CommC: a Multi-Purpose COMModity Hardware Cluster

Installation Instructions

Prepare nodes:

1. Install Proxmox VE following this guide
2. Copy the contents of this repository
3. Run the initialization script: ./init.sh

Create Prxomox cluster:

1. Follow this guide to create and join the cluster

Create VMs to be used as PCs

1. Use Proxmox'x web UI to create a VM with specs of your liking.
2. Select vmbr0 as the bridge of the virtual NIC you want to have internet access.
3. Within the VM, make sure to set a static IP in the range of 192.168.7.[2-254]/24 (Gateway: 192.168.7.1) for the aforementioned NIC.
4. Create a user for the VM using the web UI (Datacenter->Permissions->Users)
5. Assign the user to the VM using the web UI (VM->Permissions). For simple users, it is advised to use the role PVEVMUser
6. The user can now access their VM via the web UI or by double-clicking the StartOS icon found in every node's desktop

Create a Kubernetes cluster

1. Create an SDN for the cluster using the web UI (Datacenter->SDN->Zones). Select VXLAN as Type and 1450 for the MTU. Make sure to fill in all the IP addresses of the physical nodes in the Peer Address List (comma separated).
2. On every node you want to participate in the cluster create a VM with two virtual NICs and select vmbr0 as bridge for net0 and the SDN you created in step 1 for net1.
3. Install Ubuntu Server (any modern version) as the guest OS.
4. Copy the directory k8s-node-vm in all the newly created VMs.
5. Run microk8s_init.sh with sudo privileges on every node. For a minimal setup run: ./mimicrok8s_init.sh {node_no} {your_email} 0 0 0 0. Note that {node_no} is an integer in the range 1-32.
6. Follow this guide to add all the nodes in a single K8s cluster.