Scripts and automation for creating home lab environments for various Tanzu products
This repository contains PowerShell scripts for automating vSphere infrastructure. See this page for helpful tips: PowerShell Tips
| Environment | Automation |
|---|---|
| TKGm and NSX Advanced Load Balancer | PowerShell script and Tanzu Service Installer |
| TKGs and NSX Advanced Load Balancer | PowerShell script and Tanzu Service Installer |
| TCE on vSphere | N/A |
My home lab is a single physical host. Some flavors of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) require a minimum of three hosts. For this and other reasons, my preferred method of installing TKG is with a nested environment. This has the added benefit of being easy to recreate - I can easily delete a nested environment and start over again if something goes horribly wrong.
Networking is another issue - as it always is. Some of the flavors of TKG require L2 isolation between networks. I manage this with VLANs configured in an Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X. My home lab is isolated from the rest of my home network behind the EdgeRouter. There are other approaches out there that don't require VLANs (usually involving the creation of router VMs). In my case it seems simpler to do VLANs - but you need a router then can support them. For around $60, the EdgeRouterX is a simple solution.
Configuring VLANs can be confusing. Here's a good video showing a simple setup for EdgeOS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j6RiovCFz0
In the EdgeRouter and vCenter, I have configured several utility VLANs that can be used by the various nested environments. One important thing is to configure the vCenter port groups to accept promiscuous mode and forged transmits.
| VLAN | CIDR | DHCP Range | vCenter Port Group | Intended Use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 132 | 192.168.132.1/24 | N/A | vm-network-132 | TKGm Workload Data Network |
| 133 | 192.168.133.1/24 | 192.168.133.10-128 | vm-network-133 | TKGm Management Network (DHCP) |
| 134 | 192.168.134.1/24 | 192.168.134.10-128 | vm-network-134 | TKGm Workload Network (DHCP) |
| 135 | 192.168.135.1/24 | N/A | vm-network-135 | TKGm Management Data Network |
| 136 | 192.168.136.1/24 | N/A | vm-network-136 | TKGm NSX ALB Management Network |
| 137 | 192.168.137.1/24 | N/A | vm-network-137 | TKGm VIP Network Range |
| 138 | 192.168.138.1/24 | N/A | vm-network-138 | TKGs Management Network |
| 139 | 192.168.139.1/24 | N/A | vm-network-138 | TKGs Workload and VIP Network |
| 140 | 192.168.140.1/24 | 192.168.140.10-128 | vm-network-140 | Network for TCE |
The PowerShell scripts in this repository are based on scripts originally published by William Lam here: https://github.com/lamw/vsphere-with-tanzu-nsx-advanced-lb-automated-lab-deployment