Prepare an existing Kubernetes cluster

You can use your existing Kubernetes cluster as the foundation to take advantage of Mission Control features. If you don’t bring your own Kubernetes cluster, you must create one on bare-metal/VM.

Installing Mission Control into your environment includes an upgrade to the installation on a control plane Kubernetes cluster, and then, if required, on one or more data plane Kubernetes clusters. Online or offline instructions are available.

Installing a data plane requires a separate cluster that is already running in control plane mode.

Provision a Kubernetes cluster

Depending on your environment, you can provision a Kubernetes cluster either through a cloud console or through internal processes and APIs. Here is a list of many common Kubernetes services available:

Ensure that all database pods can route to each other. This is a critical requirement for proper operation and data consistency.

The requirement applies to:

All database pods within the same region or availability zone
All database pods across different availability zones within the same region
All database pods across different regions for multi-region deployments
All database pods across different racks in the same datacenter for multi-region deployments

To achieve this:

Configure proper network policies and firewall rules to allow worker to worker and pod-to-pod communication.
Set up routing tables, container network interfaces, or peering networks.
Implement network overlay solutions like Submariner or Cilium
Verify that the network infrastructure supports the required pod-to-pod connectivity.

Failure to establish proper pod-to-pod routing results in:

Connectivity issues between database pods
Cluster instability
Data consistency issues
Failed replication

Node groups

To install Mission Control, opt for either:

homogeneous: Hardware where all instances are of the same specifications.
heterogeneous: Where different pools of hosts are provisioned based on their expected workloads.

See your cloud provider documentation for heterogeneous hosts:

Prerequisites

You must have the following installed:

Helm CLI v3.6.0 or later.
Kubernetes 1.21.0 or later.

For more information about supported versions, see Supported platforms.

Required Kubernetes privileges

To install Mission Control, you need cluster administrator privileges because the installation process must:

Create and manage Kubernetes roles and cluster roles
Create and configure namespaces
Create Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs)
Deploy resources across the cluster

If you don’t have cluster administrator privileges, you have two options:

Install Mission Control on a dedicated Kubernetes cluster. DataStax recommends this option as it provides better isolation and control.
Request installation assistance from your cluster administrators. This is a common approach in production environments where users don’t have the necessary permissions for initial setup.

While you need cluster administrator privileges for installation, Mission Control itself creates and manages the necessary resources. Once installed, you can manage your namespaces and pods with standard Kubernetes user permissions.

Label worker nodes

Categorize worker nodes in the Kubernetes cluster based on their intended workloads as platform or database workers.

Platform workers host Mission Control components, whereas database workers are where DataStax Enterprise (DSE), Hyper-Converged Database (HCD), and Apache Cassandra® pods are scheduled.

Assign the appropriate role to each worker node:

kubectl label nodes NODE_NAME mission-control.datastax.com/role=platform

kubectl label nodes NODE_NAME mission-control.datastax.com/role=database

Replace NODE_NAME with the name of your node.

If you do not label at least one node with the platform role, some Mission Control components might not run because Kubernetes will not schedule the pods.

Install Mission Control dependencies

Before you install Mission Control, you must install the following dependencies:

KOTS is not required for Helm installations.

Install Cert Manager

Mission Control uses Cert Manager to handle the issuance and automation of TLS certificates, making it a prerequisite for Mission Control’s installation.

Before installing Mission Control, you must install Cert Manager and KOTS.

You cannot specify a custom release name or custom namespace name. Any name other than cert-manager will result in a The deployment "cert-manager" was not found error in the KOTS admin console. You can skip this check if you have cert-manager installed in a different namespace.

Install Cert Manager by running these Helm CLI tool commands:

helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io --force-update
helm repo update
helm install \
  cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
  --namespace cert-manager \
  --create-namespace \
  --version v1.16.1 \
  --set installCRDs=true

This command creates pods in the cert-manager namespace in your Kubernetes cluster.

Install Kubernetes Off-The-Shelf (KOTS)

To finish setting up Mission Control dependencies, choose the online or offline mode.

Online install
Offline (airgap) install

Prerequisites

Outbound connectivity to the internet.
Kubectl CLI v1.21+.
Kots CLI v1.105+.

KOTS

Mission Control uses KOTS as a user-friendly interface for installing a control plane or a data plane.

Install KOTS by running the following command:
```
kubectl kots install mission-control --namespace NAMESPACE
```
Replace NAMESPACE with the namespace where you want to install KOTS. The default namespace is mission-control.

After you answer the prompts, the program provides port forwarding to access the KOTS web interface.

Important: Record the password value you provide to the prompt, and open the URL that the program returns in your browser. Continue to installation of Mission Control.

If the port forwarding session goes down, restart it:
```
kubectl kots admin-console -n NAMESPACE
```
Replace NAMESPACE with the namespace where you want to install KOTS. The default namespace is mission-control.

This restarts the port forwarding session. To exit, press Control+C.

Next steps

You have prepared your Kubernetes environment for an online or offline Mission Control installation.

Prerequisites

Container Registry
- URL
- Credentials
  - Read / Write
kotsadm.tar.gz airgap bundle
Kubectl CLI
KOTS CLI
Access and authenticate to your KOTS web interface.

KOTS

Install KOTS.

Mission Control uses KOTS as a user-friendly interface for installing a control plane or a data plane.
1. Validate kots kubectl plugin version. Ensure that your kots kubectl plugin version matches the version of KOTS that you are about to install:
  kubectl kots version
  Ensure that the displayed version number matches the version string in the filename for kotsadm.tar.gz.
2. Load KOTS container images by running the following command (with substitutions):
  kubectl kots admin-console push-images ./kotsadm.tar.gz REGISTRY_HOST \ --registry-username RW_USERNAME \ --registry-password RW_PASSWORD
  Replace the following:
  - REGISTRY_HOST: The container registry hostname
  - RW_USERNAME: The container registry read / write account username
  - RW_PASSWORD: The container registry read / write account password
3. Install KOTS by running the following command (with substitutions):
  kubectl kots install mission-control \ --kotsadm-registry REGISTRY_HOST \ --kotsadm-namespace mission-control \ --registry-username RO_USERNAME \ --registry-password RO_PASSWORD
  Replace the following:
  - REGISTRY_HOST: The container registry hostname
  - RO_USERNAME: The container registry read only account username
  - RO_PASSWORD: The container registry read only account password

Next steps

After you have prepared your Kubernetes environment, continue with an online or offline installation of Mission Control.

Prepare an existing Kubernetes cluster

Provision a Kubernetes cluster

Node groups

Prerequisites

Required Kubernetes privileges

Label worker nodes

Install Mission Control dependencies

Install Cert Manager

Install Kubernetes Off-The-Shelf (KOTS)

Next steps

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