# Starting a Windows Kubernetes cluster on GCE using kube-up
## IMPORTANT PLEASE NOTE
Any time the file structure in the `windows` directory changes, `windows/BUILD`
and `k8s.io/release/lib/releaselib.sh` must be manually updated with the
changes. We HIGHLY recommend not changing the file structure, because consumers
of Kubernetes releases depend on the release structure remaining stable.
## Bring up the cluster
Prerequisites: a Google Cloud Platform project.
### 0. Prepare your environment
Clone this repository under your `$GOPATH/src` directory on a Linux machine.
Then, optionally clean/prepare your environment using these commands:
```bash
# Remove files that interfere with get-kube / kube-up:
rm -rf ./kubernetes/; rm -f kubernetes.tar.gz; rm -f ~/.kube/config
# To run e2e test locally, make sure "Application Default Credentials" is set in any of the places:
# References: https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/authorizing#authorizing_with_a_service_account
# https://cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/reference/auth/application-default/
# 1. $HOME/.config/gcloud/application_default_credentials.json, if doesn't exist, run this command:
gcloud auth application-default login
# Or 2. Create a json format credential file as per http://cloud/docs/authentication/production,
# then export to environment variable
export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIAL=[path_to_the_json_file]
```
### 1. Build Kubernetes
NOTE: this step is only needed if you want to test local changes you made to the
codebase.
The most straightforward approach to build those binaries is to run `make
release`. However, that builds binaries for all supported platforms, and can be
slow. You can speed up the process by following the instructions below to only
build the necessary binaries.
```bash
# Build binaries for both Linux and Windows:
KUBE_BUILD_PLATFORMS="linux/amd64 windows/amd64" make quick-release
```
### 2. Create a Kubernetes cluster
You can create a regular Kubernetes cluster or an end-to-end test cluster.
Only end-to-end test clusters support running the Kubernetes e2e tests (as both
[e2e cluster creation](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/b632eaddbaad9dc1430d214d506b72750bbb9f69/hack/e2e-internal/e2e-up.sh#L24)
and
[e2e test scripts](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/b632eaddbaad9dc1430d214d506b72750bbb9f69/hack/ginkgo-e2e.sh#L42)
are setup based on `cluster/gce/config-test.sh`), also enables some debugging
features such as SSH access on the Windows nodes.
Please make sure you set the environment variables properly following the
instructions in the previous section.
First, set the following environment variables which are required for
controlling the number of Linux and Windows nodes in the cluster and for
enabling IP aliases (which are required for Windows pod routing). At least one
Linux worker node is required and two are recommended because many default
cluster-addons (e.g., `kube-dns`) need to run on Linux nodes. The master control
plane only runs on Linux.
```bash
export NUM_NODES=2 # number of Linux nodes
export NUM_WINDOWS_NODES=2
export KUBE_GCE_ENABLE_IP_ALIASES=true
export KUBERNETES_NODE_PLATFORM=windows
export LOGGING_STACKDRIVER_RESOURCE_TYPES=new
```
Now bring up a cluster using one of the following two methods:
#### 2a. Create a regular Kubernetes cluster
Ensure your GCP authentication is current:
```bash
gcloud auth application-default login
gcloud auth login
```
Invoke kube-up.sh with these environment variables:
```bash
# WINDOWS_NODE_OS_DISTRIBUTION: the Windows version you want your nodes to
# run, e.g. win2019 or win1909.
# KUBE_UP_AUTOMATIC_CLEANUP (optional): cleans up existing cluster without
# prompting.
WINDOWS_NODE_OS_DISTRIBUTION=win2019 KUBE_UP_AUTOMATIC_CLEANUP=true ./cluster/kube-up.sh
```
If your GCP project is configured with two-factor authentication, you may need
to tap your security key shortly after running `kube-up`.
To teardown the cluster run:
```bash
./cluster/kube-down.sh
```
If you want to run more than one cluster simultaneously, you can use two
separate GCP projects and:
1. Use a separate shell for each project / cluster.
1. Set the `CLOUDSDK_CORE_PROJECT` environment variable to the GCP project you
want to use in each shell. This variable will override your current gcloud
config.
1. Prefix your `kube-up.sh` and `kube-down.sh` commands with
`PROJECT=${CLOUDSDK_CORE_PROJECT}`
#### 2b. Create a Kubernetes end-to-end (E2E) test cluster
If you have built your own release binaries following step 1, run the following
command to bring up a cluster for running the K8s e2e tests. See the
[windows-gce](https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/blob/master/config/jobs/kubernetes/sig-windows/windows-gce.yaml)
e2e test configuration for the latest environment variables.
```bash
KUBE_GCE_ENABLE_IP_ALIASES=true KUBERNETES_NODE_PLATFORM=windows \
LOGGING_STACKDRIVER_RESOURCE_TYPES=new NUM_NODES=2 \
NUM_WINDOWS_NODES=3 WINDOWS_NODE_OS_DISTRIBUTION=win2019 \
./hack/e2e-internal/e2e-up.sh
```
If any e2e cluster exists already, this command will prompt you to tear down and
create a new one. To teardown existing e2e cluster only, run the command:
```bash
./hack/e2e-internal/e2e-down.sh
```
No matter what type of cluster you chose to create, the result should be a
Kubernetes cluster with one Linux master node, `NUM_NODES` Linux worker nodes
and `NUM_WINDOWS_NODES` Windows worker nodes.
## Validating the cluster
Invoke this script to run a smoke test that verifies that the cluster has been
brought up correctly:
```bash
cluster/gce/windows/smoke-test.sh
```
Sometimes the first run of the smoke test will fail because it took too long to
pull the Windows test containers. The smoke test will usually pass on the next
attempt.
## Running e2e tests against the cluster
If you brought up an end-to-end test cluster using the steps above then you can
use the steps below to run K8s e2e tests. These steps are based on
[kubernetes-sigs/windows-testing](https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/windows-testing).
* Build the necessary test binaries. This must be done after every change to
test code.
```bash
make WHAT=test/e2e/e2e.test
```
* Set necessary environment variables and fetch the `run-e2e.sh` script:
```bash
export KUBECONFIG=~/.kube/config
export WORKSPACE=$(pwd)
export ARTIFACTS=${WORKSPACE}/e2e-artifacts
curl \
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes-sigs/windows-testing/master/gce/run-e2e.sh \
-o ${WORKSPACE}/run-e2e.sh
chmod u+x run-e2e.sh
# Fetch a prepull manifest for the k8s version you're using.
curl \
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes-sigs/windows-testing/master/gce/prepull-1.21.yaml \
-o ${WORKSPACE}/prepull-head.yaml
```
The e2e test scripts make some annoying assumptions about the path to the
k8s repository. If your `~/go/src/k8s.io/kubernetes` directory is actually
a symlink to `~/go/src/github.com/<username>/kubernetes`, create this
additional symlink:
```bash
cd ~/go/src/github.com; ln -s . github.com
```
Without this additional symlink you may receive this error when invoking
the `run-e2e.sh` script:
```bash
chdir ../../github.com/<username>/kubernetes/_output/bin: no such file or directory
```
* The canonical arguments for running all Windows e2e tests against a cluster
on GCE can be seen by searching for `--test-cmd-args` in the
[test configuration](https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/blob/master/config/jobs/kubernetes/sig-windows/windows-gce.yaml#L78)
for the `ci-kubernetes-e2e-windows-gce` continuous test job. These arguments
should be passed to the `run-e2e` script; escape the ginkgo arguments by
adding quotes around them. For example:
```bash
./run-e2e.sh --node-os-distro=windows --minStartupPods=8 \
--ginkgo.focus="\[Conformance\]|\[NodeConformance\]|\[sig-windows\]" \
--ginkgo.skip="\[LinuxOnly\]|\[Serial\]|\[Feature:.+\]" \
--ginkgo.parallel.total=8 # TODO: does this flag actually help?
```
If you get auth errors, you may need to re-authenticate:
```bash
gcloud auth application-default login
gcloud auth login
```
* Run a single test by setting the ginkgo focus to match your test name; for
example, the "DNS should provide DNS for the cluster" test can be run using:
```bash
./run-e2e.sh --node-os-distro=windows \
--ginkgo.focus="provide\sDNS\sfor\sthe\scluster"
```
Make sure to always include `--node-os-distro=windows` for testing against
Windows nodes.
After the test run completes, log files can be found under the `${ARTIFACTS}`
directory.
## E2E Testing
Once you've created a pull request you can comment, `/test
pull-kubernetes-e2e-windows-gce` to run the integration tests that cover the
changes in this directory.
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