Preparing to work with VMware ESX

Prepare Virtual Instances

If choosing the ESX environment, you need to prepare a number of identical servers to be managed by MOADSD-NG. The number calculates from

1 (kubernetes master) + X (k8s worker nodes)

In other words, if you are going to setup a 1+3 k8s cluster you need 4 servers.

Example configuration for the virtual instances with Ubuntu Bionic, which is the test environment:

Server	Component	Setting
Master	Name	vK8s Master
	CPU	2 cores, 1 socket
	RAM	6GB
	Disk	64GB
	Network adapter 1	VM Network
	CD	ubuntu-18.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso
	Graphic	Automatic detection
Workers	Name	vK8s Worker 1-3
	CPU	2 cores, 2 sockets
	RAM	8GB
	Disk	64GB
	Network adapter 1	VM Network
	CD	ubuntu-18.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso
	Graphic	Automatic detection

Run through the setup procedure of the linux distribution and ensure to set the same initial user / password on all servers.

Additionally name the servers according to the following schema:

k8smaster
k8sworker1
k8sworker2
k8sworker3

The numbering of the workers is crucial, because we loop through them during the site creation phase. Of course, km, kw1, kw2, kw3 would be allowed as well.

To enable MOADSD-NG taking control of the virtual instances you need to set the same username password combination on each prepared server. You will specify the chosen credentials later on in the chapter VMware ESXi.

It is wise to take a snapshot of the virtual machines after the first login to easily restart and redeploy the environment.

Node: Actually, this approach does work in combination with any kind of virtual instances, they do not necessarily need to run on ESXi. Vagrant, Virtual Box, etc., everything should work the same way.