Create a New Cluster

Prerequisites

Before you begin, be sure that you have created a bootstrap cluster

Create a new vSphere Kubernetes cluster

Use the following steps to create a new, air-gapped vSphere cluster.

Create a Kubernetes cluster by copying the following command and substituting the valid values for your environment:

./konvoy create cluster vsphere
  --cluster-name ${CLUSTER_NAME} \
  --network <NETWORK_NAME> \
  --control-plane-endpoint-host <CONTROL_PLANE_IP> \
  --data-center <DATACENTER_NAME> \
  --data-store <DATASTORE_NAME> \
  --folder <FOLDER_NAME> \
  --server <VCENTER_API_SERVER_URL> \
  --ssh-public-key-file </path/to/key.pub> \
  --resource-pool <RESOURCE_POOL_NAME> \
  --vm-template konvoy-ova-vsphere-os-release-k8s_release-vsphere-timestamp \
  --virtual-ip-interface eth0 \
  --extra-sans "127.0.0.1" \
  --registry-mirror-url ${DOCKER_REGISTRY_ADDRESS} \
  --registry-mirror-cacert /tmp/registry.pem

Review Create and Prepare a Bastion VM Host for more about the ${DOCKER_REGISTRY_ADDRESS}.

Inspect the created cluster resources with the command:

kubectl get clusters,kubeadmcontrolplanes,machinedeployments

Use the wait command to monitor the cluster control-plane readiness:
```
kubectl wait --for=condition=ControlPlaneReady "clusters/${CLUSTER_NAME}" --timeout=20m
```
```
cluster.cluster.x-k8s.io/${CLUSTER_NAME} condition met
```
The READY status becomes True after the cluster control-plane becomes Ready in one of the following steps.

After DKP creates the objects on the API server, the Cluster API controllers reconcile them, creating infrastructure and machines. As the controllers progress, they update the Status of each object.

Run the DKP describe command to monitor the current status of the cluster:

dkp describe cluster -c ${CLUSTER_NAME}

NAME                                                                READY  SEVERITY  REASON  SINCE  MESSAGE
Cluster/e2e-airgapped-1                                             True                     13h
├─ClusterInfrastructure - VSphereCluster/e2e-airgapped-1            True                     13h
├─ControlPlane - KubeadmControlPlane/e2e-airgapped-1-control-plane  True                     13h
│ ├─Machine/e2e-airgapped-1-control-plane-7llgd                     True                     13h
│ ├─Machine/e2e-airgapped-1-control-plane-vncbl                     True                     13h
│ └─Machine/e2e-airgapped-1-control-plane-wbgrm                     True                     13h
└─Workers
    └─MachineDeployment/e2e-airgapped-1-md-0                          True                     13h
    ├─Machine/e2e-airgapped-1-md-0-74c849dc8c-67rv4                 True                     13h
    ├─Machine/e2e-airgapped-1-md-0-74c849dc8c-n2skc                 True                     13h
    ├─Machine/e2e-airgapped-1-md-0-74c849dc8c-nkftv                 True                     13h
    └─Machine/e2e-airgapped-1-md-0-74c849dc8c-sqklv                 True                     13h

As they progress, the controllers also create Events, which you can list using the command:
```
kubectl get events | grep ${CLUSTER_NAME}
```
For brevity, this example uses grep. You can also use separate commands to get Events for specific objects, such as kubectl get events --field-selector involvedObject.kind="VSphereCluster" and kubectl get events --field-selector involvedObject.kind="VSphereMachine".

Next, you can make the cluster self-managed, and then explore your new cluster.

Known Limitations

NOTE: Be aware of these limitations in the current release of DKP Konvoy.

The DKP Konvoy version used to create a bootstrap cluster must match the DKP Konvoy version used to create a workload cluster.
DKP Konvoy supports deploying one workload cluster.
DKP Konvoy generates a set of objects for one Node Pool.
DKP Konvoy does not validate edits to cluster objects.