This blog post guides you through replacing the certificate for your Harbor registry deployed on a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) cluster using Helm charts. We’ll assume you’re using VCD version 10.5.1 and Container Service Extension (CSE) version 4.2.
Understanding the Need for Certificate Replacement
Harbor certificates, like any security certificate, may need to be replaced due to expiration, security upgrades, or changes in your PKI infrastructure. This process ensures secure communication within your container registry.
Prerequisites
Access to your TKG cluster and kubectl CLI.
New certificate and key files (harbor-v2.crt and harbor-v2.key).
Steps:
Create a New Secret:
We’ll store the new certificate and key in a Kubernetes secret for secure management. Use the kubectl create secret tls command to create a secret named harbor-secret-v2:
This command upgrades the harbor deployment in the harbor-system namespace using the configuration specified in the updated values.yaml file.
Conclusion
By following these steps, you’ve successfully replaced the certificate for your Harbor registry deployed on your TKG cluster. Remember to update your Harbor clients or local configurations to reflect the new certificate details for continued secure communication.
Virtual Graphics Processing Units (vGPUs) are a game-changer for cloud deployments, enabling high-performance graphics processing for workloads like 3D design, video editing, and AI applications within virtual machines (VMs). VMware Cloud Director (VCD) streamlines vGPU management through vGPU policies, allowing you to define the allocation of these powerful resources to your VMs.
This blog post will guide you through creating a vGPU policy in VCD, ensuring your VMs have the graphics horsepower they need:
Prerequisites:
Access to the VCD Provider Portal with administrative privileges.
Pre-configured vGPU profiles in VCD. These profiles represent the different types of vGPUs available in your environment, typically created from the capabilities of your underlying vSphere cluster with NVIDIA GPUs.
Creating a vGPU Policy:
Log in to the VCD Provider Portal with your administrative credentials.
Verify vGPU Profile Visibility: Navigate to Infrastructure Resources > vGPU Profiles. Ensure the vGPU profiles corresponding to your available GPUs are listed here. If not, you’ll need to create them beforehand (refer to your VCD documentation for specific steps).
Create the vGPU Policy:
Go to Cloud Resources > vGPU Policies.
Click New.
On the “What is a vGPU Policy?” screen, click Next.
Define Policy Details:
Name: Enter a descriptive name for your vGPU policy. Ideally, match it to the vGPU profile it references for clarity (e.g., “High Performance vGPU”).
vGPU Profile: Select the vGPU profile that defines the type and capabilities of the vGPU to be assigned.
Provider VDC Scope : Choose the PVDC has access to the poloicy.
Placement: Choose No for placement flexibility. You can assign this policy to VMs and let VCD determine optimal placement based on available resources.
Sizing: Select No for sizing flexibility. You can configure VM CPU, memory, and storage independently during VM deployment.
Finalize the Policy:
Select the Organization VDC where you want this policy to be available.
Review the policy details on the “Ready to Complete” screen and click Finish to create the vGPU policy.
Congratulations! You’ve successfully created a vGPU policy in VCD. Now, when deploying VMs in the chosen Organization VDC, you can assign this policy to provide the necessary vGPU power for your graphics-intensive workloads.
Additional Considerations:
You can create multiple vGPU policies with different vGPU profiles to cater to varying VM requirements.
For more granular control, explore the options for placement and sizing policies within VCD, allowing you to define specific placement rules and resource allocation for vGPU-enabled VMs.
By leveraging vGPU policies, you can efficiently manage and allocate vGPU resources within your VCD environment, empowering your tenants with the graphics processing capabilities they need for their demanding workloads.
vi /etc/systemd/system/cse.service
[Unit]
Description=Container Service Extension for VMware Cloud Director
[Service]
ExecStart=/opt/vmware/cse/cse.sh
User=root
WorkingDirectory=/opt/vmware/cse
Type=simple
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
# systemctl status cse.service
cse.service - Container Service Extension for VMware Cloud Director
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/cse.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Wed 2021-11-24 14:43:56 +01; 1min 9s ago
Main PID: 770 (bash)
CGroup: /system.slice/cse.service
├─770 bash /opt/vmware/cse/cse.sh
└─775 /usr/local/bin/python3.7 /usr/local/bin/cse run
Nov 24 14:44:06 cse01.lab.com cse.sh[770]: Validating CSE installation according to config file
Nov 24 14:44:06 cse.sh[770]: MQTT extension and API filters found
Nov 24 14:44:06 cse01.lab.com cse.sh[770]: Found catalog 'cse-site1-k8s'
Nov 24 14:44:06 cse01.lab.com cse.sh[770]: CSE installation is valid
Nov 24 14:44:06 cse01.lab.com cse.sh[770]: Started thread 'MessageConsumer' (140229531580160)
Nov 24 14:44:06 cse01.lab.com l cse.sh[770]: Started thread 'ConsumerWatchdog' (140229523187456)
Nov 24 14:44:06 cse01.lab.com cse.sh[770]: Container Service Extension for vCloud Director
Nov 24 14:44:06 cse01.lab.com cse.sh[770]: Server running using config file: /opt/vmware/cse/encrypted-config.yaml
Nov 24 14:44:06 cse01.lab.com cse.sh[770]: Log files: /root/.cse-logs/cse-server-info.log, /root/.cse-logs/cse-server-debug.log
Nov 24 14:44:06 cse01.lab.com cse.sh[770]: waiting for requests (ctrl+c to close)
I’ve recently upgraded vRealize operations Manager from 8.4 to 8.6. The installed version of vROPs Management Pack for VCD was 5.5, which is incompatible with vROps 8.6 and VMware Cloud Director 10.3.1. To make it compatible I had to upgrade vROps Management Pack for VCD to 8.6.
Please find the steps below to upgrade the Management Pack.
Download the following vRealize Operations Management Pack for vCloud Director 8.6 from VMware Marketplace.
vmware-vcd-mp-8-1634219770748.pak
Once downloaded, login to vRealize Operations Manager 8.6 UI – https://<vROps FQDN/IP>/ui
Navigate to Data Sources > Integrations > Repository.
From ‘Installed Integrations‘ locate ‘ManagementPackforVMwareCloudDirector.
5. Click on More Options menu and select Upgrade.
5. Select the Install the PAK file even if it is already installed check box.
This selection reloads the PAK file (Management Pack) but retains the custom preferences of the user. Also, this selection does not overwrite or update the solution alerts, symptoms, recommendations, and policies.
6. Select the Reset Default Content, overwriting to a newer version provided by this update check box.
This selection reloads the PAK file and overwrites the existing solution alerts, symptoms, recommendations, and policies with newer versions provided with the current PAK file.
WARNING: User modifications to DEFAULT Alert Definitions, Symptoms, Recommendations, Policy Definitions, Views, Dashboards, Widgets and Reports supplied by the current version of Management Pack will be overwritten. To save your modifications to default content, clone or backup the content before you proceed.
7. Click on Upload.
8. Click Next. 9. Read and accept the EULA and click Next. The install might take several minutes to complete. 10. Click Finish once the installation is completed.
11. Confirm the Upgrade is completed by checking the version of Management Pack. ‘More Options‘ > About.
12. Check and confirm the ‘CloudDirectorAdapter‘ is collecting the data from VCD. The status of Cloud Director Adapter should be OK.
Navigate to Data Sources > Integrations > Accounts > CloudDirectorAdapter.
I’ve downloaded Ubuntu 2004 Kubernetes v1.21.2 OVA since that’s the lates available version. File Name : ubuntu-2004-kube-v1.21.2+vmware.1-tkg.1-7832907791984498322.ova
Step2: Import TKG OVA to VCD Catalog
Upload the downloaded OVA to the CSE server. Use the following command to import the OVA in Catalog.
# cse template import -c encrypted-config.yaml -F ubuntu-2004-kube-v1.21.2+vmware.1-tkg.1-7832907791984498322.ova
Required Python version: >= 3.7.3
Installed Python version: 3.7.12 (default, Nov 23 2021, 15:49:55)
[GCC 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-44)]
Password for config file decryption:
Decrypting 'encrypted-config.yaml'
Validating config file 'encrypted-config.yaml'
InsecureRequestWarning: Unverified HTTPS request is being made. Adding certificate verification is strongly advised.
Connected to vCloud Director (vcd.lab.com:443)
Connected to vCenter Server 'demovc.local' as '[email protected]' (demovc.local)
Config file 'encrypted-config.yaml' is valid
Uploading 'ubuntu-2004-kube-v1.21.2+vmware.1-tkg.1-7832907791984498322' to catalog 'cse-site1-k8s'
Uploaded 'ubuntu-2004-kube-v1.21.2+vmware.1-tkg.1-7832907791984498322' to catalog 'cse-site1-k8s'
Writing metadata onto catalog item ubuntu-2004-kube-v1.21.2+vmware.1-tkg.1-7832907791984498322.
Successfully imported TKGm OVA.
Step3: Restart CSE service.
I assume you’ve configured CSE to run as service. If yest restart the service.
Step4: Confirm TKG is available as option for Kubernetes Runtime
Login to the tenant portal and navigate to More > Kubernetes Container Clusters.
In CSE 3.1.1, delete operation on a cluster (Native or TKG) that is in an error state (RDE.state = RESOLUTION_ERROR (or) status.phase = :FAILED), may fail with Bad request (400) or the Delete process will be stuck in ‘DELETEIN_PROGRESS’ state. The steps are given below to resolve the issue.
Step1: Assign API explorer privilege to the CSE Service Account.
Login to VCD Provider portal as Administrator.
Edit the CSE Service Role.
Navigate to Administration > Provider Access Control > Roles > CSE Service Role.
In the tenant portal check if there’re any stale vApp entries for the failed clusters. If so, please delete them.
Login to VCD Provider portal with the CSE service account which has CSE Service Role assigned. Open API Explorer. Click on GET in difinedEntity section.
Click on TryitOut In Description, provide the cluster UID from last step. In the output we can see the state as PRE_CREATED.
Step3: Run the POST call resolve to resolve
Select the POST call from definedEntity section.
/1.0.0/entities/{id}/resolve Validates the defined entity against the entity type schema.
Provide the cluster ID and run the call. The state will be changed to RESOLVED.
Step4: Run the DELETE call to delete RDE.
Povide the cluser ID and ‘false’ as value for inovkeHooks.
Please check and confirm the failed Cluster is deleted now.
#vcd cse cluster list
InsecureRequestWarning: Unverified HTTPS request is being made. Adding certificate verification is strongly advised.
Name Org Owner VDC K8s Runtime K8s Version Status
-------- -------------- -------- ------------- ------------- --------------------- ------------------
tkg CSE-Site1-Test orgadmin CSE-TEST-OVDC TKGm TKGm v1.21.2+vmware.1 DELETE:IN_PROGRESS
tkgtest CSE-Site1-Test orgadmin CSE-TEST-OVDC TKGm TKGm v1.21.2+vmware.1 DELETE:IN_PROGRESS
tkg-test CSE-Site1-Test orgadmin CSE-TEST-OVDC TKGm TKGm v1.21.2+vmware.1 DELETE:IN_PROGRESS
Please find the steps to deploy Container Service Extension 3.1.1.
Step 1: Deploy CentOS 7 VM
Selected CentOS 7 as the Operating System for CSE server. CentOS 7 has higher EOL than CentOS 8. You can find the installations steps for CentOS 7 here.
Please find more details on CentOS releases below.
Kindly ensure following configurations are done in CSE VM.
Configure DNS.
Configure NTP.
Configure SSH.
SSH access for root user is enabled.
Please note the following network connections are required for rest of the configurations.
Access to VCD URL (https) from CSE Server.
The Internet access from CSE server.
Step 2: Take a snapshot of CSE server VM.
It’s recommended to take a snapshot of CSE server before continuing with Python installation. It’s an optional step.
Step 3: Install Python 3.7.3 or greater
Install python 3.7.3 or greater in 3.7.x series. Please note that python 3.8.0 and above is not supported (ref: CSE doc) The built-in python version in CentOS 7 is 2.7. So, we’ve to install the latest in 3.7.x series, at the moment version 3.7.12 is the latest. Please follow the below steps to install Python.
yum update -y
yum install -y yum-utils
yum groupinstall -y development
yum install -y gcc openssl-devel bzip2-devel libffi-devel zlib-devel xz-devel
#Install sqlite3
cd /tmp/
curl -O https://www.sqlite.org/2020/sqlite-autoconf-3310100.tar.gz
tar xvf sqlite-autoconf-3310100.tar.gz
cd sqlite-autoconf-3310100/
./configure
make install
# Install Python
cd /tmp/
curl -O https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.7.12/Python-3.7.12.tgz
tar -xvf Python-3.7.12.tgz
cd Python-3.7.12
./configure --enable-optimizations
make altinstall
alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3 python3 /usr/local/bin/python3.7 1
alternatives --install /usr/bin/pip3 pip3 /usr/local/bin/pip3.7 1
alternatives --list
# Check Python and pip3 versions
python3 --version
pip3 --version
Step 4: Install vcd-cli
# Install and verify vcd-cli
pip3 install vcd-cli
vcd version
vcd-cli, VMware vCloud Director Command Line Interface, 24.0.1
Step 5: Install CSE
# Install and verify cse
pip3 install container-service-extension
cse version
CSE, Container Service Extension for VMware vCloud Director, version 3.1.1
Step 7: Create CSE Service Role for CSE server management
[root@test ~]# cse create-service-role <vcd fqdn> -s
Username for System Administrator: administrator
Password for administrator:
Connecting to vCD: <vcd fqdn>
Connected to vCD as system administrator: administrator
Creating CSE Service Role...
Successfully created CSE Service Role
Step 7: Create service account for CSE in VCD
Create a Service Account in VCD with the role ‘CSE Service Role’
Step 8: Create service account for CSE in vCenter
Create new role in vCenter with Power User + Guest Operations privilege. Assign the role to the service account for CSE.
Clone ‘Virtual Machine Power User (sample) role
Edit role
Select Virtual machine > Guest operations.
Step 9: Create a sample CSE config file and update it.
It will take a while to complete the download of template, be patient.
Downloading file from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/xenial/release-20180418/ubuntu-16.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.ova' to 'cse_cache/ubuntu-16.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.ova'...
Download complete
Uploading 'ubuntu-16.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.ova' to catalog 'cse-site1-k8s'
Uploaded 'ubuntu-16.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.ova' to catalog 'cse-site1-k8s'
Deleting temporary vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp'
Creating vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp'
Found data file: /root/.cse_scripts/2.0.0/ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_rev1/init.sh
Created vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp'
Customizing vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp', vm 'ubuntu-1604-k8s1212-weave281-vm'
Found data file: /root/.cse_scripts/2.0.0/ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_rev1/cust.sh
Waiting for guest tools, status: "vm='vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296', status=guestToolsNotRunning
Waiting for guest tools, status: "vm='vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296', status=guestToolsNotRunning
Waiting for guest tools, status: "vm='vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296', status=guestToolsNotRunning
Waiting for guest tools, status: "vm='vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296', status=guestToolsRunning
.....
......
......
waiting for process 1611 on vm 'vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296' to finish (1)
waiting for process 1611 on vm 'vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296' to finish (2)
waiting for process 1611 on vm 'vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296' to finish (3)
waiting for process 1611 on vm 'vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296' to finish (4)
waiting for process 1611 on vm 'vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296' to finish (5)
waiting for process 1611 on vm 'vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296' to finish (6)
waiting for process 1611 on vm 'vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296' to finish (7)
waiting for process 1611 on vm 'vim.VirtualMachine:vm-2296' to finish (8)
...
...
..
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/x-grub-legacy-ec2:
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
Searching for default file ... found: /boot/grub/default
Testing for an existing GRUB menu.lst file ... found: /boot/grub/menu.lst
Searching for splash image ... none found, skipping ...
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-119-generic
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-210-generic
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-119-generic
Updating /boot/grub/menu.lst ... done
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/zz-update-grub:
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-210-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.4.0-210-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-119-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.4.0-119-generic
done
customization completed
Customized vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp', vm 'ubuntu-1604-k8s1212-weave281-vm'
Creating K8 template 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_rev1' from vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp'
Shutting down vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp'
Successfully shut down vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp'
Capturing template 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_rev1' from vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp'
Created K8 template 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_rev1' from vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp'
Successfully tagged template ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_rev1 with placement policy native.
Deleting temporary vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp'
Deleted temporary vApp 'ubuntu-16.04_k8-1.21_weave-2.8.1_temp'
Step 12: Confirm the template is available in CSE catalog
Login to CSE Tenant portal. Navigate to the Libraries > Catalogs > vApp Templates. We can see the newly created K8S upstream template.
Step 13: Enable Organizations for Native deployments.
The provider must explicitly enable organizational virtual datacenter(s) to host native deployments, by running the command: vcd cse ovdc enable.
vcd login <vcd> system administrator -i
InsecureRequestWarning: Unverified HTTPS request is being made. Adding certificate verification is strongly advised.
Password:
administrator logged in, org: 'system', vdc: ''
# vcd cse ovdc enable <orgvdc> -n -o <organization>
# vcd cse ovdc enable TEST-OVDC -n -o Site1-Test
InsecureRequestWarning: Unverified HTTPS request is being made. Adding certificate verification is strongly advised.
OVDC Update: Updating OVDC placement policies
task: 10e70b37-5aa6-4cf9-b437-ef478bd9f06a, Operation success, result: success
Step 14: Check Create New Native Cluster is available now
Login to the VCD Tenant portal and navigate to More > Kubernetes Container Clusters. Click on New.
We can see the option to ‘Create New Native Cluster’.
Step 15: Publish Right Bundle ‘cse:nativeCluster Entitlement’
The following article has details on differences between right bundle and roles.
