Installing DKubeX on RKE2 Cluster on Azure

Prerequisites

• The minimum hardware requirements for installing DKubeX on a RKE2 cluster on Azure are as follows:

  Hardware Requirement	Version/Details
  CPU	12-16 cores
  RAM	128GB
  Disk	512GB
  NFS (If external NFS server is being used)	1TB- v4.0/4.1

  Note

  If you are using an Azure NFS server, the NFS version will be v4.0.

• The minimum software requirements for installing DKubeX on a RKE2 cluster on Azure are as follows:

  Software Requirement	Version/Details
  RKE2 with Rancher	v2.7.6
  K8S	v1.26 or higher
  OS Version	Ubuntu 22.04
  Network Provider	canal

• You need to open the following range of ports to successfully install and access Rancher and DKubeX.

  Port	Description
  6443	Kubernetes API server
  22	SSH
  32443	DKubeX UI port
  30000-32767	NodePorts range

• You need to install helm & kubectl on your CPU (installer) node.

  • To install helm, run the commands on the CPU node terminal:

    sudo apt install curl -y
    curl -fsSL -o get_helm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/master/scripts/get-helm-3
    chmod 700 get_helm.sh
    ./get_helm.sh
    helm version
    

  • To install kubectl, run the commands on the CPU node terminal:

    • Download the latest kubectl release with the command:

      curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
      

    • To validate the binary, use the following commands:

      curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl.sha256"
      echo "$(cat kubectl.sha256)  kubectl" | sha256sum --check
      

      If the validation is successful, it should show the following:

      kubectl: OK
      

      If the check fails, sha256 exits with nonzero status and prints output similar to:

      kubectl: FAILED
      sha256sum: WARNING: 1 computed checksum did NOT match
      

    • Install kubectl using the following command:

      sudo install -o root -g root -m 0755 kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
      

    • Test to ensure the version you installed is up-to-date:

      kubectl version --client
      

    Important

    For more information regarding the installation of kubectl, refer to Install and Set Up kubectl on Linux. For more information regarding the installation of helm, refer to Installing Helm.

    • If you are using an external NFS server on Azure, visit the Installation: Creating an NFS Server on Azure Console page and follow the instructions provided to create an external NFS server on Azure.

Creating a RKE2 Cluster

Important

For detailed information regarding installing RKE2, refer to Rancher Kubernetes: A Quick Installation Guide for RKE2.

To create a RKE2 cluster on your installer node, use the following steps:

• Log into the root environment by running the following command:

  sudo su
  

• Run the installer service for the RKE2 server by running the following command.

  curl -sfL https://get.rke2.io | INSTALL_RKE2_VERSION=v1.26.12+rke2r1 sh -
  

  Note

  You can provide any other version of RKE2 (higher than v1.26.12) by changing the version in the command.

• Enable and start the RKE2 server service by running the following command.

  systemctl enable rke2-server.service
  systemctl start rke2-server.service
  

  Note

  You can check the RKE2 server logs by running the following command in another installer node terminal.

  journalctl -u rke2-server -f
  

• Enable kubectl by running the following command. This exports the kubeconfig file from the RKE2 service to the server environment.

  mkdir ~/.kube
  cp /etc/rancher/rke2/rke2.yaml ~/.kube/config
  

• Get the server (installer) node IP and token by running the following commands. These will be necessary later if you are going to add a new worker (agent) node to the RKE2 cluster.

  echo "Master Node IP: $(hostname -I | awk '{print $1}')"
  echo "Node Token: $(cat /var/lib/rancher/rke2/server/node-token)"
  

Adding a worker node to the RKE2 cluster

To set up an worker (Agent) node to the RKE2 cluster, use the steps provided below.

• On the worker node terminal, log into the root environment by running the following command:

  sudo su
  

• Run the installer service for the RKE2 agent by running the following command.

  curl -sfL https://get.rke2.io | INSTALL_RKE2_VERSION=v1.26.12+rke2r1 INSTALL_RKE2_TYPE="agent" sh -
  

  Note

  You can provide any other version of RKE2 (higher than v1.26.12) by changing the version in the command. Make sure to use the same version as the RKE2 server.

• Enable the RKE2 agent service by running the following command.

  systemctl enable rke2-agent.service
  

• Export the installer node details that you got earlier by running the following commands. Replace <master node ip> with the installer node IP and <master node token> with the node token of the installer node.

  export MASTER_NODE_SERVER_IP="<master node ip>"
  export NODE_TOKEN="<master node token>"
  

• Create and configure the agent by running the following commands:

  mkdir -p /etc/rancher/rke2/
  cat << EOF > /etc/rancher/rke2/config.yaml
  server: https://${MASTER_NODE_SERVER_IP}:9345
  token: ${NODE_TOKEN}
  EOF
  

• Add the worker node to the RKE2 cluster by starting the agent service by running the following command:

  systemctl start rke2-agent.service
  

  Note

  • You can check the RKE2 server logs by running the following command in another installer node terminal.

    journalctl -u rke2-server -f
    

  • You can check the RKE2 agent logs by running the following command in the worker node terminal.

    journalctl -u rke2-agent -f
    

• Check the node status by running the following command. Once the node status is Ready, the worker node is ready to use.

  kubectl get nodes
  

• You will see that currently the worker node will not have any roles assigned to it. To assign worker role to the worker node, assign a kubernetes label to the node by running the particular command. Replace the <worker node name> part with the name of the worker node which you will get by listing the nodes with the previous command.

  CommandExample

  kubectl label nodes <worker node name> node-role.kubernetes.io/worker=worker
  

Attention

The following step should be done at this point only if you are adding GPU nodes to the RKE2 cluster after installing DKubeX on it. If you are installing DKubeX on a RKE2 cluster without GPU nodes, then you can skip this step and proceed with completing the other prerequisites.

• For RKE2, we’ve to explicitly install the gpu-operator on the CPU node using the below commands. Wait until the GPU operator goes into the running state.

  Note

  This is based on the references given under Rancher Kubernetes Engine 2 section in the following link: Getting Started- NVIDIA GPU Operator 23.9.0 documentation.

  helm repo add nvidia https://helm.ngc.nvidia.com/nvidia
  helm repo update
  
  helm install gpu-operator --wait -n gpu-operator \
  --create-namespace nvidia/gpu-operator \
  --set toolkit.env[0].name=CONTAINERD_CONFIG \
  --set toolkit.env[0].value=/var/lib/rancher/rke2/agent/etc/containerd/config.toml.tmpl \
  --set toolkit.env[1].name=CONTAINERD_SOCKET \
  --set toolkit.env[1].value=/run/k3s/containerd/containerd.sock \
  --set toolkit.env[2].name=CONTAINERD_RUNTIME_CLASS \
  --set toolkit.env[2].value=nvidia \
  --set toolkit.env[3].name=CONTAINERD_SET_AS_DEFAULT \
  --set-string toolkit.env[3].value=true
  

• Before proceeding with DKubeX installation on the cluster, we need to make sure the below steps are done on ALL the nodes of the RKE2 cluster.

Note

Use the following steps also if you are adding new worker nodes post DKubeX installation.

• Install the nfs-common package to avoid the mount failure issues we might encounter during DKubeX installation.

  sudo apt install nfs-common -y
  

  Note

  This step is as per the discussion in the github rancher threads. Below is the reference for the same.

  rancher/rancher- failed to mount volume backed by NFS in imported K3s cluster #25169

• To avoid space issues on the device, follow the steps provided below and execute them in ALL the nodes.

  • Open the sysctl.conf file using the following command:

    sudo vim /etc/sysctl.conf
    

  • Update the file-descriptors settings by adding the 3 following lines to the end of the config file in /etc/sysctl.conf, and save the file:

    fs.file-max = 2097152
    fs.inotify.max_user_instances=2097152
    fs.inotify.max_user_watches=1048576
    user.max_user_namespaces=286334455
    

  • Load these new settings by executing the command:

    sudo sysctl -p
    

Installing DKubeX

• Add the dkubex-helm repository on your system.

  helm repo add dkubex-helm https://oneconvergence.github.io/dkubex-helm --insecure-skip-tls-verify
  

• Update the helm repository.

  helm repo update
  

• From the Helm repository, get the values.yaml file on your local system by using the following command.

  helm show values dkubex-helm/dkubex > values.yaml
  

  • You need to provide details regarding the version of DKubeX you are going to install and its components in the format provided in the values.yaml file. Open the editor by using the following command:

    vim values.yaml
    

  • You need to fill the following fields (if required) on the values.yaml file:

    values.yaml DescriptionExample

    Field	Description
    image_tag	The version of DKubeX you are going to install. For example, v0.8.6.2.
    admin_password	The password of the admin user of DKubeX.
    registry -> name	The name of the docker registry repository you are going to use for DKubeX installation.
    registry -> username	The username for the docker registry container you are going to use for DKubeX installation.
    registry -> password	The password for the docker registry container you are going to use for DKubeX installation.
    storage_type	The type of storage you are going to use for DKubeX. For example, nfs.
    nfs -> create_server	To create a new local NFS server, set to true. If you are using an external NFS server, set to false.
    nfs -> storage_path	The host path for creating NFS server. For external NFS server, provide the mount path as mentioned in the last step in Installation: Creating an NFS Server on Azure Console.
    nfs -> server	The IP address of the NFS server. For external NFS server, provide the NFS share mount URL as mentioned in the last step in Installation: Creating an NFS Server on Azure Console.
    nfs -> version	The version of NFS you are going to use. Currently supported versions are 4.1 and 4.0. If you are using an external NFS server on Azure, provide 4.0.
    hostpath -> storage_path	The host path for creating local NFS server. (For Mac, use this instead of nfs)
    user_home_nfs_server_version	NFS version for user home. Currently supported versions are 4.1 and 4.0. If you are using an external NFS server on Azure, provide 4.0.
    wipe_data	To delete data from the storage, set to true, else false.
    gpu_operator -> enabled	Set as false as we are installing the gpu-operator explicitly earlier.
    kubeflow -> enabled	(Optional)To install Kubeflow for DKubeX, set to true, else false.
    auth -> enabled	To enable OAuth for DKubeX, set to true, else false. You can also set OAuth post-installation. For more information, refer to Setting up Authentication.
    auth -> provider	The OAuth provider you are going to use. Currently 6 OAuth providers are supported: ADFS, Azure, GitHub, Google, Keycloak and Okta.
    auth -> issuer_url	The issuer URL of the OAuth provider you are going to use. (Not required for GitHub OAuth App)
    auth -> client_id	The client ID of the OAuth application you are going to use.
    auth -> client_secret	The client secret of the OAuth application you are going to use.
    auth -> redirect_url	The callback URL of the OAuth application you are going to use.
    auth -> organization	The organization name of which the users are going to be authenticated.
    auth -> email_domain	The email domain of the users who are allowed to be authenticated.
    auth -> azure_tenant	(Only for Azure) The tenant ID of the Azure OAuth application you are going to use.
    auth -> realm	(Only for Keycloak) The realm name of the Keycloak OAuth application you are going to use.
    auth -> allowed_role	(Only for Keycloak) The role name of the Keycloak OAuth application you are going to use.
    auth -> allowed_group	(Only for Keycloak) The group name of the Keycloak OAuth application you are going to use.
    mlflow	(Optional) Provide the details regarding the MLflow server you are going to use.
    flyte -> enabled	(Optional) To install Flyte for DKubeX, set to true, else false. If set to true, you need to provide the details regarding the Flyte account you are going to use.
    node_selector_label	The custom kubernetes label key that will be added to the worker nodes of the RKE2 cluster. Provide a custom label key and label your GPU nodes using this. Example: node.kubernetes.io/nodetype

• You need to add kubernetes labels to all the worker nodes in the RKE cluster on which you are going to install DKubeX. You can do this by running the following command on your terminal. Replace the $node-name$ part with the name of the node you are going to add the label to, $key$ as the key that you are going to use during DKubeX installation, and $value$ as the node type.

  Note

  Use the following steps also if you are adding new worker nodes post DKubeX installation.

  • List all the nodes in the cluster by running the following command on your terminal. Check for the node role column which will tell which nodes have only worker roles.

    kubectl get nodes
    

  • Label the worker nodes with its type by running the following command on your terminal using the node_selector_label key set in the values.yaml earlier.

    CommandExample

    kubectl label node <node-name> <key>=<value>
    

  Note

  The value of the node_selector_label can be used as an input to -t or --type while creating a ray cluster/deploying/finetuning.

• Run Helm installation of DKubeX on your setup by using the following command. Replace the <release-name> part with the version of DKubeX you are going to install.

  helm install -f values.yaml <release-name> dkubex-helm/dkubex --timeout 1500s
  

• You can see and follow the installation logs by running the following commands on your terminal.

  kubectl logs -l job-name=dkubex-installer --follow --tail=-1
  

• You can access your DKubeX setup by going to the following URL on your browser. Replace the <node-ip> part with the IP address of the node on which you have installed DKubeX.

  URL	Example
  https://<node-ip>:32443	https://123.45.67.890:32443

• If you have not added OAuth configuration during installation, going to the previous URL opens the setup with a default user workspace.

Setting up Authentication

Note

This is an optional step provided only in case you have set auth -> enabled to false in the values.yaml file during installation. You can skip this step if you don’t want to set up authentication for your DKubeX setup.

If you have not set up the authentication for your DKubeX setup during installation, you can do it on the DKubeX Admin page by following the steps provided in the following page: Auth.

Note

For more information regarding the admin page, refer to Admin Guide.

• You need to have a pre-created OAuth application.

  Note

  Currently DKubeX supports OAuth App by ADFS, Azure, GitHub, Google, Keycloak and Okta OAuth providers.

• Open the admin page of your DKubeX setup by going to the following URL on your browser. Replace the <node-ip> part with the IP address of the node on which you have installed DKubeX.

  URLExample

  https://<node-ip>:32443/admin
  

Upgrading DKubeX

To upgrade the setup, use the following steps:

• Update the Helm repository.

  helm repo update
  

• Get the name of the deployed release by running the following command.

  helm list -a
  

• Get the values regarding the current deployed release on a .yaml file by running the following command. Replace the <deployed-release-name> part with the release name you got in the previous step. After that, you need to provide details regarding the version of DKubeX you are going to upgrade to and its components in the format provided in the values-upgrade.yaml file.

  helm get values <deployed-release-name> --all  > values-upgrade.yaml
  

• Run the Helm upgrade job to upgrade the DKubeX version you are using by running the following command. Replace the <deployed-release-name> part with the current release name, and the <new-dkubex-version> with the version you are going to upgrade your DKubeX setup to.

  helm upgrade -f values-upgrade.yaml $deployed-release-name$ dkubex-helm/dkubex --set image_tag=<new-dkube-version> --timeout 1500s
  

• You can see and follow the upgradation logs by running the following commands on your terminal.

  kubectl logs -l job-name=dkubex-upgrade-hook --follow --tail=-1
  

Uninstalling DKubeX

To uninstall the setup, use the following steps:

• Get the name of the deployed release by running the following command.

  helm list -a
  

• Run the following command to uninstall the currently deployed DKubeX setup. Replace the <deployed-release-name> part with the current release name.

  helm uninstall <deployed-release-name> --timeout 900s
  

• You can see and follow the uninstallation logs by running the following commands on your terminal.

  kubectl logs -l job-name=dkubex-uninstaller-hook --follow --tail=-1