Cluster Autoscaler for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

Note: this implementation of Cluster Autoscaler is intended for use for both self-managed Kubernetes running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Oracle Container Engine for Kubernetes.

The Cluster Autoscaler automatically resizes a cluster's nodes based on application workload demands by:

adding nodes to static pool(s) when a pod cannot be scheduled in the cluster because of insufficient resource constraints.
removing nodes from pool(s) when the nodes have been underutilized for an extended time, and when pods can be placed on other existing nodes.

The Cluster Autoscaler works on a per-pool basis. You configure the Cluster Autoscaler to tell it which pools to target for expansion and contraction, the minimum and maximum sizes for each pool, and how you want the autoscaling to take place. Pools not referenced in the configuration file are not managed by the Cluster Autoscaler.

When operating a self-managed Kubernetes cluster in OCI, the Cluster Autoscaler utilizes Instance Pools combined with Instance Configurations.

When running with Oracle Container Engine for Kubernetes, the Cluster Autoscaler utilizes Node Pools. More details on using the Cluster Autoscaler with Node Pools here: Using the Kubernetes Cluster Autoscaler.

Create Required OCI Resources

IAM Policy (if using Instance Principals)

We recommend setting up and configuring the Cluster Autoscaler to use Instance Principals to authenticate to the OCI APIs.

The following policy provides the privileges necessary for Cluster Autoscaler to run:

1: Create a compartment-level dynamic group containing the nodes (compute instances) in the cluster:

All {instance.compartment.id = 'ocid1.compartment.oc1..aaaaaaaa7ey4sg3a6b5wnv5hlkjlkjadslkfjalskfjalsadfadsf'}

Note: the matching rule in the dynamic group above includes all instances in the specified compartment. If this is too broad for your requirements, you can add more conditions for example

All {instance.compartment.id = '...', tag.MyTagNamespace.MyNodeRole = 'MyTagValue'}

here MyTagValue is the defined-tag assigned to all nodes where cluster-autoscaler pods will be scheduled (for example, with nodeSeletor). See node-pool or instance-pool and also managing dynamic groups.

2: Create a tenancy-level policy to allow nodes to manage node-pools and/or instance-pools:

# if using node pools
Allow dynamic-group acme-oke-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to manage cluster-node-pools in compartment <compartment-name>
# if using instance pools
Allow dynamic-group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to manage instance-pools in compartment <compartment-name>

Allow dynamic-group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to manage instance-configurations in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow dynamic-group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to manage instance-family in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow dynamic-group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to manage volume-family in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow dynamic-group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to use subnets in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow dynamic-group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to read virtual-network-family in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow dynamic-group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to use vnics in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow dynamic-group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to inspect compartments in compartment <compartment-name>

If using Workload Identity

Note: This is available to use with OKE Node Pools or OCI Managed Instance Pools with OKE Enhanced Clusters only.

See the documentation for more details

When using a mix of nodes, make sure to add proper lables and affinities on the cluster-autoscaler deployment to prevent it from being deployed on non-OCI managed nodes.

Allow any-user to manage cluster-node-pools in compartment <compartment name> where ALL {request.principal.type='workload', request.principal.namespace ='<namespace>', request.principal.service_account = 'cluster-autoscaler', request.principal.cluster_id = 'ocid1.cluster.oc1....'}
Allow any-user to manage instance-family in compartment <compartment name> where ALL {request.principal.type='workload', request.principal.namespace ='<namespace>', request.principal.service_account = 'cluster-autoscaler', request.principal.cluster_id = 'ocid1.cluster.oc1....'}
Allow any-user to use subnets in compartment <compartment name> where ALL {request.principal.type='workload', request.principal.namespace ='<namespace>', request.principal.service_account = 'cluster-autoscaler', request.principal.cluster_id = 'ocid1.cluster.oc1....'}
Allow any-user to read virtual-network-family in compartment <compartment name> where ALL {request.principal.type='workload', request.principal.namespace ='<namespace>', request.principal.service_account = 'cluster-autoscaler', request.principal.cluster_id = 'ocid1.cluster.oc1....'}
Allow any-user to use vnics in compartment <compartment name> where ALL {request.principal.type='workload', request.principal.namespace ='<namespace>', request.principal.service_account = 'cluster-autoscaler', request.principal.cluster_id = 'ocid1.cluster.oc1....'}
Allow any-user to inspect compartments in compartment <compartment name> where ALL {request.principal.type='workload', request.principal.namespace ='<namespace>', request.principal.service_account = 'cluster-autoscaler', request.principal.cluster_id = 'ocid1.cluster.oc1....'}

Instance Pool and Instance Configurations

Before you deploy the Cluster Autoscaler on OCI, your need to create one or more static Instance Pools and Instance Configuration with cloud-init specified in the launch details so new nodes automatically joins the existing cluster on start up.

Advanced Instance Pool and Instance Configuration configuration is out of scope for this document. However, a working instance-details.json and placement-config.json (example based on Rancher RKE) using cloud-init are included in the examples, which can be applied using the OCI CLI.

Modify the user_data in the example instance-details.json to suit your needs, re-base64 encode, apply:

# e.g. cloud-init. Modify, re-encode, and update user_data in instance-details.json to suit your needs:

$ echo IyEvYmluL2Jhc2gKdG91hci9saWIvYXB0L....1yZXRyeSAzIGhG91Y2ggL3RtcC9jbG91ZC1pbml0LWZpbmlzaGVkCg==  | base64 -D

#!/bin/bash
groupadd docker
usermod -aG docker ubuntu
curl --retry 3 https://releases.rancher.com/install-docker/20.10.sh | sh
docker run -d --privileged --restart=unless-stopped --net=host -v /etc/kubernetes:/etc/kubernetes -v /var/run:/var/run rancher/rancher-agent:v2.5.5 --server https://my-rancher.com --token xxxxxx  --worker

$ oci compute-management instance-configuration create --instance-details file://./cluster-autoscaler/cloudprovider/oci/examples/instance-details.json --compartment-id ocid1.compartment.oc1..aaaaaaaa7ey4sg3a6b5wnv5hlkjlkjadslkfjalskfjalsadfadsf --query 'data.id' --raw-output

ocid1.instanceconfiguration.oc1.phx.aaaaaaaa3neul67zb3goz43lybosc2o3fv67gj3zazexbb3vfcbypmpznhtq

$ oci compute-management instance-pool create --compartment-id ocid1.compartment.oc1..aaaaaaaa7ey4sg3a6b5wnv5hlkjlkjadslkfjalskfjalsadfadsf --instance-configuration-id ocid1.instanceconfiguration.oc1.phx.aaaaaaaa3neul67zb3goz43lybosc2o3fv67gj3zazexbb3vfcbypmpznhtq --placement-configurations file://./cluster-autoscaler/cloudprovider/oci/examples/placement-config.json --size 0 --wait-for-state RUNNING --query 'data.id' --raw-output

Action completed. Waiting until the resource has entered state: ('RUNNING',)
ocid1.instancepool.oc1.phx.aaaaaaaayd5bxwrzomzr2b2enchm4mof7uhw7do5hc2afkhks576syikk2ca

Node Pool

There are no required actions to setup node pools besides creating them:

oci ce node-pool create --cluster-id ... --compartment-id, ... --name ... --node-shape ... --size 0 ...

Configure Cluster Autoscaler

Use the --nodes=<min-nodes>:<max-nodes>:<instancepool-ocid> parameter to specify which pre-existing instance pools to target for automatic expansion and contraction, the minimum and maximum sizes for each node pool, and how you want the autoscaling to take place. The current iteration of the Cluster Autoscaler accepts either Instance Pools or Node Pools, but does not accept a mixed set of pool types (yet).

Pools not referenced in the configuration file are not managed by the autoscaler where:

<min-nodes> is the minimum number of nodes allowed in the pool.
<max-nodes> is the maximum number of nodes allowed in the pool. Make sure the maximum number of nodes you specify does not exceed the tenancy limits for the instance shape defined for the pool.
<instancepool-ocid> is the OCIDs of a pre-existing pool.

Optional cloud-config file

Optional cloud-config file mounted in the path specified by --cloud-config.

An example, of passing optional configuration via cloud-config file that uses configures the cluster-autoscaler to use instance-principals authenticating via instance principals and only see configured instance-pools in a single compartment:

[Global]
compartment-id = ocid1.compartment.oc1..aaaaaaaa7ey4sg3a6b5wnv5hlkjlkjadslkfjalskfjalsadfadsf
region = uk-london-1
use-instance-principals = true

Configuration via environment-variables:

OCI_USE_INSTANCE_PRINCIPAL - Whether to use Instance Principals for authentication rather than expecting an OCI config file to be mounted in the container. Defaults to false.
OCI_USE_WORKLOAD_IDENTITY - Whether to use Workload Identity for authentication (Available with node pools and OCI managed nodepools in OKE Enhanced Clusters only). Setting to true takes precedence over OCI_USE_INSTANCE_PRINCIPAL. When using this flag, the OCI_RESOURCE_PRINCIPAL_VERSION (1.1 or 2.2) and OCI_RESOURCE_PRINCIPAL_REGION also need to be set. See this blog post for more details on setting the policies for this auth mode.
OCI_REFRESH_INTERVAL - Optional. Refresh interval to sync internal cache with OCI API. Defaults to 2m.

Instance Pool specific environment-variables

OCI_USE_NON_POOL_MEMBER_ANNOTATION - Optional. If true, the node will be annotated as non-pool-member if it doesn't belong to any instance pool and the time-consuming instance pool lookup will be skipped.

Environment-variables applicable only for Node Pools

n/a

Deployment

Create OCI config secret (only if not using Instance Principals)

If you are opting for a file based OCI configuration (as opposed to instance principals), the OCI config file and private key need to be mounted into the container filesystem using a secret volume.

The following policy is required when the specified is not an administrator to run the cluster-autoscaler:

# if using node pools
Allow group acme-oke-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to manage cluster-node-pools in compartment <compartment-name>
# if using instance pools
Allow group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to manage instance-pools in compartment <compartment-name>

Allow group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-user-grp to manage instance-configurations in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-user-grp to manage instance-family in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow dynamic-group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-dyn-grp to manage volume-family in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-user-grp to use subnets in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-user-grp to read virtual-network-family in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-user-grp to use vnics in compartment <compartment-name>
Allow group acme-oci-cluster-autoscaler-user-grp to inspect compartments in compartment <compartment-name>

Example OCI config file (note key_file is the expected path and filename of the OCI API private-key from the perspective of the container):

$ cat ~/.oci/config

[DEFAULT]
user=ocid1.user.oc1..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
fingerprint=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
key_file=/root/.oci/api_key.pem
tenancy=ocid1.tenancy.oc1..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
pass_phrase=
region=us-phoenix-1

Create the secret (api_key.pem key name is required):

kubectl create secret generic oci-config -n kube-system --from-file=/Users/me/.oci/config --from-file=api_key.pem=/Users/me/.oci/my_api_key.pem

Example Deployment

Two example deployments of the Cluster Autoscaler that manage instancepools are located in the examples directory. oci-ip-cluster-autoscaler-w-principals.yaml uses instance principals, and oci-ip-cluster-autoscaler-w-config.yaml uses file based authentication.

Note the 3 specified instance-pools are intended to correspond to different availability domains in the Phoenix, AZ region:

...
      containers:
        - image: registry.k8s.io/autoscaling/cluster-autoscaler:{{ ca_version }}
          name: cluster-autoscaler
          command:
            - ./cluster-autoscaler
            - --cloud-provider=oci
            - --nodes=1:10:ocid1.instancepool.oc1.phx.aaaaaaaaqdxy35acq32zjfvkybjmvlbdgj6q3m55qkwwctxhsprmz633k62q
            - --nodes=0:10:ocid1.instancepool.oc1.phx.aaaaaaaazldzcu4mi5spz56upbtwnsynz2nk6jvmx7zi4hsta4uggxbulbua
            - --nodes=0:20:ocid1.instancepool.oc1.phx.aaaaaaaal3jhoc32ljsfaeif4x2ssfa2a63oehjgqryiueivieee6yaqbkia

            # if using node pools
            - --nodes=1:10:ocid1.nodepool.oc1.phx.aaaaaaaaqdxy35acq32zjfvkybjmvlbdgj6q3m55qkwwctxhsprmz633k62q
            - --nodes=0:10:ocid1.nodepool.oc1.phx.aaaaaaaazldzcu4mi5spz56upbtwnsynz2nk6jvmx7zi4hsta4uggxbulbua
            - --nodes=0:20:ocid1.nodepool.oc1.phx.aaaaaaaal3jhoc32ljsfaeif4x2ssfa2a63oehjgqryiueivieee6yaqbkia

Instance principal based authentication deployment:

Substitute the OCIDs of your instance pool(s) before applying the deployment:

kubectl apply -f ./cloudprovider/oci/examples/oci-ip-cluster-autoscaler-w-principals.yaml

OCI config file based authentication deployment:

kubectl apply -f ./cloudprovider/oci/examples/oci-ip-cluster-autoscaler-w-config.yaml

OCI with node pool yamls:

# First substitute any values mentioned in the file and then apply
kubectl apply -f ./cloudprovider/oci/examples/oci-nodepool-cluster-autoscaler-w-principals.yaml

Common Notes and Gotchas:

For instance pools, you must configure the instance configuration of new compute instances to join the existing cluster when they start. This can be accomplished with cloud-init / user-data in the instance launch configuration example.
If opting for a file based OCI configuration (as opposed to instance principals), ensure the OCI config and private-key PEM files are mounted into the container filesystem at the expected path. Note the key_file option in the example ~/.oci/config above references a private-key file mounted into container by the example volumeMount
Make sure the maximum number of nodes you specify does not exceed the limit for the pool or the tenancy.
We recommend creating multiple pools with one availability domain specified so new nodes can be created to meet affinity requirements across availability domains.
The Cluster Autoscaler will not automatically remove scaled down (terminated) Node objects from the Kubernetes API without assistance from the OCI Cloud Controller Manager (CCM). If scaled down nodes are lingering in your cluster in the NotReady status, ensure the OCI CCM is installed and running correctly (oci-cloud-controller-manager).
Avoid manually changing pools that are managed by the Cluster Autoscaler. For example, do not add or remove nodes using kubectl, or using the Console (or the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure CLI or API).
--node-group-auto-discovery and --node-autoprovisioning-enabled=true are not supported.
We set a nvidia.com/gpu:NoSchedule taint on nodes in a GPU enabled pools.

Helpful links

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure home
OCI instance configuration documentation
instance principals
OCI Cloud Controller Manager
OCI Container Storage Interface driver
OCI Cluster Autoscaler

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README.md

README.md

Cluster Autoscaler for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

Create Required OCI Resources

IAM Policy (if using Instance Principals)

If using Workload Identity

Instance Pool and Instance Configurations

Node Pool

Configure Cluster Autoscaler

Optional cloud-config file

Configuration via environment-variables:

Instance Pool specific environment-variables

Environment-variables applicable only for Node Pools

Deployment

Create OCI config secret (only if not using Instance Principals)

Example Deployment

Common Notes and Gotchas:

Helpful links

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

Cluster Autoscaler for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

Create Required OCI Resources

IAM Policy (if using Instance Principals)

If using Workload Identity

Instance Pool and Instance Configurations

Node Pool

Configure Cluster Autoscaler

Optional cloud-config file

Configuration via environment-variables:

Instance Pool specific environment-variables

Environment-variables applicable only for Node Pools

Deployment

Create OCI config secret (only if not using Instance Principals)

Example Deployment

Common Notes and Gotchas:

Helpful links