Set up a High Availability etcd Cluster with kubeadm

By default, kubeadm runs a local etcd instance on each control plane node. It is also possible to treat the etcd cluster as external and provision etcd instances on separate hosts. The differences between the two approaches are covered in the Options for Highly Available topology page.

This task walks through the process of creating a high availability external etcd cluster of three members that can be used by kubeadm during cluster creation.

Before you begin

  • Three hosts that can talk to each other over TCP ports 2379 and 2380. This document assumes these default ports. However, they are configurable through the kubeadm config file.
  • Each host must have systemd and a bash compatible shell installed.
  • Each host must have a container runtime, kubelet, and kubeadm installed.
  • Each host should have access to the Kubernetes container image registry (registry.k8s.io) or list/pull the required etcd image using kubeadm config images list/pull. This guide will set up etcd instances as static pods managed by a kubelet.
  • Some infrastructure to copy files between hosts. For example ssh and scp can satisfy this requirement.

Setting up the cluster

The general approach is to generate all certs on one node and only distribute the necessary files to the other nodes.

  1. Configure the kubelet to be a service manager for etcd.

    Since etcd was created first, you must override the service priority by creating a new unit file that has higher precedence than the kubeadm-provided kubelet unit file.

    cat << EOF > /etc/systemd/system/kubelet.service.d/kubelet.conf
    # Replace "systemd" with the cgroup driver of your container runtime. The default value in the kubelet is "cgroupfs".
    # Replace the value of "containerRuntimeEndpoint" for a different container runtime if needed.
    #
    apiVersion: kubelet.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
    kind: KubeletConfiguration
    authentication:
      anonymous:
        enabled: false
      webhook:
        enabled: false
    authorization:
      mode: AlwaysAllow
    cgroupDriver: systemd
    address: 127.0.0.1
    containerRuntimeEndpoint: unix:///var/run/containerd/containerd.sock
    staticPodPath: /etc/kubernetes/manifests
    EOF
    
    cat << EOF > /etc/systemd/system/kubelet.service.d/20-etcd-service-manager.conf
    [Service]
    ExecStart=
    ExecStart=/usr/bin/kubelet --config=/etc/systemd/system/kubelet.service.d/kubelet.conf
    Restart=always
    EOF
    
    systemctl daemon-reload
    systemctl restart kubelet
    

    Check the kubelet status to ensure it is running.

    systemctl status kubelet
    
  2. Create configuration files for kubeadm.

    Generate one kubeadm configuration file for each host that will have an etcd member running on it using the following script.

    # Update HOST0, HOST1 and HOST2 with the IPs of your hosts
    export HOST0=10.0.0.6
    export HOST1=10.0.0.7
    export HOST2=10.0.0.8
    
    # Update NAME0, NAME1 and NAME2 with the hostnames of your hosts
    export NAME0="infra0"
    export NAME1="infra1"
    export NAME2="infra2"
    
    # Create temp directories to store files that will end up on other hosts
    mkdir -p /tmp/${HOST0}/ /tmp/${HOST1}/ /tmp/${HOST2}/
    
    HOSTS=(${HOST0} ${HOST1} ${HOST2})
    NAMES=(${NAME0} ${NAME1} ${NAME2})
    
    for i in "${!HOSTS[@]}"; do
    HOST=${HOSTS[$i]}
    NAME=${NAMES[$i]}
    cat << EOF > /tmp/${HOST}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    ---
    apiVersion: "kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta3"
    kind: InitConfiguration
    nodeRegistration:
        name: ${NAME}
    localAPIEndpoint:
        advertiseAddress: ${HOST}
    ---
    apiVersion: "kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta3"
    kind: ClusterConfiguration
    etcd:
        local:
            serverCertSANs:
            - "${HOST}"
            peerCertSANs:
            - "${HOST}"
            extraArgs:
                initial-cluster: ${NAMES[0]}=https://${HOSTS[0]}:2380,${NAMES[1]}=https://${HOSTS[1]}:2380,${NAMES[2]}=https://${HOSTS[2]}:2380
                initial-cluster-state: new
                name: ${NAME}
                listen-peer-urls: https://${HOST}:2380
                listen-client-urls: https://${HOST}:2379
                advertise-client-urls: https://${HOST}:2379
                initial-advertise-peer-urls: https://${HOST}:2380
    EOF
    done
    
  3. Generate the certificate authority.

    If you already have a CA then the only action that is copying the CA's crt and key file to /etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/ca.crt and /etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/ca.key. After those files have been copied, proceed to the next step, "Create certificates for each member".

    If you do not already have a CA then run this command on $HOST0 (where you generated the configuration files for kubeadm).

    kubeadm init phase certs etcd-ca
    

    This creates two files:

    • /etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/ca.crt
    • /etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/ca.key
  4. Create certificates for each member.

    kubeadm init phase certs etcd-server --config=/tmp/${HOST2}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    kubeadm init phase certs etcd-peer --config=/tmp/${HOST2}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    kubeadm init phase certs etcd-healthcheck-client --config=/tmp/${HOST2}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    kubeadm init phase certs apiserver-etcd-client --config=/tmp/${HOST2}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    cp -R /etc/kubernetes/pki /tmp/${HOST2}/
    # cleanup non-reusable certificates
    find /etc/kubernetes/pki -not -name ca.crt -not -name ca.key -type f -delete
    
    kubeadm init phase certs etcd-server --config=/tmp/${HOST1}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    kubeadm init phase certs etcd-peer --config=/tmp/${HOST1}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    kubeadm init phase certs etcd-healthcheck-client --config=/tmp/${HOST1}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    kubeadm init phase certs apiserver-etcd-client --config=/tmp/${HOST1}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    cp -R /etc/kubernetes/pki /tmp/${HOST1}/
    find /etc/kubernetes/pki -not -name ca.crt -not -name ca.key -type f -delete
    
    kubeadm init phase certs etcd-server --config=/tmp/${HOST0}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    kubeadm init phase certs etcd-peer --config=/tmp/${HOST0}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    kubeadm init phase certs etcd-healthcheck-client --config=/tmp/${HOST0}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    kubeadm init phase certs apiserver-etcd-client --config=/tmp/${HOST0}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    # No need to move the certs because they are for HOST0
    
    # clean up certs that should not be copied off this host
    find /tmp/${HOST2} -name ca.key -type f -delete
    find /tmp/${HOST1} -name ca.key -type f -delete
    
  5. Copy certificates and kubeadm configs.

    The certificates have been generated and now they must be moved to their respective hosts.

    USER=ubuntu
    HOST=${HOST1}
    scp -r /tmp/${HOST}/* ${USER}@${HOST}:
    ssh ${USER}@${HOST}
    USER@HOST $ sudo -Es
    root@HOST $ chown -R root:root pki
    root@HOST $ mv pki /etc/kubernetes/
    
  6. Ensure all expected files exist.

    The complete list of required files on $HOST0 is:

    /tmp/${HOST0}
    └── kubeadmcfg.yaml
    ---
    /etc/kubernetes/pki
    ├── apiserver-etcd-client.crt
    ├── apiserver-etcd-client.key
    └── etcd
        ├── ca.crt
        ├── ca.key
        ├── healthcheck-client.crt
        ├── healthcheck-client.key
        ├── peer.crt
        ├── peer.key
        ├── server.crt
        └── server.key
    

    On $HOST1:

    $HOME
    └── kubeadmcfg.yaml
    ---
    /etc/kubernetes/pki
    ├── apiserver-etcd-client.crt
    ├── apiserver-etcd-client.key
    └── etcd
        ├── ca.crt
        ├── healthcheck-client.crt
        ├── healthcheck-client.key
        ├── peer.crt
        ├── peer.key
        ├── server.crt
        └── server.key
    

    On $HOST2:

    $HOME
    └── kubeadmcfg.yaml
    ---
    /etc/kubernetes/pki
    ├── apiserver-etcd-client.crt
    ├── apiserver-etcd-client.key
    └── etcd
        ├── ca.crt
        ├── healthcheck-client.crt
        ├── healthcheck-client.key
        ├── peer.crt
        ├── peer.key
        ├── server.crt
        └── server.key
    
  7. Create the static pod manifests.

    Now that the certificates and configs are in place it's time to create the manifests. On each host run the kubeadm command to generate a static manifest for etcd.

    root@HOST0 $ kubeadm init phase etcd local --config=/tmp/${HOST0}/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    root@HOST1 $ kubeadm init phase etcd local --config=$HOME/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    root@HOST2 $ kubeadm init phase etcd local --config=$HOME/kubeadmcfg.yaml
    
  8. Optional: Check the cluster health.

    If etcdctl isn't available, you can run this tool inside a container image. You would do that directly with your container runtime using a tool such as crictl run and not through Kubernetes

    ETCDCTL_API=3 etcdctl \
    --cert /etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/peer.crt \
    --key /etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/peer.key \
    --cacert /etc/kubernetes/pki/etcd/ca.crt \
    --endpoints https://${HOST0}:2379 endpoint health
    ...
    https://[HOST0 IP]:2379 is healthy: successfully committed proposal: took = 16.283339ms
    https://[HOST1 IP]:2379 is healthy: successfully committed proposal: took = 19.44402ms
    https://[HOST2 IP]:2379 is healthy: successfully committed proposal: took = 35.926451ms
    
    • Set ${HOST0}to the IP address of the host you are testing.

What's next

Once you have an etcd cluster with 3 working members, you can continue setting up a highly available control plane using the external etcd method with kubeadm.