Using Cluster Loader

Procedure

To pull the container image, run:

Prerequisites

Procedure

Execute Cluster Loader using the built-in test configuration, which deploys five template builds and waits for them to complete:

Alternatively, execute Cluster Loader with a user-defined configuration by setting the environment variable for :

In this example, ${LOCAL_KUBECONFIG} refers to the path to the kubeconfig on your local file system. Also, there is a directory called ${LOCAL_CONFIG_FILE_PATH}, which is mounted into the container that contains a configuration file called test.yaml. Additionally, if the test.yaml references any external template files or podspec files, they should also be mounted into the container.

The tool creates multiple namespaces (projects), which contain multiple templates or pods.

Cluster Loader’s configuration file is a basic YAML file:

1	Optional setting for end-to-end tests. Set to `local` to avoid extra log messages.
2	The tuning sets allow rate limiting and stepping, the ability to create several batches of pods while pausing in between sets. Cluster Loader monitors completion of the previous step before continuing.
3	Stepping will pause for `M` seconds after each `N` objects are created.
4	Rate limiting will wait `M` milliseconds between the creation of objects.

This example assumes that references to any external template files or pod spec files are also mounted into the container.

If you are running Cluster Loader on Microsoft Azure, then you must set the AZURE_AUTH_LOCATION variable to a file that contains the output of terraform.azure.auto.tfvars.json, which is present in the installer directory.

Configuration fields

Table 2. Fields under `projects`
Field	Description
`num`	An integer. One definition of the count of how many projects to create.
`basename`	A string. One definition of the base name for the project. The count of identical namespaces will be appended to `Basename` to prevent collisions.
`tuning`
`ifexists`	A string containing either or `delete`. Defines what the tool does if it finds a project or namespace that has the same name of the project or namespace it creates during execution.
`configmaps`	A list of key-value pairs. The key is the config map name and the value is a path to a file from which you create the config map.
`secrets`	A list of key-value pairs. The key is the secret name and the value is a path to a file from which you create the secret.
`pods`	A sub-object with one or many definition(s) of pods to deploy.
`templates`	A sub-object with one or many definition(s) of templates to deploy.

Table 3. Fields under `pods` and `templates`
Field	Description
`num`	An integer. The number of pods or templates to deploy.
`image`	A string. The docker image URL to a repository where it can be pulled.
`basename`	A string. One definition of the base name for the template (or pod) that you want to create.
`file`	A string. The path to a local file, which is either a pod spec or template to be created.
`parameters`	Key-value pairs. Under `parameters`, you can specify a list of values to override in the pod or template.

Table 5. Fields under `tuningsets` `pods` or `tuningsets` `templates`
Field	Description
`stepping`	A sub-object. A stepping configuration used if you want to create an object in a step creation pattern.
`rate_limit`	A sub-object. A rate-limiting tuning set configuration to limit the object creation rate.

Table 6. Fields under `tuningsets` `pods` or `tuningsets` , `stepping`
Field	Description
`stepsize`	An integer. How many objects to create before pausing object creation.
`pause`	An integer. How many seconds to pause after creating the number of objects defined in `stepsize`.
`timeout`	An integer. How many seconds to wait before failure if the object creation is not successful.
`delay`	An integer. How many milliseconds (ms) to wait between creation requests.

Cluster Loader fails when called without configuration. ()
If the IDENTIFIER parameter is not defined in user templates, template creation fails with error: unknown parameter name "IDENTIFIER". If you deploy templates, add this parameter to your template to avoid this error:

If you deploy pods, adding the parameter is unnecessary.