Metadata

The Sidero controller manager manages the Machine metadata. In terms of Talos (the OS on which the Kubernetes cluster is formed), this is the “machine config”, which is used during the automated installation.

Talos Machine Configuration

The configuration of each machine is constructed from a number of sources:

The TalosControlPlane custom resource for control plane nodes.
The TalosConfigTemplate custom resource.
The ServerClass which was used to select the Server into the Cluster.
Any Server-specific patches.

An example usage of setting a virtual IP for the control plane nodes and adding extra node-labels to nodes is shown below:

Note: because of the way JSON patches work the interface setting also needs to be set in TalosControlPlane when defining a Virtual IP. This experience is not ideal, but will be addressed in a future release.

TalosControlPlane custom resource:

apiVersion: controlplane.cluster.x-k8s.io/v1alpha3
kind: TalosControlPlane
metadata:
  name: workload-cluster
  namespace: default
spec:
  controlPlaneConfig:
    controlplane:
      configPatches:
      - op: add
        path: /machine/network
        value:
          interfaces:
          - interface: eth0
            dhcp: true
            vip:
              ip: 172.16.200.52
      generateType: controlplane
      talosVersion: v0.13
    init:
      configPatches:
      - op: add
        path: /machine/network
        value:
          interfaces:
          - interface: eth0
            dhcp: true
            vip:
              ip: 172.16.200.52
      generateType: init
      talosVersion: v0.13
  infrastructureTemplate:
    apiVersion: infrastructure.cluster.x-k8s.io/v1alpha3
    kind: MetalMachineTemplate
    name: workload-cluster
  replicas: 3
  version: v1.23.0

TalosConfigTemplate custom resource:

---
apiVersion: bootstrap.cluster.x-k8s.io/v1alpha3
kind: TalosConfigTemplate
metadata:
  name: workload-cluster
  namespace: default
spec:
  template:
    spec:
      generateType: join
      talosVersion: v0.13
      configPatches:
      - op: add
        path: /machine/kubelet
        value:
          extraArgs:
            node-labels:
              talos.dev/part-of: cluster/workload-cluster

and finally in the control plane ServerClass custom resource we augment the network information for other interfaces:

---
apiVersion: metal.sidero.dev/v1alpha1
kind: ServerClass
metadata:
  name: cp.small.x86
spec:
  configPatches:
  - op: replace
    path: /machine/install/disk
    value: /dev/nvme0n1
  - op: add
    path: /machine/install/extraKernelArgs
    value:
    - console=tty0
    - console=ttyS1,115200n8
  - op: add
    path: /machine/network/interfaces/-
    value:
      interface: eth1
      dhcp: true
  qualifiers:
    cpu:
    - version: Intel(R) Xeon(R) E-2124G CPU @ 3.40GHz
    systemInformation:
    - manufacturer: Supermicro
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      metal.sidero.dev/serverclass: cp.small.x86

the workload ServerClass defines the complete networking config

---
apiVersion: metal.sidero.dev/v1alpha1
kind: ServerClass
metadata:
  name: general.medium.x86
spec:
  configPatches:
  - op: replace
    path: /machine/install/disk
    value: /dev/nvme1n1
  - op: add
    path: /machine/install/extraKernelArgs
    value:
    - console=tty0
    - console=ttyS1,115200n8
  - op: add
    path: /machine/network
    value:
      interfaces:
      - interface: eth0
        dhcp: true
      - interface: eth1
        dhcp: true
  qualifiers:
    cpu:
    - version: Intel(R) Xeon(R) E-2136 CPU @ 3.30GHz
    systemInformation:
    - manufacturer: Supermicro
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      metal.sidero.dev/serverclass: general.medium.x86

The base template is constructed from the Talos bootstrap provider, using data from the associated TalosControlPlane and TalosConfigTemplate manifest. Then, any configuration patches are applied from the ServerClass and Server.

These patches take the form of an RFC 6902 JSON (or YAML) patch. An example of the use of this patch method can be found in Patching Guide.

Also note that while a Server can be a member of any number of ServerClasses, only the ServerClass which is used to select the Server into the Cluster will be used for the generation of the configuration of the Machine. In this way, Servers may have a number of different configuration patch sets based on which Cluster they are in at any given time.