Create and manage Windows node pools in an ACK cluster

Resource reservation

Since May 2021, Windows nodes in ACK clusters version 1.16 or later automatically reserve the following resources at startup:

• 1.5 vCPUs

• 2.5 GB of RAM

• 3 GB of disk space

This ensures OS, kubelet, and runtime stability. Windows containers do not trigger OOM kills when exceeding memory limits, but a container memory leak can still crash the node. See Node resource reservation policy and Memory requirements for Windows containers.

Console

1. Log on to the ACK console. In the left navigation pane, click Clusters.

2. On the Clusters page, click the name of the target cluster, then choose Nodes > Node Pools in the left navigation pane.

3. On the Node Pools page, click Create Node Pool and configure the following parameters. See Create and manage node pools.

   Parameter	Setting
   Configure Managed Node Pool	Select Disable
   Container Runtime	Select containerd
   Instance Type	Select an instance type with at least 4 vCPUs and 8 GB of memory — for example, ecs.g6.xlarge. Do not select Elastic GPU Service instance types. See Instance families.
   Expected Number of Nodes	Target node count. The pool scales automatically to match this value.
   Operating System	Select a Windows Server image
   ECS Tags	(Optional) Tags to apply to the underlying ECS instances
   Node Labels	(Optional) Kubernetes labels to apply to the nodes

4. Complete the remaining steps and submit.

The node pool is ready when its Status changes to Active on the Node Pools page.

API

Call CreateClusterNodePool to create a Windows node pool programmatically.

{
  "ClusterId": "ca8ed83XXXXXXXXXXXX5ec197",
  "body": {
    "nodepool_info": {
      "name": "nodepool-fXXXXXx",
      "resource_group_id": "rg-acfmXXXXXXXXsjpq"
    },
    "scaling_group": {
      "vswitch_ids": [
        "vsw-bp1XXXXXXXXXXXXX1xm84",
        "vsw-bp1XXXXXXXXXXXX2v6x0a",
        "vsw-bp1XXXXXXXXXXXXXjkxbo"
      ],
      "data_disks": [
        {
          "category": "cloud_essd",
          "size": 120,
          "encrypted": "false",
          "performance_level": "PL0"
        }
      ],
      "vpc_id": "vpc-bpXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXmgb6",
      "instance_charge_type": "PostPaid",
      "internet_max_bandwidth_out": 1,
      "soc_enabled": false,
      "security_hardening_os": false,
      "instance_types": [
        "ecs.g6.xlarge"
      ],
      "instance_patterns": [
        {
          "Cores": 4,
          "Memory": 16,
          "burst_performance_option": "Exclude",
          "excluded_instance_types": [
            "ecs.c6t.*"
          ],
          "instance_type_families": [
            "ecs.g6"
          ]
        }
      ],
      "login_password": "XXXXXX",
      "login_as_non_root": false,
      "system_disk_category": "cloud_essd",
      "system_disk_size": 40,
      "system_disk_performance_level": "PL0",
      "system_disk_encrypted": false,
      "multi_az_policy": "BALANCE",
      "platform": "WindowsServer2022",
      "image_id": "win2022_21H2_x64_dtc_en-us_40G_container_alibase_20240220.vhd",
      "image_type": "WindowsServer2022",
      "desired_size": 1
    },
    "kubernetes_config": {
      "cms_enabled": true,
      "unschedulable": false,
      "runtime": "containerd",
      "runtime_version": "2.1.1"
    },
    "auto_scaling": {
      "enable": false
    },
    "tee_config": {
      "tee_enable": false
    },
    "node_config": {
      "image_acceleration_config": {
        "enable_image_acceleration": false
      }
    }
  }
}

Key parameters:

Terraform

Use the alicloud_cs_kubernetes_node_pool resource to create a Windows node pool. See Terraform overview.

provider "alicloud" {
  region = "cn-beijing"
}

resource "alicloud_cs_kubernetes_node_pool" "pool" {
  cluster_id = "c1f801474ea46417d8e83cc482******"

  data_disks {
    category          = "cloud_essd"
    encrypted         = "false"
    performance_level = "PL0"
    size              = 120
  }

  desired_size          = 1
  image_id              = "win2019_1809_x64_dtc_en-us_40G_container_alibase_20240220.vhd"
  image_type            = "Windows"
  install_cloud_monitor = true
  instance_charge_type  = "PostPaid"
  instance_types        = ["ecs.g8i.xlarge"]
  internet_max_bandwidth_out = 0
  login_as_non_root     = false
  multi_az_policy       = "BALANCE"
  node_pool_name        = "nodepool-8liYZX"
  password              = "**********"
  platform              = "WindowsServer2019"
  resource_group_id     = "rg-acfmvnjn2*****"
  runtime_name          = "containerd"
  runtime_version       = "2.1.5"

  scaling_config {
    enable      = false
    is_bond_eip = false
  }

  security_hardening_os         = false
  soc_enabled                   = false
  system_disk_category          = "cloud_essd"
  system_disk_encrypted         = false
  system_disk_performance_level = "PL0"
  system_disk_size              = 40

  tee_config {
    tee_enable = false
  }

  unschedulable = false

  vswitch_ids = [
    "vsw-2ze9k65q3wn23wy*****",
    "vsw-2zekovpspoxgn44*****",
    "vsw-2ze54z91jw267e1*****"
  ]
}