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Using the Compatibility Matrix

This topic describes how to use the Replicated compatibility matrix to create ephemeral clusters.

Prerequisites​

Before you can use the compatibility matrix, you must complete the following prerequisites:

  • Existing accounts must accept the TOS for the trial on the Compatibility Matrix page in the Replicated vendor portal.

Create and Manage Clusters​

This section explains how to use the compatibility matrix to create and manage clusters with the replicated CLI or the vendor portal.

For information about creating and managing clusters with the Vendor API v3, see the clusters section in the Vendor API v3 documentation.

Create Clusters​

You can create clusters with the compatibility matrix using the replicated CLI or the vendor portal.

replicated CLI​

To create a cluster using the replicated CLI:

  1. (Optional) View the available cluster distributions, including the supported Kubernetes versions, instance types, and maximum nodes for each distribution:

    replicated cluster versions

    For command usage, see cluster versions.

  2. Run the following command to create a cluster:

    replicated cluster create --name NAME --distribution K8S_DISTRO --version K8S_VERSION --disk DISK_SIZE --instance-type INSTANCE_TYPE

    Where:

    • NAME is any name for the cluster. If --name is excluded, a name is automatically generated for the cluster.
    • K8S_DISTRO is the Kubernetes distribution for the cluster.
    • K8S_VERSION is the Kubernetes version for the cluster.
    • DISK_SIZE is the disk size (GiB) to request per node.
    • INSTANCE_TYPE is the instance type to use for each node.

    For command usage and additional optional flags, see cluster create.

    Example:

    The following example creates a kind cluster with Kubernetes version 1.27.0, a disk size of 100 GiB, and an instance type of r1.small.

    replicated cluster create --name kind-example --distribution kind --version 1.27.0 --disk 100 --instance-type r1.small

  3. Verify that the cluster was created:

    replicated cluster ls CLUSTER_NAME

    Where CLUSTER_NAME is the name of the cluster that you created.

    In the output of the command, you can see that the STATUS of the cluster is assigned. When the kubeconfig for the cluster is accessible, the cluster's status is changed to running. For more information about cluster statuses, see Cluster Status in About the Compatibility Matrix.

Vendor Portal​

To create a cluster using the vendor portal:

  1. Go to Compatibility Matrix > Create cluster.

    Create a cluster page

    View a larger version of this image

  2. On the Create a cluster page, complete the following fields:

    FieldDescription
    Kubernetes distributionSelect the Kubernetes distribution for the cluster.
    VersionSelect the Kubernetes version for the cluster. The options available are specific to the distribution selected.
    Name (optional)Enter an optional name for the cluster.
    TagsAdd one or more tags to the cluster as key-value pairs.
    Set TTLSelect the Time to Live (TTL) for the cluster. When the TTL expires, the cluster is automatically deleted. TTL can be adjusted after cluster creation with cluster update ttl.

  3. For Nodes & Nodes Groups, complete the following fields to configure nodes and node groups for the cluster:

    Instance typeSelect the instance type to use for the nodes in the node group. The options available are specific to the distribution selected.
    Disk sizeSelect the disk size in GiB to use per node.
    NodesSelect the number of nodes to provision in the node group. The options available are specific to the distribution selected.

  4. (Optional) Click Add node group to add additional node groups.

  5. Click Create cluster.

    The cluster is displayed in the list of clusters on the Compatibility Matrix page with a status of Assigned. When the kubeconfig for the cluster is accessible, the cluster's status is changed to Running.

    note

    If the cluster is not automatically displayed, refresh your browser window.

    Cluster configuration dialog

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Prepare Clusters​

For applications distributed with the Replicated vendor platform, the cluster prepare command reduces the number of steps required to provision a cluster and then deploy a release to the cluster for testing. This is useful in continuous integration (CI) workflows that run multiple times a day. For an example workflow that uses the cluster prepare command, see Recommended CI/CD Workflows.

The cluster prepare command does the following:

  • Creates a cluster
  • Creates a release for your application based on either a Helm chart archive or a directory containing the application YAML files
  • Creates a temporary customer of type test
    note

    Test customers created by the cluster prepare command are not saved in your vendor portal team.

  • Installs the release in the cluster using either the Helm CLI or Replicated KOTS

The cluster prepare command requires either a Helm chart archive or a directory containing the application YAML files to be installed:

  • Install a Helm chart with the Helm CLI:

    replicated cluster prepare \
      --distribution K8S_DISTRO \
      --version K8S_VERSION \
      --chart HELM_CHART_TGZ

    The following example creates a kind cluster and installs a Helm chart in the cluster using the nginx-chart-0.0.14.tgz chart archive:

    replicated cluster prepare \
      --distribution kind \
      --version 1.27.0 \
      --chart nginx-chart-0.0.14.tgz \
      --set key1=val1,key2=val2 \
      --set-string s1=val1,s2=val2 \
      --set-json j1='{"key1":"val1","key2":"val2"}' \
      --set-literal l1=val1,l2=val2 \
      --values values.yaml

  • Install with KOTS from a YAML directory:

    replicated cluster prepare \
      --distribution K8S_DISTRO \
      --version K8S_VERSION \
      --yaml-dir PATH_TO_YAML_DIR

    The following example creates a k3s cluster and installs an application in the cluster using the manifest files in a local directory named config-validation:

    replicated cluster prepare \
      --distribution k3s \
      --version 1.26 \
      --namespace config-validation \
      --shared-password password \
      --app-ready-timeout 10m \
      --yaml-dir config-validation \
      --config-values-file conifg-values.yaml \
      --entitlements "num_of_queues=5"

For command usage, including additional options, see cluster prepare.

Access Clusters​

The compatibility matrix provides the kubeconfig for clusters so that you can access clusters with the kubectl command line tool. For more information, see Command line tool (kubectl) in the Kubernetes documentation.

To access a cluster from the command line:

  1. Verify that the cluster is in a Running state:

    replicated cluster ls

    In the output of the command, verify that the STATUS for the target cluster is running. For command usage, see cluster ls.

  2. Run the following command to download the kubeconfig for the cluster and update Kubernetes context:

    replicated cluster kubeconfig CLUSTER_ID

    When the command completes, a Updated kubernetes context message is displayed. For command usage, see cluster kubeconfig.

  3. Verify that you can interact with the cluster through kubectl by running a command. For example:

    kubectl get ns

Upgrade Clusters (kURL Only)​

For kURL clusters provisioned with the compatibility matrix, you can use the the cluster upgrade command to upgrade the version of the kURL installer specification used to provision the cluster. A recommended use case for the cluster upgrade command is for testing your application's compatibility with Kubernetes API resource version migrations after upgrade.

The following example upgrades a kURL cluster from its previous version to version 9d5a44c:

replicated cluster upgrade cabb74d5 --version 9d5a44c

For command usage, see cluster upgrade.

Delete Clusters​

You can delete clusters using the replicated CLI or the vendor portal.

replicated CLI​

To delete a cluster using the replicated CLI:

  1. Get the ID of the target cluster:

    replicated cluster ls

    In the output of the command, copy the ID for the cluster.

    Example:

    ID        NAME              DISTRIBUTION   VERSION   STATUS    CREATED                        EXPIRES 
    1234abc   My Test Cluster   eks            1.27      running   2023-10-09 17:08:01 +0000 UTC  -

    For command usage, see cluster ls.

  2. Run the following command:

    replicated cluster rm CLUSTER_ID

    Where CLUSTER_ID is the ID of the target cluster. For command usage, see cluster rm.

  3. Confirm that the cluster was deleted:

    replicated cluster ls CLUSTER_ID --show-terminated

    Where CLUSTER_ID is the ID of the target cluster. In the output of the command, you can see that the STATUS of the cluster is terminated. For command usage, see cluster ls.

Vendor Portal​

To delete a cluster using the vendor portal:

  1. Go to Compatibility Matrix.

  2. Under Clusters, in the vertical dots menu for the target cluster, click Delete cluster.

    Delete cluster button

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About Using the Compatibility Matrix with CI/CD​

Replicated recommends that you integrate the compatibility matrix into your existing CI/CD workflow to automate the process of creating clusters to install your application and run tests. For more information, including additional best practices and recommendations for CI/CD, see About Integrating with CI/CD.

Replicated GitHub Actions​

Replicated maintains a set of custom GitHub actions that are designed to replace repetitive tasks related to using the compatibility matrix and distributing applications with Replicated.

If you use GitHub Actions as your CI/CD platform, you can include these custom actions in your workflows rather than using replicated CLI commands. Integrating the Replicated GitHub actions into your CI/CD pipeline helps you quickly build workflows with the required inputs and outputs, without needing to manually create the required CLI commands for each step.

To view all the available GitHub actions that Replicated maintains, see the replicatedhq/replicated-actions repository in GitHub.

For more information, see Integrating Replicated GitHub Actions.

Replicated recommends that you maintain unique CI/CD workflows for development (continuous integration) and for releasing your software (continuous delivery). For example development and release workflows that integrate the compatibility matrix for testing, see Recommended CI/CD Workflows.

Test Script Recommendations​

Incorporating code tests into your CI/CD workflows is important for ensuring that developers receive quick feedback and can make updates in small iterations. Replicated recommends that you create and run all of the following test types as part of your CI/CD workflows:

  • Application Testing: Traditional application testing includes unit, integration, and end-to-end tests. These tests are critical for application reliability, and the compatibility matrix is designed to to incorporate and use your application testing.

  • Performance Testing: Performance testing is used to benchmark your application to ensure it can handle the expected load and scale gracefully. Test your application under a range of workloads and scenarios to identify any bottlenecks or performance issues. Make sure to optimize your application for different Kubernetes distributions and configurations by creating all of the environments you need to test in.

  • Smoke Testing: Using a single, conformant Kubernetes distribution to test basic functionality of your application with default (or standard) configuration values is a quick way to get feedback if something is likely to be broken for all or most customers. Replicated also recommends that you include each Kubernetes version that you intend to support in your smoke tests.

  • Compatibility Testing: Because applications run on various Kubernetes distributions and configurations, it is important to test compatibility across different environments. The compatibility matrix provides this infrastructure.

  • Canary Testing: Before releasing to all customers, consider deploying your application to a small subset of your customer base as a canary release. This lets you monitor the application's performance and stability in real-world environments, while minimizing the impact of potential issues. The compatibility matrix enables canary testing by simulating exact (or near) customer environments and configurations to test your application with.