Adding Windows nodes

    You can use Kubernetes to run a mixture of Linux and Windows nodes, so you can mix Pods that run on Linux on with Pods that run on Windows. This page shows how to register Windows nodes to your cluster.

    Your Kubernetes server must be at or later than version 1.17. To check the version, enter kubectl version.

    • Configure networking so Pods and Services on Linux and Windows can communicate with each other

    Once you have a Linux-based Kubernetes control-plane node you are ready to choose a networking solution. This guide illustrates using Flannel in VXLAN mode for simplicity.

    Configuring Flannel

    1. Prepare Kubernetes control plane for Flannel

      Some minor preparation is recommended on the Kubernetes control plane in our cluster. It is recommended to enable bridged IPv4 traffic to iptables chains when using Flannel. The following command must be run on all Linux nodes:

    2. Download & configure Flannel for Linux

      Download the most recent Flannel manifest:

      1. wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coreos/flannel/master/Documentation/kube-flannel.yml

      Modify the net-conf.json section of the flannel manifest in order to set the VNI to 4096 and the Port to 4789. It should look as follows:

      1. net-conf.json: |
      2.     {
      3.       "Network": "10.244.0.0/16",
      4.       "Backend": {
      5.         "Type": "vxlan",
      6.         "VNI": 4096,
      7.         "Port": 4789
      8.       }
      9.     }

      Note: The VNI must be set to 4096 and port 4789 for Flannel on Linux to interoperate with Flannel on Windows. See the VXLAN documentation. for an explanation of these fields.

    3. Apply the Flannel manifest and validate

      Let’s apply the Flannel configuration:

      1. kubectl apply -f kube-flannel.yml

      After a few minutes, you should see all the pods as running if the Flannel pod network was deployed.

      1. kubectl get pods -n kube-system

      The output should include the Linux flannel DaemonSet as running:

    Note: All code snippets in Windows sections are to be run in a PowerShell environment with elevated permissions (Administrator) on the Windows worker node.

    Install Docker EE

    1. Install-WindowsFeature -Name containers

    Install Docker Instructions to do so are available at Install Docker Engine - Enterprise on Windows Servers.

    Install wins, kubelet, and kubeadm

    Run kubeadm to join the node

    Use the command that was given to you when you ran kubeadm init on a control plane host. If you no longer have this command, or the token has expired, you can run (on a control plane host) to generate a new token and join command.

    Install containerD

    1. curl.exe -LO https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/sig-windows-tools/releases/latest/download/Install-Containerd.ps1
    2. .\Install-Containerd.ps1

    Note:

    To install a specific version of containerD specify the version with -ContainerDVersion.

    1. # Example
    2. .\Install-Containerd.ps1 -ContainerDVersion 1.4.1

    Note:

    If you’re using a different interface rather than Ethernet (i.e. “Ethernet0 2”) on the Windows nodes, specify the name with -netAdapterName.

    1. # Example
    2. .\Install-Containerd.ps1 -netAdapterName "Ethernet0 2"

    Install wins, kubelet, and kubeadm

    1. curl.exe -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes-sigs/sig-windows-tools/master/kubeadm/scripts/PrepareNode.ps1
    2. .\PrepareNode.ps1 -KubernetesVersion v1.23.0 -ContainerRuntime containerD

    Run kubeadm to join the node

    Use the command that was given to you when you ran kubeadm init on a control plane host. If you no longer have this command, or the token has expired, you can run kubeadm token create --print-join-command (on a control plane host) to generate a new token and join command.

    Note: If using CRI-containerD add --cri-socket "npipe:////./pipe/containerd-containerd" to the kubeadm call

    You should now be able to view the Windows node in your cluster by running:

    If your new node is in the NotReady state it is likely because the flannel image is still downloading. You can check the progress as before by checking on the flannel pods in the kube-system namespace:

      Once the flannel Pod is running, your node should enter the Ready state and then be available to handle workloads.