl get extensions
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION NAME VERSION
172.20.0.2 runtime ExtensionStatus 000.ghcr.io-talos-systems-gvisor-54b831d 1 gvisor 20220117.0-v1.0.0
172.20.0.2 runtime ExtensionStatus 001.ghcr.io-talos-systems-intel-ucode-54b831d 1 intel-ucode microcode-20210608-v1.0.0
Use YAML or JSON format to see additional details about the extension:
Talos Linux itself does not require time to be synchronized across the cluster, but as Talos Linux and Kubernetes components issue certificates
with expiration dates, it is recommended to have time synchronized across the cluster.
Some workloads (e.g. Ceph) might require to be in sync across the machines in the cluster due to the design of the application.
Talos Linux tries to launch API even if the time is not sync, and if time jumps as a result of NTP sync, the API certificates will be rotated automatically.
Some components like kubelet and etcd wait for the time to be in sync before starting, as they don’t support graceful certificate rotation.
By default, Talos Linux uses time.cloudflare.com as the NTP server, but it can be overridden in the machine configuration, or provided via DHCP, kernel args, platform sources, etc.
Talos Linux implements SNTP protocol to sync time with the NTP server.
Observing Status
Current time sync status can be observed with:
$ talosctl get timestatus
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION SYNCED
172.20.0.2 runtime TimeStatus node 2true
The list of servers Talos Linux is syncing with can be observed with:
$ talosctl get timeservers
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION TIMESERVERS
172.20.0.2 network TimeServerStatus timeservers 1["time.cloudflare.com"]
More detailed logs about the time sync process can be queried with:
When running in a VM on a hypervisor, instead of doing network time sync, Talos can sync the time to the hypervisor clock (if supported by the hypervisor).
To check if the PTP device is available:
$ talosctl ls /sys/class/ptp/
NODE NAME
172.20.0.2 .
172.20.0.2 ptp0
Make sure that the PTP device is provided by the hypervisor, as some PTP devices don’t provide accurate time value without proper setup:
To enable PTP sync, set the machine.time.servers to the PTP device name (e.g. /dev/ptp0):
machine:
time:
servers:
- /dev/ptp0
After setting the PTP device, Talos will sync the time to the PTP device instead of using the NTP server:
172.20.0.2: 2024-04-17T19:11:48.817Z DEBUG adjusting time (slew) by 32.223689ms via /dev/ptp0, state TIME_OK, status STA_PLL | STA_NANO {"component": "controller-runtime", "controller": "time.SyncController"}
Additional Configuration
Talos NTP sync can be disabled with the following machine configuration patch:
machine:
time:
disabled: true
When time sync is disabled, Talos assumes that time is always in sync.
Time sync can be also configured on best-effort basis, where Talos will try to sync time for the specified period of time, but if it fails to do so, time will be configured to be in sync when the period expires:
machine:
time:
bootTimeout: 2m
2.3 - How Tos
How to guide for common tasks in Talos Linux
2.3.1 - How to enable workers on your control plane nodes
How to enable workers on your control plane nodes.
By default, Talos Linux taints control plane nodes so that workloads are not schedulable on them.
In order to allow workloads to run on the control plane nodes (useful for single node clusters, or non-production clusters), follow the procedure below.
Modify the MachineConfig for the controlplane nodes to add allowSchedulingOnControlPlanes: true:
2.3.2 - How to manage PKI and certificate lifetimes with Talos Linux
Talos Linux automatically manages and rotates all server side certificates for etcd, Kubernetes, and the Talos API.
Note however that the kubelet needs to be restarted at least once a year in order for the certificates to be rotated.
Any upgrade/reboot of the node will suffice for this effect.
You can check the Kubernetes certificates with the command talosctl get KubernetesDynamicCerts -o yaml on the controlplane.
Client certificates (talosconfig and kubeconfig) are the user’s responsibility.
Each time you download the kubeconfig file from a Talos Linux cluster, the client certificate is regenerated giving you a kubeconfig which is valid for a year.
The talosconfig file should be renewed at least once a year, using the talosctl config new command, as shown below, or by one of the other methods.
Generating New Client Configuration
Using Controlplane Node
If you have a valid (not expired) talosconfig with os:admin role,
a new client configuration file can be generated with talosctl config new against
any controlplane node:
talosctl -n CP1 config new talosconfig-reader --roles os:reader --crt-ttl 24h
A specific role and certificate lifetime can be specified.
Note: <cluster-name> and <cluster-endpoint> arguments don’t matter, as they are not used for talosconfig.
From Control Plane Machine Configuration
In order to create a new key pair for client configuration, you will need the root Talos API CA.
The base64 encoded CA can be found in the control plane node’s configuration file.
Save the CA public key, and CA private key as ca.crt, and ca.key respectively:
The command talosctl reset will cordon and drain the node, leaving etcd if required, and then erase its disks and power down the system.
This command will also remove the node from registration with the discovery service, so it will no longer show up in talosctl get members.
It is still necessary to remove the node from Kubernetes, as noted above.
2.3.4 - How to scale up a Talos cluster
How to add more nodes to a Talos Linux cluster.
To add more nodes to a Talos Linux cluster, follow the same procedure as when initially creating the cluster:
boot the new machines to install Talos Linux
apply the worker.yaml or controlplane.yaml configuration files to the new machines
You need the controlplane.yaml and worker.yaml that were created when you initially deployed your cluster.
These contain the certificates that enable new machines to join.
Once you have the IP address, you can then apply the correct configuration for each machine you are adding, either worker or controlplane.
The insecure flag is necessary because the PKI infrastructure has not yet been made available to the node.
You do not need to bootstrap the new node.
Regardless of whether you are adding a control plane or worker node, it will now join the cluster in its role.
2.4 - Network
Set up networking layers for Talos Linux
2.4.1 - Corporate Proxies
How to configure Talos Linux to use proxies in a corporate environment
Appending the Certificate Authority of MITM Proxies
Put into each machine the PEM encoded certificate:
Talos Linux starting with 1.7.0 provides a caching DNS resolver for host workloads (including host networking pods).
Host DNS resolver is enabled by default for clusters created with Talos 1.7, and it can be enabled manually on upgrade.
Enabling Host DNS
Use the following machine configuration patch to enable host DNS resolver:
machine:
features:
hostDNS:
enabled: true
Host DNS can be disabled by setting enabled: false as well.
Operations
When enabled, Talos Linux starts a DNS caching server on the host, listening on address 127.0.0.53:53 (both TCP and UDP protocols).
The host /etc/resolv.conf file is rewritten to point to the host DNS server:
All host-based workloads will use the host DNS server for name resolution.
Host DNS server forwards requests to the upstream DNS servers, which are either acquired automatically (DHCP, platform sources, kernel args), or specified in the machine configuration.
The upstream DNS servers can be observed with:
$ talosctl get resolvers
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION RESOLVERS
172.20.0.2 network ResolverStatus resolvers 2["8.8.8.8","1.1.1.1"]
Logs of the host DNS resolver can be queried with:
talosctl logs dns-resolve-cache
Upstream server status can be observed with:
$ talosctl get dnsupstream
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION HEALTHY ADDRESS
172.20.0.2 network DNSUpstream 1.1.1.1 1true 1.1.1.1:53
172.20.0.2 network DNSUpstream 8.8.8.8 1true 8.8.8.8:53
Forwarding kube-dns to Host DNS
Note: This feature is enabled by default for new clusters created with Talos 1.8.0 and later.
When host DNS is enabled, by default, kube-dns service (CoreDNS in Kubernetes) uses host DNS server to resolve external names.
This way the cache is shared between the host DNS and kube-dns.
Talos allows forwarding kube-dns to the host DNS resolver to be disabled with:
This configuration should be applied to all nodes in the cluster, if applied after cluster creation, restart coredns pods in Kubernetes to pick up changes.
When forwardKubeDNSToHost is enabled, Talos Linux allocates IP address 169.254.116.108 for the host DNS server, and kube-dns service is configured to use this IP address as the upstream DNS server:
This way kube-dns service forwards all DNS requests to the host DNS server, and the cache is shared between the host and kube-dns.
Resolving Talos Cluster Member Names
Host DNS can be configured to resolve Talos cluster member names to IP addresses, so that the host can communicate with the cluster members by name.
Sometimes machine hostnames are already resolvable by the upstream DNS, but this might not always be the case.
When enabled, Talos Linux uses discovery data to resolve Talos cluster member names to IP addresses:
$ talosctl get members
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION HOSTNAME MACHINE TYPE OS ADDRESSES
172.20.0.2 cluster Member talos-default-controlplane-1 1 talos-default-controlplane-1 controlplane Talos (v1.9.0-alpha.0)["172.20.0.2"]172.20.0.2 cluster Member talos-default-worker-1 1 talos-default-worker-1 worker Talos (v1.9.0-alpha.0)["172.20.0.3"]
With the example output above, talos-default-worker-1 name will resolve to 127.0.0.3.
Example usage:
talosctl -n talos-default-worker-1 version
When combined with forwardKubeDNSToHost, kube-dns service will also resolve Talos cluster member names to IP addresses.
2.4.3 - Ingress Firewall
Learn to use Talos Linux Ingress Firewall to limit access to the host services.
Talos Linux Ingress Firewall is a simple and effective way to limit network access to the services running on the host, which includes both Talos standard
services (e.g. apid and kubelet), and any additional workloads that may be running on the host.
Talos Linux Ingress Firewall doesn’t affect the traffic between the Kubernetes pods/services, please use CNI Network Policies for that.
The first document configures the default action for ingress traffic, which can be either accept or block, with the default being accept.
If the default action is set to accept, then all ingress traffic will be allowed, unless there is a matching rule that blocks it.
If the default action is set to block, then all ingress traffic will be blocked, unless there is a matching rule that allows it.
With either accept or block, traffic is always allowed on the following network interfaces:
lo
siderolink
kubespan
In block mode:
ICMP and ICMPv6 traffic is also allowed with a rate limit of 5 packets per second
traffic between Kubernetes pod/service subnets is allowed (for native routing CNIs)
The second document defines an ingress rule for a set of ports and protocols on the host.
The NetworkRuleConfig might be repeated many times to define multiple rules, but each document must have a unique name.
The ports field accepts either a single port or a port range:
The ingress specifies the list of subnets that are allowed to access the host services, with the optional except field to exclude a set of addresses from the subnet.
Note: incorrect configuration of the ingress firewall might result in the host becoming inaccessible over Talos API.
It is recommended that the configuration be applied in --mode=try to ensure it is reverted in case of a mistake.
Recommended Rules
The following rules improve the security of the cluster and cover only standard Talos services.
If there are additional services running with host networking in the cluster, they should be covered by additional rules.
In block mode, the ingress firewall will also block encapsulated traffic (e.g. VXLAN) between the nodes, which needs to be explicitly allowed for the Kubernetes
networking to function properly.
Please refer to the documentation of the CNI in use for the specific ports required.
Some default configurations are listed below:
Flannel, Calico: vxlan UDP port 4789
Cilium: vxlan UDP port 8472
In the examples we assume the following template variables to describe the cluster:
$CLUSTER_SUBNET, e.g. 172.20.0.0/24 - the subnet which covers all machines in the cluster
$CP1, $CP2, $CP3 - the IP addresses of the controlplane nodes
$VXLAN_PORT - the UDP port used by the CNI for encapsulated traffic
Controlplane
In this example Ingress policy:
apid and Kubernetes API are wide open
kubelet and trustd API are only accessible within the cluster
Learn to use KubeSpan to connect Talos Linux machines securely across networks.
KubeSpan is a feature of Talos that automates the setup and maintenance of a full mesh WireGuard network for your cluster, giving you the ability to operate hybrid Kubernetes clusters that can span the edge, datacenter, and cloud.
Management of keys and discovery of peers can be completely automated, making it simple and easy to create hybrid clusters.
KubeSpan consists of client code in Talos Linux, as well as a discovery service that enables clients to securely find each other.
Sidero Labs operates a free Discovery Service, but the discovery service may, with a commercial license, be operated by your organization and can be downloaded here.
Video Walkthrough
To see a live demo of KubeSpan, see one the videos below:
Network Requirements
KubeSpan uses UDP port 51820 to carry all KubeSpan encrypted traffic.
Because UDP traversal of firewalls is often lenient, and the Discovery Service communicates the apparent IP address of all peers to all other peers, KubeSpan will often work automatically, even when each nodes is behind their own firewall.
However, when both ends of a KubeSpan connection are behind firewalls, it is possible the connection may not be established correctly - it depends on each end sending out packets in a limited time window.
Thus best practice is to ensure that one end of all possible node-node communication allows UDP port 51820, inbound.
For example, if control plane nodes are running in a corporate data center, behind firewalls, KubeSpan connectivity will work correctly so long as worker nodes on the public Internet can receive packets on UDP port 51820.
(Note the workers will also need to receive TCP port 50000 for initial configuration via talosctl).
An alternative topology would be to run control plane nodes in a public cloud, and allow inbound UDP port 51820 to the control plane nodes.
Workers could be behind firewalls, and KubeSpan connectivity will be established.
Note that if workers are in different locations, behind different firewalls, the KubeSpan connectivity between workers should be correctly established, but may require opening the KubeSpan UDP port on the local firewall also.
Caveats
Kubernetes API Endpoint Limitations
When the K8s endpoint is an IP address that is not part of Kubespan, but is an address that is forwarded on to the Kubespan address of a control plane node, without changing the source address, then worker nodes will fail to join the cluster.
In such a case, the control plane node has no way to determine whether the packet arrived on the private Kubespan address, or the public IP address.
If the source of the packet was a Kubespan member, the reply will be Kubespan encapsulated, and thus not translated to the public IP, and so the control plane will reply to the session with the wrong address.
This situation is seen, for example, when the Kubernetes API endpoint is the public IP of a VM in GCP or Azure for a single node control plane.
The control plane will receive packets on the public IP, but will reply from it’s KubeSpan address.
The workaround is to create a load balancer to terminate the Kubernetes API endpoint.
Digital Ocean Limitations
Digital Ocean assigns an “Anchor IP” address to each droplet.
Talos Linux correctly identifies this as a link-local address, and configures KubeSpan correctly, but this address will often be selected by Flannel or other CNIs as a node’s private IP.
Because this address is not routable, nor advertised via KubeSpan, it will break pod-pod communication between nodes.
This can be worked-around by assigning a non-Anchor private IP:
Then restarting flannel:
kubectl delete pods -n kube-system -l k8s-app=flannel
Enabling
Creating a New Cluster
To enable KubeSpan for a new cluster, we can use the --with-kubespan flag in talosctl gen config.
This will enable peer discovery and KubeSpan.
machine:
network:
kubespan:
enabled: true# Enable the KubeSpan feature.cluster:
discovery:
enabled: true# Configure registries used for cluster member discovery.registries:
kubernetes: # Kubernetes registry is problematic with KubeSpan, if the control plane endpoint is routeable itself via KubeSpan.disabled: trueservice: {}
The default discovery service is an external service hosted by Sidero Labs at https://discovery.talos.dev/.
Contact Sidero Labs if you need to run this service privately.
Enabling for an Existing Cluster
In order to enable KubeSpan on an existing cluster, enable kubespan and discovery settings in the machine config for each machine in the cluster (discovery is enabled by default):
The setting advertiseKubernetesNetworks controls whether the node will advertise Kubernetes service and pod networks to other nodes in the cluster over KubeSpan.
It defaults to being disabled, which means KubeSpan only controls the node-to-node traffic, while pod-to-pod traffic is routed and encapsulated by CNI.
This setting should not be enabled with Calico and Cilium CNI plugins, as they do their own pod IP allocation which is not visible to KubeSpan.
The setting allowDownPeerBypass controls whether the node will allow traffic to bypass WireGuard if the destination is not connected over KubeSpan.
If enabled, there is a risk that traffic will be routed unencrypted if the destination is not connected over KubeSpan, but it allows a workaround
for the case where a node is not connected to the KubeSpan network, but still needs to access the cluster.
The mtu setting configures the Wireguard MTU, which defaults to 1420.
This default value of 1420 is safe to use when the underlying network MTU is 1500, but if the underlying network MTU is smaller, the KubeSpanMTU should be adjusted accordingly:
KubeSpanMTU = UnderlyingMTU - 80.
The filters setting allows hiding some endpoints from being advertised over KubeSpan.
This is useful when some endpoints are known to be unreachable between the nodes, so that KubeSpan doesn’t try to establish a connection to them.
Another use-case is hiding some endpoints if nodes can connect on multiple networks, and some of the networks are more preferable than others.
To include additional announced endpoints, such as inbound NAT mappings, you can add the machine config document.
Talos automatically configures unique IPv6 address for each node in the cluster-specific IPv6 ULA prefix.
The Wireguard private key is generated and never leaves the node, while the public key is published through the cluster discovery.
KubeSpanIdentity is persisted across reboots and upgrades in STATE partition in the file kubespan-identity.yaml.
KubeSpanPeerSpecs
A node’s WireGuard peers can be obtained with:
$ talosctl get kubespanpeerspecs
ID VERSION LABEL ENDPOINTS
06D9QQOydzKrOL7oeLiqHy9OWE8KtmJzZII2A5/FLFI=2 talos-default-controlplane-2 ["172.20.0.3:51820"]THtfKtfNnzJs1nMQKs5IXqK0DFXmM//0WMY+NnaZrhU=2 talos-default-controlplane-3 ["172.20.0.4:51820"]nVHu7l13uZyk0AaI1WuzL2/48iG8af4WRv+LWmAax1M=2 talos-default-worker-2 ["172.20.0.6:51820"]zXP0QeqRo+CBgDH1uOBiQ8tA+AKEQP9hWkqmkE/oDlc=2 talos-default-worker-1 ["172.20.0.5:51820"]
The peer ID is the Wireguard public key.
KubeSpanPeerSpecs are built from the cluster discovery data.
KubeSpanPeerStatuses
The status of a node’s WireGuard peers can be obtained with:
$ talosctl get kubespanpeerstatuses
ID VERSION LABEL ENDPOINT STATE RX TX
06D9QQOydzKrOL7oeLiqHy9OWE8KtmJzZII2A5/FLFI=63 talos-default-controlplane-2 172.20.0.3:51820 up 1504322017869488THtfKtfNnzJs1nMQKs5IXqK0DFXmM//0WMY+NnaZrhU=62 talos-default-controlplane-3 172.20.0.4:51820 up 1457320818157680nVHu7l13uZyk0AaI1WuzL2/48iG8af4WRv+LWmAax1M=60 talos-default-worker-2 172.20.0.6:51820 up 13007246888zXP0QeqRo+CBgDH1uOBiQ8tA+AKEQP9hWkqmkE/oDlc=60 talos-default-worker-1 172.20.0.5:51820 up 13004446556
KubeSpan peer status includes following information:
the actual endpoint used for peer communication
link state:
unknown: the endpoint was just changed, link state is not known yet
up: there is a recent handshake from the peer
down: there is no handshake from the peer
number of bytes sent/received over the Wireguard link with the peer
If the connection state goes down, Talos will be cycling through the available endpoints until it finds the one which works.
Peer status information is updated every 30 seconds.
KubeSpanEndpoints
A node’s WireGuard endpoints (peer addresses) can be obtained with:
$ talosctl get kubespanendpoints
ID VERSION ENDPOINT AFFILIATE ID
06D9QQOydzKrOL7oeLiqHy9OWE8KtmJzZII2A5/FLFI=1 172.20.0.3:51820 2VfX3nu67ZtZPl57IdJrU87BMjVWkSBJiL9ulP9TCnF
THtfKtfNnzJs1nMQKs5IXqK0DFXmM//0WMY+NnaZrhU=1 172.20.0.4:51820 b3DebkPaCRLTLLWaeRF1ejGaR0lK3m79jRJcPn0mfA6C
nVHu7l13uZyk0AaI1WuzL2/48iG8af4WRv+LWmAax1M=1 172.20.0.6:51820 NVtfu1bT1QjhNq5xJFUZl8f8I8LOCnnpGrZfPpdN9WlB
zXP0QeqRo+CBgDH1uOBiQ8tA+AKEQP9hWkqmkE/oDlc=1 172.20.0.5:51820 6EVq8RHIne03LeZiJ60WsJcoQOtttw1ejvTS6SOBzhUA
The endpoint ID is the base64 encoded WireGuard public key.
The observed endpoints are submitted back to the discovery service (if enabled) so that other peers can try additional endpoints to establish the connection.
2.4.5 - Network Device Selector
How to configure network devices by selecting them using hardware information
Configuring Network Device Using Device Selector
deviceSelector is an alternative method of configuring a network device:
In this example, the bond0 interface will be created and bonded using two devices with the specified hardware addresses.
2.4.6 - Predictable Interface Names
How to use predictable interface naming.
Starting with version Talos 1.5, network interfaces are renamed to predictable names
same way as systemd does that in other Linux distributions.
The naming schema enx78e7d1ea46da (based on MAC addresses) is enabled by default, the order of interface naming decisions is:
firmware/BIOS provided index numbers for on-board devices (example: eno1)
firmware/BIOS provided PCI Express hotplug slot index numbers (example: ens1)
physical/geographical location of the connector of the hardware (example: enp2s0)
interfaces’s MAC address (example: enx78e7d1ea46da)
The predictable network interface names features can be disabled by specifying net.ifnames=0 in the kernel command line.
Note: Talos automatically adds the net.ifnames=0 kernel argument when upgrading from Talos versions before 1.5, so upgrades to 1.5 don’t require any manual intervention.
“Cloud” platforms, like AWS, still use old eth0 naming scheme as Talos automatically adds net.ifnames=0 to the kernel command line.
Single Network Interface
When running Talos on a machine with a single network interface, predictable interface names might be confusing, as it might come up as enxSOMETHING which is hard to address.
There are two ways to solve this:
disable the feature by supplying net.ifnames=0 to the initial boot of Talos, Talos will persist net.ifnames=0 over installs/upgrades.
machine:
network:
interfaces:
- deviceSelector:
busPath: "0*"# should select any hardware network device, if you have just one, it will be selected# any configuration can follow, e.g:addresses: [10.3.4.5/24]
SideroLink provides a secure point-to-point management overlay network for Talos clusters.
Each Talos machine configured to use SideroLink will establish a secure Wireguard connection to the SideroLink API server.
SideroLink provides overlay network using ULA IPv6 addresses allowing to manage Talos Linux machines even if direct access to machine IP addresses is not possible.
SideroLink is a foundation building block of Sidero Omni.
Configuration
SideroLink is configured by providing the SideroLink API server address, either via kernel command line argument siderolink.api or as a config document.
SideroLink API URL: https://siderolink.api/?jointoken=token&grpc_tunnel=true.
If URL scheme is grpc://, the connection will be established without TLS, otherwise, the connection will be established with TLS.
If specified, join token token will be sent to the SideroLink server.
If grpc_tunnel is set to true, the Wireguard traffic will be tunneled over the same SideroLink API gRPC connection instead of using plain UDP.
Connection Flow
Talos Linux creates an ephemeral Wireguard key.
Talos Linux establishes a gRPC connection to the SideroLink API server, sends its own Wireguard public key, join token and other connection settings.
If the join token is valid, the SideroLink API server sends back the Wireguard public key of the SideroLink API server, and two overlay IPv6 addresses: machine address and SideroLink server address.
Talos Linux configured Wireguard interface with the received settings.
Talos Linux monitors status of the Wireguard connection and re-establishes the connection if needed.
Operations with SideroLink
When SideroLink is configured, Talos maintenance mode API listens only on the SideroLink network.
Maintenance mode API over SideroLink allows operations which are not generally available over the public network: getting Talos version, getting sensitive resources, etc.
Talos Linux always provides Talos API over SideroLink, and automatically allows access over SideroLink even if the Ingress Firewall is enabled.
Wireguard connections should be still allowed by the Ingress Firewall.
SideroLink only allows point-to-point connections between Talos machines and the SideroLink management server, two Talos machines cannot communicate directly over SideroLink.
2.4.8 - Virtual (shared) IP
Using Talos Linux to set up a floating virtual IP address for cluster access.
One of the pain points when building a high-availability controlplane
is giving clients a single IP or URL at which they can reach any of the controlplane nodes.
The most common approaches - reverse proxy, load
balancer, BGP, and DNS - all require external resources, and add complexity in setting up Kubernetes.
To simplify cluster creation, Talos Linux supports a “Virtual” IP (VIP) address to access the Kubernetes API server, providing high availability with no other resources required.
What happens is that the controlplane machines vie for control of the shared IP address using etcd elections.
There can be only one owner of the IP address at any given time.
If that owner disappears or becomes non-responsive, another owner will be chosen,
and it will take up the IP address.
Requirements
The controlplane nodes must share a layer 2 network, and the virtual IP must be assigned from that shared network subnet.
In practical terms, this means that they are all connected via a switch, with no router in between them.
Note that the virtual IP election depends on etcd being up, as Talos uses etcd for elections and leadership (control) of the IP address.
The virtual IP is not restricted by ports - you can access any port that the control plane nodes are listening on, on that IP address.
Thus it is possible to access the Talos API over the VIP, but it is not recommended, as you cannot access the VIP when etcd is down - and then you could not access the Talos API to recover etcd.
Video Walkthrough
To see a live demo of this writeup, see the video below:
Choose your Shared IP
The Virtual IP should be a reserved, unused IP address in the same subnet as
your controlplane nodes.
It should not be assigned or assignable by your DHCP server.
For our example, we will assume that the controlplane nodes have the following
IP addresses:
192.168.0.10
192.168.0.11
192.168.0.12
We then choose our shared IP to be:
192.168.0.15
Configure your Talos Machines
The shared IP setting is only valid for controlplane nodes.
For the example above, each of the controlplane nodes should have the following
Machine Config snippet:
If the machine has a single network interface, it can be selected using a dummy device selector:
machine:
network:
interfaces:
- deviceSelector:
physical: true# should select any hardware network device, if you have just one, it will be selecteddhcp: truevip:
ip: 192.168.0.15
Caveats
Since VIP functionality relies on etcd for elections, the shared IP will not come
alive until after you have bootstrapped Kubernetes.
Don’t use the VIP as the endpoint in the talosconfig, as the VIP is bound to etcd and kube-apiserver health, and you will not be able to recover from a failure of either of those components using Talos API.
2.4.9 - Wireguard Network
A guide on how to set up Wireguard network using Kernel module.
Configuring Wireguard Network
Quick Start
The quickest way to try out Wireguard is to use talosctl cluster create command:
It will automatically generate Wireguard network configuration for each node with the following network topology:
Where all controlplane nodes will be used as Wireguard servers which listen on port 51111.
All controlplanes and workers will connect to all controlplanes.
It also sets PersistentKeepalive to 5 seconds to establish controlplanes to workers connection.
After the cluster is deployed it should be possible to verify Wireguard network connectivity.
It is possible to deploy a container with hostNetwork enabled, then do kubectl exec <container> /bin/bash and either do:
ping 10.1.0.2
Or install wireguard-tools package and run:
wg show
Wireguard show should output something like this:
interface: wg0
public key: OMhgEvNIaEN7zeCLijRh4c+0Hwh3erjknzdyvVlrkGM= private key: (hidden) listening port: 47946peer: 1EsxUygZo8/URWs18tqB5FW2cLVlaTA+lUisKIf8nh4= endpoint: 10.5.0.2:51111
allowed ips: 10.1.0.0/24
latest handshake: 1 minute, 55 seconds ago
transfer: 3.17 KiB received, 3.55 KiB sent
persistent keepalive: every 5 seconds
It is also possible to use generated configuration as a reference by pulling generated config files using:
All Wireguard configuration can be done by changing Talos machine config files.
As an example we will use this official Wireguard quick start tutorial.
Key Generation
This part is exactly the same:
wg genkey | tee privatekey | wg pubkey > publickey
Setting up Device
Inline comments show relations between configs and wg quickstart tutorial commands:
...
network:
interfaces:
...
# ip link add dev wg0 type wireguard - interface: wg0
mtu: 1500# ip address add dev wg0 192.168.2.1/24addresses:
- 192.168.2.1/24
# wg set wg0 listen-port 51820 private-key /path/to/private-key peer ABCDEF... allowed-ips 192.168.88.0/24 endpoint 209.202.254.14:8172wireguard:
privateKey: <privatekey file contents>
listenPort: 51820peers:
allowedIPs:
- 192.168.88.0/24
endpoint: 209.202.254.14.8172publicKey: ABCDEF...
...
When networkd gets this configuration it will create the device, configure it and will bring it up (equivalent to ip link set up dev wg0).
Talos Linux includes node-discovery capabilities that depend on a discovery registry.
This allows you to see the members of your cluster, and the associated IP addresses of the nodes.
talosctl get members
NODE NAMESPACE TYPE ID VERSION HOSTNAME MACHINE TYPE OS ADDRESSES
10.5.0.2 cluster Member talos-default-controlplane-1 1 talos-default-controlplane-1 controlplane Talos (v1.2.3)["10.5.0.2"]10.5.0.2 cluster Member talos-default-worker-1 1 talos-default-worker-1 worker Talos (v1.2.3)["10.5.0.3"]
There are currently two supported discovery services: a Kubernetes registry (which stores data in the cluster’s etcd service) and an external registry service.
Sidero Labs runs a public external registry service, which is enabled by default.
The Kubernetes registry service is disabled by default.
The advantage of the external registry service is that it is not dependent on etcd, and thus can inform you of cluster membership even when Kubernetes is down.
Video Walkthrough
To see a live demo of Cluster Discovery, see the video below:
Registries
Peers are aggregated from enabled registries.
By default, Talos will use the service registry, while the kubernetes registry is disabled.
To disable a registry, set disabled to true (this option is the same for all registries):
For example, to disable the service registry:
The Service registry by default uses a public external Discovery Service to exchange encrypted information about cluster members.
Note: Talos supports operations when Discovery Service is disabled, but some features will rely on Kubernetes API availability to discover
controlplane endpoints, so in case of a failure disabled Discovery Service makes troubleshooting much harder.
Discovery Service
Sidero Labs maintains a public discovery service at https://discovery.talos.dev/ whereby cluster members use a shared key that is globally unique to coordinate basic connection information (i.e. the set of possible “endpoints”, or IP:port pairs).
We call this data “affiliate data.”
Note: If KubeSpan is enabled the data has the addition of the WireGuard public key.
Data sent to the discovery service is encrypted with AES-GCM encryption and endpoint data is separately encrypted with AES in ECB mode so that endpoints coming from different sources can be deduplicated server-side.
Each node submits its own data, plus the endpoints it sees from other peers, to the discovery service.
The discovery service aggregates the data, deduplicates the endpoints, and sends updates to each connected peer.
Each peer receives information back from the discovery service, decrypts it and uses it to drive KubeSpan and cluster discovery.
Data is stored in memory only.
The cluster ID is used as a key to select the affiliates (so that different clusters see different affiliates).
To summarize, the discovery service knows the client version, cluster ID, the number of affiliates, some encrypted data for each affiliate, and a list of encrypted endpoints.
The discovery service doesn’t see actual node information – it only stores and updates encrypted blobs.
Discovery data is encrypted/decrypted by the clients – the cluster members.
The discovery service does not have the encryption key.
The discovery service may, with a commercial license, be operated by your organization and can be downloaded here.
In order for nodes to communicate to the discovery service, they must be able to connect to it on TCP port 443.
Resource Definitions
Talos provides resources that can be used to introspect the discovery and KubeSpan features.
Discovery
Identities
The node’s unique identity (base62 encoded random 32 bytes) can be obtained with:
Note: Using base62 allows the ID to be URL encoded without having to use the ambiguous URL-encoding version of base64.
$ talosctl get identities -o yaml
...
spec:
nodeId: Utoh3O0ZneV0kT2IUBrh7TgdouRcUW2yzaaMl4VXnCd
Node identity is used as the unique Affiliate identifier.
Node identity resource is preserved in the STATE partition in node-identity.yaml file.
Node identity is preserved across reboots and upgrades, but it is regenerated if the node is reset (wiped).
Affiliates
An affiliate is a proposed member: the node has the same cluster ID and secret.
$ talosctl get affiliates
ID VERSION HOSTNAME MACHINE TYPE ADDRESSES
2VfX3nu67ZtZPl57IdJrU87BMjVWkSBJiL9ulP9TCnF 2 talos-default-controlplane-2 controlplane ["172.20.0.3","fd83:b1f7:fcb5:2802:986b:7eff:fec5:889d"]6EVq8RHIne03LeZiJ60WsJcoQOtttw1ejvTS6SOBzhUA 2 talos-default-worker-1 worker ["172.20.0.5","fd83:b1f7:fcb5:2802:cc80:3dff:fece:d89d"]NVtfu1bT1QjhNq5xJFUZl8f8I8LOCnnpGrZfPpdN9WlB 2 talos-default-worker-2 worker ["172.20.0.6","fd83:b1f7:fcb5:2802:2805:fbff:fe80:5ed2"]Utoh3O0ZneV0kT2IUBrh7TgdouRcUW2yzaaMl4VXnCd 4 talos-default-controlplane-1 controlplane ["172.20.0.2","fd83:b1f7:fcb5:2802:8c13:71ff:feaf:7c94"]b3DebkPaCRLTLLWaeRF1ejGaR0lK3m79jRJcPn0mfA6C 2 talos-default-controlplane-3 controlplane ["172.20.0.4","fd83:b1f7:fcb5:2802:248f:1fff:fe5c:c3f"]
One of the Affiliates with the ID matching node identity is populated from the node data, other Affiliates are pulled from the registries.
Enabled discovery registries run in parallel and discovered data is merged to build the list presented above.
Details about data coming from each registry can be queried from the cluster-raw namespace:
Each Affiliate ID is prefixed with k8s/ for data coming from the Kubernetes registry and with service/ for data coming from the discovery service.
Members
A member is an affiliate that has been approved to join the cluster.
The members of the cluster can be obtained with:
$ talosctl get members
ID VERSION HOSTNAME MACHINE TYPE OS ADDRESSES
talos-default-controlplane-1 2 talos-default-controlplane-1 controlplane Talos (v1.9.0-alpha.0)["172.20.0.2","fd83:b1f7:fcb5:2802:8c13:71ff:feaf:7c94"]talos-default-controlplane-2 1 talos-default-controlplane-2 controlplane Talos (v1.9.0-alpha.0)["172.20.0.3","fd83:b1f7:fcb5:2802:986b:7eff:fec5:889d"]talos-default-controlplane-3 1 talos-default-controlplane-3 controlplane Talos (v1.9.0-alpha.0)["172.20.0.4","fd83:b1f7:fcb5:2802:248f:1fff:fe5c:c3f"]talos-default-worker-1 1 talos-default-worker-1 worker Talos (v1.9.0-alpha.0)["172.20.0.5","fd83:b1f7:fcb5:2802:cc80:3dff:fece:d89d"]talos-default-worker-2 1 talos-default-worker-2 worker Talos (v1.9.0-alpha.0)["172.20.0.6","fd83:b1f7:fcb5:2802:2805:fbff:fe80:5ed2"]
2.6 - Interactive Dashboard
A tool to inspect the running Talos machine state on the physical video console.
Interactive dashboard is enabled for all Talos platforms except for SBC images.
The dashboard can be disabled with kernel parameter talos.dashboard.disabled=1.
The dashboard runs only on the physical video console (not serial console) on the 2nd virtual TTY.
The first virtual TTY shows kernel logs same as in Talos <1.4.0.
The virtual TTYs can be switched with <Alt+F1> and <Alt+F2> keys.
Keys <F1> - <Fn> can be used to switch between different screens of the dashboard.
The dashboard is using either UEFI framebuffer or VGA/VESA framebuffer (for legacy BIOS boot).
For legacy BIOS boot screen resolution can be controlled with the vga= kernel parameter.
Summary Screen (F1)
Interactive Dashboard Summary Screen
The header shows brief information about the node:
hostname
Talos version
uptime
CPU and memory hardware information
CPU and memory load, number of processes
Table view presents summary information about the machine:
UUID (from SMBIOS data)
Cluster name (when the machine config is available)
the leftmost section provides a way to enter network configuration: hostname, DNS and NTP servers, configure the network interface either via DHCP or static IP address, etc.
the middle section shows the current network configuration.
the rightmost section shows the network configuration which will be applied after pressing “Save” button.
Once the platform network configuration is saved, it is immediately applied to the machine.
2.7 - Resetting a Machine
Steps on how to reset a Talos Linux machine to a clean state.
From time to time, it may be beneficial to reset a Talos machine to its “original” state.
Bear in mind that this is a destructive action for the given machine.
Doing this means removing the machine from Kubernetes, etcd (if applicable), and clears any data on the machine that would normally persist a reboot.
CLI
WARNING: Running a talosctl reset on cloud VM’s might result in the VM being unable to boot as this wipes the entire disk.
It might be more useful to just wipe the STATE and EPHEMERAL partitions on a cloud VM if not booting via iPXE.
talosctl reset --system-labels-to-wipe STATE --system-labels-to-wipe EPHEMERAL
The API command for doing this is talosctl reset.
There are a couple of flags as part of this command:
Flags:
--graceful if true, attempt to cordon/drain node and leave etcd (if applicable)(default true) --reboot if true, reboot the node after resetting instead of shutting down
--system-labels-to-wipe strings if set, just wipe selected system disk partitions by label but keep other partitions intact keep other partitions intact
The graceful flag is especially important when considering HA vs. non-HA Talos clusters.
If the machine is part of an HA cluster, a normal, graceful reset should work just fine right out of the box as long as the cluster is in a good state.
However, if this is a single node cluster being used for testing purposes, a graceful reset is not an option since Etcd cannot be “left” if there is only a single member.
In this case, reset should be used with --graceful=false to skip performing checks that would normally block the reset.
Kernel Parameter
Another way to reset a machine is to specify talos.experimental.wipe=system kernel parameter.
If the machine got stuck in the boot loop and you access to the console you can use GRUB to specify this kernel argument.
Then when Talos boots for the next time it will reset system disk and reboot.
Next steps can be to install Talos either using PXE boot or by mounting an ISO.
2.8 - Upgrading Talos Linux
Guide to upgrading a Talos Linux machine.
OS upgrades are effected by an API call, which can be sent via the talosctl CLI utility.
The upgrade API call passes a node the installer image to use to perform the upgrade.
Each Talos version has a corresponding installer image, listed on the release page for the version, for example v1.9.0-alpha.0.
Upgrades use an A-B image scheme in order to facilitate rollbacks.
This scheme retains the previous Talos kernel and OS image following each upgrade.
If an upgrade fails to boot, Talos will roll back to the previous version.
Likewise, Talos may be manually rolled back via API (or talosctl rollback), which will update the boot reference and reboot.
Unless explicitly told to preserve data, an upgrade will cause the node to wipe the EPHEMERAL partition, remove itself from the etcd cluster (if it is a controlplane node), and make itself as pristine as is possible.
(This is the desired behavior except in specialised use cases such as single-node clusters.)
Note An upgrade of the Talos Linux OS will not (since v1.0) apply an upgrade to the Kubernetes version by default.
Kubernetes upgrades should be managed separately per upgrading kubernetes.
Supported Upgrade Paths
Because Talos Linux is image based, an upgrade is almost the same as installing Talos, with the difference that the system has already been initialized with a configuration.
The supported configuration may change between versions.
The upgrade process should handle such changes transparently, but this migration is only tested between adjacent minor releases.
Thus the recommended upgrade path is to always upgrade to the latest patch release of all intermediate minor releases.
For example, if upgrading from Talos 1.0 to Talos 1.2.4, the recommended upgrade path would be:
upgrade from 1.0 to latest patch of 1.0 - to v1.0.6
upgrade from v1.0.6 to latest patch of 1.1 - to v1.1.2
upgrade from v1.1.2 to v1.2.4
Before Upgrade to v1.9.0-alpha.0
TBD
Video Walkthrough
To see a live demo of an upgrade of Talos Linux, see the video below:
After Upgrade to v1.9.0-alpha.0
There are no specific actions to be taken after an upgrade.
Note: If you are downgrading from Talos 1.8 to 1.7 while using custom EPHEMERAL configuration, it might have unpredictable results.
talosctl upgrade
To upgrade a Talos node, specify the node’s IP address and the
installer container image for the version of Talos to upgrade to.
For instance, if your Talos node has the IP address 10.20.30.40 and you want
to install the current version, you would enter a command such
as:
There is an option to this command: --preserve, which will explicitly tell Talos to keep ephemeral data intact.
In most cases, it is correct to let Talos perform its default action of erasing the ephemeral data.
However, for a single-node control-plane, make sure that --preserve=true.
Rarely, an upgrade command will fail due to a process holding a file open on disk.
In these cases, you can use the --stage flag.
This puts the upgrade artifacts on disk, and adds some metadata to a disk partition that gets checked very early in the boot process, then reboots the node.
On the reboot, Talos sees that it needs to apply an upgrade, and will do so immediately.
Because this occurs in a just rebooted system, there will be no conflict with any files being held open.
After the upgrade is applied, the node will reboot again, in order to boot into the new version.
Note that because Talos Linux reboots via the kexec syscall, the extra reboot adds very little time.
When a Talos node receives the upgrade command, it cordons
itself in Kubernetes, to avoid receiving any new workload.
It then starts to drain its existing workload.
NOTE: If any of your workloads are sensitive to being shut down ungracefully, be sure to use the lifecycle.preStop Pod spec.
Once all of the workload Pods are drained, Talos will start shutting down its
internal processes.
If it is a control node, this will include etcd.
If preserve is not enabled, Talos will leave etcd membership.
(Talos ensures the etcd cluster is healthy and will remain healthy after our node leaves the etcd cluster, before allowing a control plane node to be upgraded.)
Once all the processes are stopped and the services are shut down, the filesystems will be unmounted.
This allows Talos to produce a very clean upgrade, as close as possible to a pristine system.
We verify the disk and then perform the actual image upgrade.
We set the bootloader to boot once with the new kernel and OS image, then we reboot.
After the node comes back up and Talos verifies itself, it will make
the bootloader change permanent, rejoin the cluster, and finally uncordon itself to receive new workloads.
FAQs
Q. What happens if an upgrade fails?
A. Talos Linux attempts to safely handle upgrade failures.
The most common failure is an invalid installer image reference.
In this case, Talos will fail to download the upgraded image and will abort the upgrade.
Sometimes, Talos is unable to successfully kill off all of the disk access points, in which case it cannot safely unmount all filesystems to effect the upgrade.
In this case, it will abort the upgrade and reboot.
(upgrade --stage can ensure that upgrades can occur even when the filesytems cannot be unmounted.)
It is possible (especially with test builds) that the upgraded Talos system will fail to start.
In this case, the node will be rebooted, and the bootloader will automatically use the previous Talos kernel and image, thus effectively rolling back the upgrade.
Lastly, it is possible that Talos itself will upgrade successfully, start up, and rejoin the cluster but your workload will fail to run on it, for whatever reason.
This is when you would use the talosctl rollback command to revert back to the previous Talos version.
Q. Can upgrades be scheduled?
A. Because the upgrade sequence is API-driven, you can easily tie it in to your own business logic to schedule and coordinate your upgrades.
Q. Can the upgrade process be observed?
A. Yes, using the talosctl dmesg -f command.
You can also use talosctl upgrade --wait, and optionally talosctl upgrade --wait --debug to observe kernel logs
Q. Are worker node upgrades handled differently from control plane node upgrades?
A. Short answer: no.
Long answer: Both node types follow the same set procedure.
From the user’s standpoint, however, the processes are identical.
However, since control plane nodes run additional services, such as etcd, there are some extra steps and checks performed on them.
For instance, Talos will refuse to upgrade a control plane node if that upgrade would cause a loss of quorum for etcd.
If multiple control plane nodes are asked to upgrade at the same time, Talos will protect the Kubernetes cluster by ensuring only one control plane node actively upgrades at any time, via checking etcd quorum.
If running a single-node cluster, and you want to force an upgrade despite the loss of quorum, you can set preserve to true.
Q. Can I break my cluster by upgrading everything at once?
A. Possibly - it’s not recommended.
Nothing prevents the user from sending near-simultaneous upgrades to each node of the cluster - and while Talos Linux and Kubernetes can generally deal with this situation, other components of the cluster may not be able to recover from more than one node rebooting at a time.
(e.g. any software that maintains a quorum or state across nodes, such as Rook/Ceph)
Q. Which version of talosctl should I use to update a cluster?
A. We recommend using the version that matches the current running version of the cluster.
3 - Kubernetes Guides
Management of a Kubernetes Cluster hosted by Talos Linux
3.1 - Configuration
How to configure components of the Kubernetes cluster itself.
3.1.1 - Ceph Storage cluster with Rook
Guide on how to create a simple Ceph storage cluster with Rook for Kubernetes
Preparation
Talos Linux reserves an entire disk for the OS installation, so machines with multiple available disks are needed for a reliable Ceph cluster with Rook and Talos Linux.
Rook requires that the block devices or partitions used by Ceph have no partitions or formatted filesystems before use.
Rook also requires a minimum Kubernetes version of v1.16 and Helm v3.0 for installation of charts.
It is highly recommended that the Rook Ceph overview is read and understood before deploying a Ceph cluster with Rook.
Installation
Creating a Ceph cluster with Rook requires two steps; first the Rook Operator needs to be installed which can be done with a Helm Chart.
The example below installs the Rook Operator into the rook-ceph namespace, which is the default for a Ceph cluster with Rook.
$ helm repo add rook-release https://charts.rook.io/release
"rook-release" has been added to your repositories
$ helm install --create-namespace --namespace rook-ceph rook-ceph rook-release/rook-ceph
W0327 17:52:44.277830 54987 warnings.go:70] policy/v1beta1 PodSecurityPolicy is deprecated in v1.21+, unavailable in v1.25+
W0327 17:52:44.612243 54987 warnings.go:70] policy/v1beta1 PodSecurityPolicy is deprecated in v1.21+, unavailable in v1.25+
NAME: rook-ceph
LAST DEPLOYED: Sun Mar 27 17:52:42 2022NAMESPACE: rook-ceph
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1TEST SUITE: None
NOTES:
The Rook Operator has been installed. Check its status by running:
kubectl --namespace rook-ceph get pods -l "app=rook-ceph-operator"Visit https://rook.io/docs/rook/latest for instructions on how to create and configure Rook clusters
Important Notes:
- You must customize the 'CephCluster' resource in the sample manifests for your cluster.
- Each CephCluster must be deployed to its own namespace, the samples use `rook-ceph`for the namespace.
- The sample manifests assume you also installed the rook-ceph operator in the `rook-ceph` namespace.
- The helm chart includes all the RBAC required to create a CephCluster CRD in the same namespace.
- Any disk devices you add to the cluster in the 'CephCluster' must be empty (no filesystem and no partitions).
Once that is complete, the Ceph cluster can be installed with the official Helm Chart.
The Chart can be installed with default values, which will attempt to use all nodes in the Kubernetes cluster, and all unused disks on each node for Ceph storage, and make available block storage, object storage, as well as a shared filesystem.
Generally more specific node/device/cluster configuration is used, and the Rook documentation explains all the available options in detail.
For this example the defaults will be adequate.
$ helm install --create-namespace --namespace rook-ceph rook-ceph-cluster --set operatorNamespace=rook-ceph rook-release/rook-ceph-cluster
NAME: rook-ceph-cluster
LAST DEPLOYED: Sun Mar 27 18:12:46 2022NAMESPACE: rook-ceph
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1TEST SUITE: None
NOTES:
The Ceph Cluster has been installed. Check its status by running:
kubectl --namespace rook-ceph get cephcluster
Visit https://rook.github.io/docs/rook/latest/ceph-cluster-crd.html for more information about the Ceph CRD.
Important Notes:
- You can only deploy a single cluster per namespace
- If you wish to delete this cluster and start fresh, you will also have to wipe the OSD disks using `sfdisk`
Now the Ceph cluster configuration has been created, the Rook operator needs time to install the Ceph cluster and bring all the components online.
The progression of the Ceph cluster state can be followed with the following command.
$ watch kubectl --namespace rook-ceph get cephcluster rook-ceph
Every 2.0s: kubectl --namespace rook-ceph get cephcluster rook-ceph
NAME DATADIRHOSTPATH MONCOUNT AGE PHASE MESSAGE HEALTH EXTERNAL
rook-ceph /var/lib/rook 3 57s Progressing Configuring Ceph Mons
Depending on the size of the Ceph cluster and the availability of resources the Ceph cluster should become available, and with it the storage classes that can be used with Kubernetes Physical Volumes.
$ kubectl --namespace rook-ceph get cephcluster rook-ceph
NAME DATADIRHOSTPATH MONCOUNT AGE PHASE MESSAGE HEALTH EXTERNAL
rook-ceph /var/lib/rook 3 40m Ready Cluster created successfully HEALTH_OK
$ kubectl get storageclass
NAME PROVISIONER RECLAIMPOLICY VOLUMEBINDINGMODE ALLOWVOLUMEEXPANSION AGE
ceph-block (default) rook-ceph.rbd.csi.ceph.com Delete Immediate true 77m
ceph-bucket rook-ceph.ceph.rook.io/bucket Delete Immediate false 77m
ceph-filesystem rook-ceph.cephfs.csi.ceph.com Delete Immediate true 77m
Talos Linux Considerations
It is important to note that a Rook Ceph cluster saves cluster information directly onto the node (by default dataDirHostPath is set to /var/lib/rook).
If running only a single mon instance, cluster management is little bit more involved, as any time a Talos Linux node is reconfigured or upgraded, the partition that stores the /varfile system is wiped, but the --preserve option of talosctl upgrade will ensure that doesn’t happen.
By default, Rook configues Ceph to have 3 mon instances, in which case the data stored in dataDirHostPath can be regenerated from the other mon instances.
So when performing maintenance on a Talos Linux node with a Rook Ceph cluster (e.g. upgrading the Talos Linux version), it is imperative that care be taken to maintain the health of the Ceph cluster.
Before upgrading, you should always check the health status of the Ceph cluster to ensure that it is healthy.
$ kubectl --namespace rook-ceph get cephclusters.ceph.rook.io rook-ceph
NAME DATADIRHOSTPATH MONCOUNT AGE PHASE MESSAGE HEALTH EXTERNAL
rook-ceph /var/lib/rook 3 98m Ready Cluster created successfully HEALTH_OK
If it is, you can begin the upgrade process for the Talos Linux node, during which time the Ceph cluster will become unhealthy as the node is reconfigured.
Before performing any other action on the Talos Linux nodes, the Ceph cluster must return to a healthy status.
$ talosctl upgrade --nodes 172.20.15.5 --image ghcr.io/talos-systems/installer:v0.14.3
NODE ACK STARTED
172.20.15.5 Upgrade request received 2022-03-27 20:29:55.292432887 +0200 CEST m=+10.050399758
$ kubectl --namespace rook-ceph get cephclusters.ceph.rook.io
NAME DATADIRHOSTPATH MONCOUNT AGE PHASE MESSAGE HEALTH EXTERNAL
rook-ceph /var/lib/rook 3 99m Progressing Configuring Ceph Mgr(s) HEALTH_WARN
$ kubectl --namespace rook-ceph wait --timeout=1800s --for=jsonpath='{.status.ceph.health}=HEALTH_OK' rook-ceph
cephcluster.ceph.rook.io/rook-ceph condition met
The above steps need to be performed for each Talos Linux node undergoing maintenance, one at a time.
Cleaning Up
Rook Ceph Cluster Removal
Removing a Rook Ceph cluster requires a few steps, starting with signalling to Rook that the Ceph cluster is really being destroyed.
Then all Persistent Volumes (and Claims) backed by the Ceph cluster must be deleted, followed by the Storage Classes and the Ceph storage types.
If the Rook Operator is cleanly removed following the above process, the node metadata and disks should be clean and ready to be re-used.
In the case of an unclean cluster removal, there may be still a few instances of metadata stored on the system disk, as well as the partition information on the storage disks.
First the node metadata needs to be removed, make sure to update the nodeName with the actual name of a storage node that needs cleaning, and path with the Rook configuration dataDirHostPath set when installing the chart.
The following will need to be repeated for each node used in the Rook Ceph cluster.
