Avi Kubernetes Operator Guide 1.13

AKO 1.13 1.12 1.11 1.10

Deploying
AKO
 via Helm on vSphere with Tanzu on NSX-T

The
Avi Kubernetes Operator
 (
AKO
) is an operator which works as an ingress Controller and performs functions specific to
Avi Load Balancer
 in the TKGs environment with the
Avi Load Balancer Controller
. It remains in sync with the necessary TKGs objects and calls Controller APIs to configure the virtual services.
The
AKO
 deployment consists of the following components:
  • The
    Avi Load Balancer Controller
  • The Service Engines (SE)
  • The
    Avi Kubernetes Operator
     (
    AKO
    )
An overview of the
AKO
 deployment is shown below:
Security restrictions prevent
AKO
 from communicating with an
Avi Load Balancer Controller
 installed in the management domain where VCenter or NSX-Manager is located. The
Avi Load Balancer Controller
 can be deployed anywhere, assuming
AKO
 can route to it.

Deployment Guide

AKO
 can be installed on each workload cluster, using HELM to sync only ingress. Load Balancer sync must be deactivated on
AKO
 because NSX-T LB cannot be turned off, and
AKO
 and NCP will overwrite the LB VIP if both are managing the LB service.

Create Two Tier-1s for
Avi Load Balancer

In NSX-T Manager, create a new dedicated Tier-1 Gateway for use with
Avi Load Balancer
 Management. Also, create an additional Tier-1 Gateway for use as the
Avi Load Balancer
 VIP Network. This will allow north-bound connections to T0 gateways and south-bound to the individual segments.
The architecture of the
T1-Avi-Mgmt
 is shown above.
Ensure that the proper route advertisements are configured so that
Avi Load Balancer
 can redistribute the VIP routes to the T0 gateway.
For detailed instructions on how to create this T1, see
Installing NSX Advanced Load Balancer in VMware NSX-T Environments
 topic in the
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 Installation Guide
.

Create a Segment under each
Avi Load Balancer
 Tier-1

The
Avi Load Balancer
 requires a segment to be created under each of the Tier 1, one segment for Management and the other for Vip/Data.
For additional details, see
Installing NSX Advanced Load Balancer in VMware NSX-T Environments
 topic in the
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 Installation Guide
.

Configure NSX-T Cloud on
Avi Load Balancer

The point of integration in
Avi Load Balancer
, with any infrastructure, is called a cloud. For the NSX-T environment, an NSX-T cloud has to be configured. For more information on configuring an NSX-T cloud, see
Installing NSX Advanced Load Balancer in VMware NSX-T Environments
 topic in the
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 Installation Guide
.

Set Default Gateway in
Avi Load Balancer

Set Default Gateway for the T1 vrf in
Avi Load Balancer
. The DG needs to be set to allow outbound traffic from the
Avi Load Balancer
 VIP/Data segment and the Management segment. See the following screenshot for an example. First, the Data/Vip DG is set in
VMware Avi Load Balancer
, as shown below:
Next, the Management DG needs to be set, if DHCP is not available. This is done using CLI.
Example commands:
shell 

switchto cloud nsxt 

terminal mode linux_command_line 

configure vrfcontext management --static_routes.1.prefix 0.0.0.0/0 --static_routes.1.next_hop 172.16.30.1 --static_routes.1.route_id 1

Configure
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 IPAM Profile

The
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 allocates IP addresses from a pool of IP addresses within the subnet configured as shown below. After creating this profile, Modify the NSX-T cloud and add this profile.
For more information, see
Configuring
Avi Load Balancer
 IPAM
 topic in the
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 Installation Guide
.

Configure
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 DNS Profile

AKO
 needs to be authoritative in the domain that is specified below. After creating the profile, Modify the NSX-T cloud and add the profile.
For more details, see
Avi Load Balancer
 IPAM and DNS topic in the
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 Installation Guide
.

Configure NSX-T DFW Rules

The default rule in WCP will deny all ingress traffic. Configure a DFW rule to allow SEs to the backend nodes/pods. Configure additional DFW rules to allow clients to VIPs and E-W SE-SE Traffic.

Deploy
AKO
 through Helm

Configure the appropriate fields in the
values.yaml
 file to allow
AKO
 to integrate with
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 + NSX-T.
  • layer7Only
     – Set to
    True
  • L7Settings.serviceType
     – Under
    L7Settings
    , set to
    NodePort
  • nsxtT1LR
     – Full path to the
    VMware Avi Load Balancer
     Tier 1. Example: “/infra/tier-1s/Avi-T1”
  • vipNetworkList
     – Set to the
    VMware Avi Load Balancer
     VIP Network
  • ControllerSettings
     – Set these for
    VMware Avi Load Balancer
     and the NSXT Cloud
  • avicredentials
     – Optional, can be passed through CLI
The full path for
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 Tier1 in NSX-T can be found through an
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 CLI command:

Installing
AKO

helm install  ako/ako  --generate-name --version 1.7.1 -f /ako/values.yaml  --set avicredentials.username=admin --set avicredentials.password='password123' --namespace=avi-system
The above command will create a pod named:
ako-0
 in the
avi-system
 namespace. Nothing will be created in
VMware Avi Load Balancer
 until an ingress is created.
For detailed instructions on how to deploy
AKO
 through helm, see Install Avi Kubernetes Operator.

Content feedback and comments