Skip to main content

a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar

Lanzador de aplicaciones DeepinMenu Classic – Plasmoides para Plasma 6 (7)

Tras un parón debido al salto de Qt5/KF5 a Qt6/KF6 que realizó la Comunidad KDE el pasado 28 de febrero he decidido retomar esta sección aunque renombrándola ya que en ella solo hablaré de Plasmoides para Plasma 6. En la entrada de hoy me complace compartir con vosotros el lanzador de aplicaciones DeepinMenu Classic, un lanzador que destaca por su elegancia y con el que llegamos a siete artículos dedicados a este tipo de widgets.

Lanzador de aplicaciones DeepinMenu Classic – Plasmoides para Plasma 6 (7)

Como he comentado en otras ocasiones, de plasmoides tenemos de todo tipo funcionales, de configuración, de comportamiento, de decoración o, como no podía ser de otra forma, de información sobre nuestro sistema como puede ser el uso de disco duro, o de memoria RAM, la temperatura o la carga de uso de nuestras CPUs.

Así que espero que le deis la bienvenida a un plasmoide llamado DeepinMenu Classic, otra creación de ZAYRONXIO que nos ofreceun lanzador de aplicaciones elegante y funcional, imitación del menú clásico de deepin, creado con el código del menú start.next, utilizando principalmente ditto by adhe como base.

Como se ve, además de las aplicaciones favoritas que se ponen a la izquierda, justo bajo del cuadro de búsqueda, tenemos la opción de ver todas las aplicaciones o, en la columna de la derecha, bajo del avatar, buscarlas por categorías. En la parte inferior, arriba de las opciones de apagado, nos encontramos con un reloj con fecha.

Lanzador de aplicaciones DeepinMenu Classic - Plasmoides para Plasma 6 (7)

Y como siempre digo, si os gusta el plasmoide podéis «pagarlo» de muchas formas en la página de KDE Store, que estoy seguro que el desarrollador lo agradecerá: puntúale positivamente, hazle un comentario en la página o realiza una donación. Ayudar al desarrollo del Software Libre también se hace simplemente dando las gracias, ayuda mucho más de lo que os podéis imaginar, recordad la campaña I love Free Software Day de la Free Software Foundation donde se nos recordaba esta forma tan sencilla de colaborar con el gran proyecto del Software Libre y que en el blog dedicamos un artículo.

Más información: KDE Store

¿Qué son los plasmoides?

Para los no iniciados en el blog, quizás la palabra plasmoide le suene un poco rara pero no es mas que el nombre que reciben los widgets para el escritorio Plasma de KDE.

En otras palabras, los plasmoides no son más que pequeñas aplicaciones que puestas sobre el escritorio o sobre una de las barras de tareas del mismo aumentan las funcionalidades del mismo o simplemente lo decoran.

La entrada Lanzador de aplicaciones DeepinMenu Classic – Plasmoides para Plasma 6 (7) se publicó primero en KDE Blog.

the avatar of Timo's openSUSE Posts

SUSE at Mindtrek 2024

SUSE was a gold sponsor at Mindtrek 2024, a conference with a long, almost 30 years history starting as a ”multimedia competition”, always with academic conference held alongside it, and more recently held by COSS – the Finnish Centre for Open Systems and Solutions. This year Mindtrek was having a very open source focused program with two tracks, ”The Future of Open Source Business” and ”Enhancing Public Service with Open Source”.

There was a good attendance of 150+ people, a busy feeling and a lot of good talks with participants and fellow sponsors from DigiFinland, Tampere University, Seravo, Druid, HH Partners, doubleOpen(), Metatavu, Opinsys, City of Tampere, Haltu and itewiki.

The conference started with welcome words and presenting the recipient of the 2024 Open World Hero award, which this year went to eVaka project – ERP for early childhood education – which is a great success story on open source, developing based on immediate needs and starting with a minimum viable product, collaboration between big cities on common goals, and now further adoption by smaller municipilaties, which driven by open source companies which can deploy and maintain them. They also later had a talk about how they achieved their goals and continue forward, on the principles of good software development practices, early user feedback and a lot of other signs of a good project. The recipients were on the behalf of cities of Espoo and Tampere.

eVaka project members receiving Open World Hero 2024 award

The keynote speaker before the tracks was Sachiko Muto from OpenForum Europe & RISE withe her presentation reflecting on how open source has both risen to the top and also still has quite some ways to go in terms of procurement, awareness, skills and so on. The presentation is quite hard to summarize but was well thought out.

Sachiko Muto on building European digital sovereignty Sachiko Muto on the role of open source

Then we had SUSE’s Emiel Brok giving an energized presentation about the ”perfect storm” coming and how SUSE products can help with for example requirements of NIS-2 and had a bunch of good talks. It was nicely put together, entertaining, and positioned SUSE in a very positive light in what it has to offer.

We also had a SUSE booth which was busy througout the day, with people asking about SUSE, and distributing a lot of chameleons to happy receivers.

Emiel Brok from SUSE Emiel Brok from SUSE, photo 2 SUSE booth

Throughout the rest of the day I was at the booth, and also followed at least the eVaka project presentation and another interesting presentation on NIS2 and Cyber Resilience Act from Martin von Willebrand. There was also a small evening event to continue open source discussions in a more relaxed environment.

the avatar of Nathan Wolf
the avatar of Nathan Wolf
the avatar of Nathan Wolf
a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar

¡Android en libertat! – Taller Exprés organizado por GNU/Linux València

Organizada por la asociación sin ánimo de lucro GNU/Linux València os invito a participar en el Taller Expres que tiene por título ¡Android en libertad! que se celebrará el próximo el próximo 18 de octubre a las 19:00 horas. Ven y descubre como hacer que tu móvil sea más libre y seguro.

¡Android en libertat! – Taller Exprés organizado por GNU/Linux València

Me complace presentaros un nuevo evento de la Asociación sin Ánimo de Lucro GNU/Linux València que retoman sus actividades iniciando la campaña de otoño 2024 con un taller dedicado a uno de nuestros puntos débiles en cuanto a privacidad y libertad: los dispositivos móviles.

En palabras de los organizadores:

T’agradaria aprofitar al màxim el teu mòbil Android amb aplicacions lliures? Vine el pròxim divendres 18 d’octubre a les 19:00 a l’antic espai «Las Naves» (C/ Joan Verdeguer 16, València) i descobreix com instal·lar i utilitzar aplicacions lliures com les que pots trobar a F-Droid!

Aquesta és una gran oportunitat per aprendre com donar-li vida nova al teu dispositiu mentre cuides la teua privacitat i et desvincules de les grans corporacions. No t’ho perdes!

💡 Porta el teu mòbil i ganes d’aprendre. Ens veiem allí!

¿Te gustaría sacar el máximo provecho a tu móvil Android con aplicaciones libres? Ven el próximo 18 de octubre a las 19:00 al antiguo espacio «Las Naves» (C/ Joan Verdeguer 16, Valencia) y descubre cómo instalar y utilizar aplicaciones libres como las que encontrarás en F-Droid.

¡Es una gran oportunidad para aprender a darle nueva vida a tu dispositivo mientras cuidas tu privacidad y te desvinculas de las grandes corporaciones! ¡No te lo pierdas!

💡 Trae tu móvil y ganas de aprender. ¡Nos vemos allí!

Los datos básicos son:

📅 Fecha: viernes 18 de octubre 2024, de 19:00 a 20:15
📍 Lugar: «Las Naves», C/ Joan Verdeguer 16, Valencia.

Más información: GNU/Linux València

Los peligros de las IA segunda parte - Charla Hablemos de julio de GNU/Linux València

¡Únete a GNU/Linux València!

Aprovecho para recordar que desde hace unos meses, los chicos de GNU/Linux Valencia ya tienen su menú propio en el blog, con lo que seguir sus eventos en esta humilde bitácora será más fácil que nunca, y así podréis comprobar su alto nivel de actividades que realizan que destacan por su variedad.

Y que además, GNU/Linux València creció y se ha convertió en asociación. Así que si buscas una forma de colaborar con el Software Libre, esta asociación puede ser tu sitio. ¡Te esperamos!

La entrada ¡Android en libertat! – Taller Exprés organizado por GNU/Linux València se publicó primero en KDE Blog.

the avatar of Nathan Wolf

QtQR | Encode and Decode QR Codes on Linux

The post discusses QR codes' functionality, highlighting their use in various applications like URL sharing and WiFi settings. It presents QtQR, a user-friendly QR code tool for decoding and encoding on Linux, including installation and usage instructions. The author appreciates its features and expresses gratitude for open-source contributions.
a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar

Lanzador de aplicaciones DeepinMenu Classic – Plasmoides para Plasma 6 (7)

Tras un parón debido al salto de Qt5/KF5 a Qt6/KF6 que realizó la Comunidad KDE el pasado 28 de febrero he decidido retomar esta sección aunque renombrándola ya que en ella solo hablaré de Plasmoides para Plasma 6. En la entrada de hoy me complace compartir con vosotros el lanzador de aplicaciones DeepinMenu Classic, un lanzador que destaca por su elegancia y con el que llegamos a siete artículos dedicados a este tipo de widgets.

Lanzador de aplicaciones DeepinMenu Classic – Plasmoides para Plasma 6 (7)

Como he comentado en otras ocasiones, de plasmoides tenemos de todo tipo funcionales, de configuración, de comportamiento, de decoración o, como no podía ser de otra forma, de información sobre nuestro sistema como puede ser el uso de disco duro, o de memoria RAM, la temperatura o la carga de uso de nuestras CPUs.

Así que espero que le deis la bienvenida a un plasmoide llamado DeepinMenu Classic, otra creación de ZAYRONXIO que nos ofreceun lanzador de aplicaciones elegante y funcional, imitación del menú clásico de deepin, creado con el código del menú start.next, utilizando principalmente ditto by adhe como base.

Como se ve, además de las aplicaciones favoritas que se ponen a la izquierda, justo bajo del cuadro de búsqueda, tenemos la opción de ver todas las aplicaciones o, en la columna de la derecha, bajo del avatar, buscarlas por categorías. En la parte inferior, arriba de las opciones de apagado, nos encontramos con un reloj con fecha.

Lanzador de aplicaciones DeepinMenu Classic - Plasmoides para Plasma 6 (7)

Y como siempre digo, si os gusta el plasmoide podéis «pagarlo» de muchas formas en la página de KDE Store, que estoy seguro que el desarrollador lo agradecerá: puntúale positivamente, hazle un comentario en la página o realiza una donación. Ayudar al desarrollo del Software Libre también se hace simplemente dando las gracias, ayuda mucho más de lo que os podéis imaginar, recordad la campaña I love Free Software Day de la Free Software Foundation donde se nos recordaba esta forma tan sencilla de colaborar con el gran proyecto del Software Libre y que en el blog dedicamos un artículo.

Más información: KDE Store

¿Qué son los plasmoides?

Para los no iniciados en el blog, quizás la palabra plasmoide le suene un poco rara pero no es mas que el nombre que reciben los widgets para el escritorio Plasma de KDE.

En otras palabras, los plasmoides no son más que pequeñas aplicaciones que puestas sobre el escritorio o sobre una de las barras de tareas del mismo aumentan las funcionalidades del mismo o simplemente lo decoran.

La entrada Lanzador de aplicaciones DeepinMenu Classic – Plasmoides para Plasma 6 (7) se publicó primero en KDE Blog.

the avatar of Alessandro de Oliveira Faria

Molmo: O futuro das IAs que enxergam.

O Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2) está lançando uma nova família de modelos de linguagem multimodais de código aberto, chamada Molmo, que rivaliza com modelos da OpenAI, Google e Anthropic. O maior modelo Molmo possui 72 bilhões de parâmetros e supera o GPT-4 da OpenAI em testes de compreensão de imagens e documentos, enquanto um modelo menor de 7 bilhões de parâmetros se aproxima do desempenho do modelo mais avançado da OpenAI, graças a métodos eficientes de treinamento de dados.

Segundo Ali Farhadi, CEO do Ai2, o desenvolvimento de IA de código aberto está agora em par com modelos proprietários, oferecendo a vantagem de ser acessível para outros desenvolvedores construírem aplicações. Uma demonstração do Molmo estará disponível em breve no site Hugging Face, embora alguns elementos do modelo maior ainda sejam restritos ao público.

Contrastando com outros modelos treinados em conjuntos de dados massivos e indiscriminados, o Molmo utiliza um conjunto menor e mais selecionado de 600.000 imagens, resultando em melhor desempenho com menos recursos. Anotadores humanos detalharam imagens em texto, convertidas depois em dados através de técnicas de IA, otimizando o treinamento e reduzindo a necessidade de potência computacional. Essa abordagem focada em qualidade, segundo Percy Liang, do Stanford Center for Research on Foundation Models, pode diminuir os custos computacionais e, segundo Yacine Jernite da Hugging Face, pode ajudar a controlar melhor os dados utilizados em IA.

Além disso, o modelo Molmo demonstrou capacidade de “apontar” elementos específicos em imagens, uma função útil para interações mais sofisticadas com interfaces de usuário, o que Ali Farhadi enfatiza como uma vantagem sobre modelos que apenas descrevem imagens. Com a promessa de maior eficiência e potencial para aplicações futuras, o Ai2 espera que o Molmo influencie o campo da IA de código aberto e seja uma base para inovações futuras.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.17146

a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar

Deploy a Kubernets Cluster (RKE2) with Warewulf

In High Performance Computing (HPC) we frequently encounter node counts in compute clusters that are impractical to be managed manually. Here, the saving grace is that the number of variations in installation and configuration among nodes of a cluster is small. Also, the number of parameters that are individual to each node is low. Thus, in the 'cattle/pet' model, compute nodes would be treated like cattle.
Warewulf, a deployment system for HPC compute nodes, is specifically designed for this case. It utilizes PXE to boot nodes and provide their root filesystem. Nodes are ephemeral, i.e. their root filesystem resides in a RAM disk. In a recent Blog post, Christian Goll described how to set up and manage a cluster using Warewulf.
Kubernetes (K8s) deployments potentially face similar challanges: K8s clusters often consist of a large number of mostly identical agent nodes with a minimal installation and very little individual configuration.
In this article we explore how to set up a K8s cluster with Rancher's next-generation Kubernetes distribution RKE2 using Warewulf.

Considerations

K8s Server

In K8s we distinguish between a 'server' and 'agents'. While a 'server' may act as an agent as well, it is mainly to organize and control the cluster. In a sense it is comparable to a 'head node' in HPC. It is possible to deploy the server role using Warewulf - and we have done so for our experiments. However, at present Warewulf is capable of deploying ephemeral systems only while the server role may require to maintain some state. Therefore, it may be preferrable to set it up as a permanent installation and utilize Warewulf for agent depoyment only. We will still describe how to deploy a server using Warewulf.

Container Image Storage

Since our workloads are containerized, the container host requires only a very minimal installation. This installation - together with RKE2 - will not use up much of a node's memory when running out of a RAM disk. This is different for container images which are pulled from registries and stored locally. If these were stored on RAM disk, memory would quickly be exhausted. Fortunately, warewulf is able to set up mass storage devices - optionally every time a node is started. We will show how to set up storage for container images using Warewulf.

Basic Setup

This post will not cover how to perform the basic network setup required for the nodes to PXE-boot from the Warewulf deployment server or make nodes known to Warewulf. These topocs are all covered in Christian's Blog already.

Setup

Create Deployment Image

Warewulf utilizes container registries to obtain installation images. We start by importing a base container image from the openSUSE registry.

wwctl container import \
  docker://registry.opensuse.org/science/warewulf/leap-15.6/containers/kernel:latest \
  leap15.6-RKE2

General Image Preparation

Since this base image is generic, we need to install any missing packages required to install and start the RKE2 service. First, open up a shell inside the node image:

wwctl container shell leap15.6-RKE2

and run:

zypper -n in -y tar iptables awk
cd /root
curl -o rke2.sh -fsSL https://get.rke2.io

tar and awk are required by the RKE2 install script while iptables is required by K8s to set up the container network.

Image Preparation for Container Image Storage

This step is optional, but it is advisable to set up a storage device to hold container images. Container image storage is required on every node that will act as an agent - including the server node.
First we need to prepare the deployment image. To do so, we log into the image again to we create the image directory:

mkdir /var/lib/rancher

Then we install the packages required to perform the setup:

zypper -n in -y --no-recommends ignition gptfdisk

Prepare the Image for the K8s Server

Now, we are done with the common setup. We can exit the shell session in the container. When doing so, we need to make sure, the container image is rebuilt. We should see a message: Rebuilding container.... If this is not the case, we need to rebuild the image by hand:

wwctl container build leap15.6-RKE2

It's recommend to install the K8s Server permanently, therefore, if we would like to follow this recommendation, we can skip the reminder of this section.

Otherwise, we clone our image for the server:

wwctl container copy leap15.6-RKE2 leap15.6-RKE2-server

open a shell in the newly created server image:

wwctl container shell leap15.6-RKE2-server

install and enable rke2-server and adjust the environment for RKE2:

# Install the RKE2 tarball and prepare for server start
cd /root
INSTALL_RKE2_SKIP_RELOAD=true INSTALL_RKE2_VERSION="v1.31.1+rke2r1" sh rke2.sh
# Enable the service so it comes up later
systemctl enable rke2-server
# For container deployment we want `helm`
zypper -n in -y helm
# Set up environment so kubectl and crictl are found and will run
cat > /etc/profile.d/rke2.sh << EOF
export PATH=$PATH:/var/lib/rancher/rke2/bin
export KUBECONFIG=/etc/rancher/rke2/rke2.yaml
export CRI_CONFIG_FILE=/var/lib/rancher/rke2/agent/etc/crictl.yaml
EOF

We are pinning the version to the one this has been tested with. If we omit INSTALL_RKE2_VERSION=... we will get the latest version. Now, we exit the shell in the server container and again make sure the image is rebuilt.

Prepare the Image for the K8s Agents

We need to finalize the agent image by downloading and installing RKE2 and enabling the rke2-agent service. For this, we log into the container

wwctl container shell leap15.6-RKE2

and run:

cd /root
INSTALL_RKE2_SKIP_RELOAD=true INSTALL_RKE2_TYPE="agent" \
 INSTALL_RKE2_VERSION="v1.31.1+rke2r1" sh rke2.sh
systemctl enable rke2-agent

Here, we are pinning the RKE2 version to the version this has been tested with. This has to match the version of the server node. If the server node has not been deployed using Warewulf, we need to make sure its version matches the version used here. If we omit INSTALL_RKE2_VERSION=... we will get the latest version. When logging out, we make sure, the container image is rebuilt.

Set up a Configuration Template for RKE2

Since the K8s agents and servers need a shared secret - the connection token - and secondary nodes need information about the primary server to connect, we set up a warewulf configuration overlay template for these.
We create a new overlay rke2-config on the Warewulf deployment server by running:

wwctl overlay create rke2-config

create a configuration template

cat > /tmp/config.yaml.ww <<EOF
{{ if ne (index .Tags "server") "" -}}
server: https://{{ index .Tags "server" }}:9345
{{ end -}}
{{ if ne (index .Tags "clienttoken") "" -}}
token: {{ index .Tags "connectiontoken" }}
{{ end -}}
EOF

and import it into the overlay setting its owner and permission:

wwctl overlay import --parents rke2-config /tmp/config.yaml.ww /etc/rancher/rke2/config.yaml.ww
wwctl overlay chown rke2-config /etc/rancher/rke2/config.yaml.ww 0
wwctl overlay chmod rke2-config /etc/rancher/rke2/config.yaml.ww 0600

This template will create a server: entry pointing to the communication endpoint (address & port) of the primary K8s server and a token: which will hold the client token in case these entries exist in the configuration of the node or one of its profiles. (These templates use the Golang text/template engine. Also, check the upstream documentation for the template file syntax.)

Set up Profiles

At this point, we create some profiles which we will use for setting up all node, i.e. the Agents and - if applicable - the Server. To simplify things, we assume the hardware for all the nodes is identical.

The 'Switch to tmpfs' Profile

Container runtimes require pivot_root() to work, which is not possible as long as we are still running out of a rootfs. This is not only the case for K8s but also for podman. Since the default init process in a Warewulf deployment doesn't perform a switch_root, we need to change this. To do so, we need to perform two things:

  1. Make sure that rootfs is not a tmpfs. This can be done by adding rootfstype=ramfs to the kernel command line.
  2. Let init know that we intend to switch to tmpfs. We do this by setting up a profile for container hosts:
wwctl profile add container-host
wwctl profile set --root=tmpfs -A "crashkernel=no net.ifnames=1 rootfstype=ramfs" container-host

(Here, crashkernel=no net.ifnames=1 are the default kernel arguments.)

Set up the Container Storage Profile

As stated above, this step is optional but recommended.
To set up storage on the nodes, the deployment images need to be prepared as describe above in section 'Image Preparation for Container Image Storage'.
For simplicity, we assume that all nodes will receive the identical storage configuration. Therefore, we create a profile which we will add to the nodes later. It, however, would be easy to set up multiple profiles or override settings per node.
We create the profile container-storage and set up the disk, partition, file system and mount point:

wwctl profile add container-storage
wwctl profile set --diskname <disk> --diskwipe[=false] \
   --partname container_storage --partnumber 1  --partcreate=true \
   --fsname container_storage --fsformat ext4 --fspath /var/lib/rancher
   container-storage

Here, we need to replace <disk> by the physical storage device we want to use. If the disks are not empty initially, we should set the option --diskwipe=true. This will cause the disks to be wiped on every consecutive boot, therefore, we may want to unset this later. --partcreate makes sure, the partition is created if it doesn't exist. Most other arguments should be self-explanatory. If we need to set up the machines multiple times and want to make sure the disks are wiped each time, we should not rely on the --diskwipe option which in fact only wipes the partition table: if an identical partion table is recreated, ignition will not notice and reuse the partition from a previous setup.

Set up the Connection Token Profile

RKE2 allows to configure a connection token to both Servers and Agents. If none is provided to the primary server it will be generated internally. If we set up the server persistently, we need to create a file /etc/rancher/rke2/config.yaml with the content:

token: <connection_token>

before we start this server for the first time, or if the server has been started before already, we need to obtain the token from the file /var/lib/rancher/rke2/server/node-token on this machine and use it for the token variable below. We now run:

wwctl profile add rke2-config-key

generate the token, add the rke2-config overlay to the profile and set a tag containing the token that will later be used by the profile:

token="$(printf 'K'; \
         for n in {1..20}; do printf %x $RANDOM; done; \
         printf "::server:"; \
         for n in {1..20}; do printf %x $RANDOM; done)"
wwctl profile set --tagadd="connectiontoken=${token}" \
              -O rke2-config rke2-config-key

Set up the 'First Server' Profile

This profile is used to point the agents (and secondary servers) to the initial server:

wwctl profile add rke2-config-first-server
wwctl profile set --tagadd="server=${server}" -O rke2-config rke2-config-first-server

Start the Nodes

With these profiles in place, we are now able to set up and boot all machine roles.

Start and Test the first K8s Server

If we use Warewulf to also deploy the K8s server, we need to start it now and make sure it is running correctly before we proceed to start the nodes. Otherwise, we assume a server is running already which we can connect via ssh and proceed to the next section.

It's assumed that we have already performed a basic setup of the server node (like make its MAC and designated IP address known to Warewulf). First we add the configuration profiles to the server. This includes the container-host and container-storage as well as the rke2-config-key profiles. We also set the container image:

wwctl node set -P default,container-host,container-storage,rke2-config-key -C leap15.6-RKE2-server <server_node>

Finally, we build the overlays:

wwctl overlay build <server_node>

Now, we are ready to power on the server and wait until is has booted. Once this is the case, We log into it via ssh. There we can observe the RKE2 server service starting:

systemctl status rke2-server

The output will show containerd, kubelet and several instances of runc (containerd-shim-runc-v2) running. When the initial containers have completed starting, the output should contain the lines:

Oct 07 16:36:36 dell04 rke2[1299]: time="2024-10-07T16:36:36Z" level=info
msg="Labels and annotations have been set successfully on node: k8s-server"
Oct 07 16:36:42 dell04 rke2[1299]: time="2024-10-07T16:36:42Z" level=info msg="Adding node k8s-sesrver-d034de85 etcd status condition"
Oct 07 16:37:00 dell04 rke2[1299]: time="2024-10-07T16:37:00Z" level=info msg="Tunnel authorizer set Kubelet Port 0.0.0.0:10250"

We can watch the remaining services starting by running:

kubectl get pods -A

Once all services are up and running, the output should look like this:

NAMESPACE     NAME                                                    READY   STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
kube-system   cloud-controller-manager-k8s-server                     1/1     Running     0          20m
kube-system   etcd-k8s-server                                         1/1     Running     0          19m
kube-system   helm-install-rke2-canal-lnvv2                           0/1     Completed   0          20m
kube-system   helm-install-rke2-coredns-rjd54                         0/1     Completed   0          20m
kube-system   helm-install-rke2-ingress-nginx-97rh7                   0/1     Completed   0          20m
kube-system   helm-install-rke2-metrics-server-8z878                  0/1     Completed   0          20m
kube-system   helm-install-rke2-snapshot-controller-crd-mt2ds         0/1     Completed   0          20m
kube-system   helm-install-rke2-snapshot-controller-l5bbp             0/1     Completed   0          20m
kube-system   helm-install-rke2-snapshot-validation-webhook-glkgm     0/1     Completed   0          20m
kube-system   kube-apiserver-k8s-server                               1/1     Running     0          20m
kube-system   kube-controller-manager-k8s-server                      1/1     Running     0          20m
kube-system   kube-proxy-k8s-server                                   1/1     Running     0          20m
kube-system   kube-scheduler-k8s-server                               1/1     Running     0          20m
kube-system   rke2-canal-xfq6l                                        2/2     Running     0          20m
kube-system   rke2-coredns-rke2-coredns-6bb85f9dd8-fj4r4              1/1     Running     0          20m
kube-system   rke2-coredns-rke2-coredns-autoscaler-7b9c797d64-rxkmm   1/1     Running     0          20m
kube-system   rke2-ingress-nginx-controller-nmlhg                     1/1     Running     0          19m
kube-system   rke2-metrics-server-868fc8795f-gz6pz                    1/1     Running     0          19m
kube-system   rke2-snapshot-controller-7dcf5d5b46-8lp8w               1/1     Running     0          19m
kube-system   rke2-snapshot-validation-webhook-bf7bbd6fc-p6mf9        1/1     Running     0          19m

This server is now ready to accept agents (and secondary servers). If we require additional servers for redundancy, their setup is identical, however, we will need to add the rke2-config-first-server profile when setting up the node above.

Start and verify the Agent

Now, we are ready to bring up the agents. First, we set up the nodes by adding the profiles container-host, container-storage, rke2-config-key and rke2-config-first-server to all the client nodes:

agents=<agent_nodes>
wwctl node set -P default,container-host,rke2-agent,container-storage $agents

as well as the container image for the agent:

wwctl node set -C leap15.6-RKE2 <agent_nodes>

and rebuild the overlays for all agent nodes:

wwctl overlay build $agents

We replace <agent_nodes> by the appropriate node names. This can be a comma-seperated list, but also a range of nodes specified in squuare brackets - for example k8s-agent[00-15] would refer to k8s-agent00 to k8s-agent15 - or lists and ranges combined.

At this point, we are able to boot the first agent node. Once the first node is up, we may log in using ssh and check the status of the rke2-agent service:

systemctl status rke2-agent

The output should contain lines like:

Oct 07 19:23:59 k8s-agent01 rke2[1301]: time="2024-10-07T19:23:59Z" level=info msg="rke2 agent is up and running"
Oct 07 19:23:59 k8s-agent01 systemd[1]: Started Rancher Kubernetes Engine v2 (agent).
Oct 07 19:24:25 k8s-agent01 rke2[1301]: time="2024-10-07T19:24:25Z" level=info
msg="Tunnel authorizer set Kubelet Port 0.0.0.0:10250"

This should be all we check on the agent. Any further verifications will be done from the server. We log into the server and run:

kubectl get nodes

This should produce an output like:

kubectl get nodes -A
NAME          STATUS   ROLES                       AGE    VERSION
k8s-server    Ready    control-plane,etcd,master   168m   v1.30.4+rke2r1
k8s-agent01   Ready    <none>                      69s    v1.30.4+rke2r1

We see that the first agent node is available in the cluster. Now, we can spin up more nodes and repeat the last step to verify they appear.

Conclusions

We've shown that it is possible to deploy a functional K8s cluster with RKE2 using Warewulf. We could for example proceed deploying the NVIDIA GPU operator with a driver container on this cluster as described in a previous Blog and set up a K8s cluster for AI workloads. Most of the steps were straight forward and could be derived from the Warewulf User Guide. The only non-obvious step to take were the ones required to set up the rootfs in a way that it is ensured the container runtime is able to call pivot_root.