Connect your AKS Edge Essentials cluster to Arc

This article describes how to connect your AKS Edge Essentials cluster to Azure Arc so that you can monitor the health of your cluster on the Azure portal. If your cluster is connected to a proxy, you can use the scripts provided in the GitHub repo to connect your cluster to Arc as described here.

Prerequisites

• You need an Azure subscription with either the Owner role or a combination of Contributor and User Access Administrator roles. You can check your access level by navigating to your subscription on the Azure portal, selecting Access control (IAM) on the left-hand side of the Azure portal, and then selecting View my access. See the Azure documentation for more information about managing resource groups.
• Enable all required resource providers in the Azure subscription, such as Microsoft.HybridCompute, Microsoft.GuestConfiguration, Microsoft.HybridConnectivity, Microsoft.Kubernetes, Microsoft.ExtendedLocation, and Microsoft.KubernetesConfiguration.
• Create and verify a resource group for AKS Edge Essentials Azure resources.

Note

You need the Contributor role to be able to delete the resources within the resource group. Commands to disconnect from Arc will fail without this role assignment.

Step 1: configure your machine

Install dependencies

Run the following commands in an elevated PowerShell window to install the dependencies in PowerShell:

Install-Module Az.Resources -Repository PSGallery -Force -AllowClobber -ErrorAction Stop  
Install-Module Az.Accounts -Repository PSGallery -Force -AllowClobber -ErrorAction Stop 
Install-Module Az.ConnectedKubernetes -Repository PSGallery -Force -AllowClobber -ErrorAction Stop  

Step 2: configure your Azure environment

Provide details of your Azure subscription in the aksedge-config.json file under the Arc section as described in the following table. To successfully connect to Azure using Azure Arc-enabled kubernetes, you need a service principal with the built-in Microsoft.Kubernetes connected cluster role in order to access resources on Azure. If you already have the service principal ID and password, you can update all the fields in the aksedge-config.json file. If you need to create a service principal, you can follow the steps here.

Attribute	Value type	Description
ClusterName	string	Provide a name for your cluster. The default value is hostname_cluster.
Location	string	The location of your resource group. Choose the location closest to your deployment.
SubscriptionId	GUID	Your subscription ID. In the Azure portal, select the subscription you're using and copy/paste the subscription ID string into the JSON.
TenantId	GUID	Your tenant ID. In the Azure portal, search Microsoft Entra ID, which should take you to the Default Directory page. From here, you can copy/paste the tenant ID string into the JSON.
ResourceGroupName	string	The name of the Azure resource group to host your Azure resources for AKS Edge Essentials. You can use an existing resource group, or if you add a new name, the system creates one for you.
ClientId	GUID	Provide the application ID of the Azure service principal to use as credentials. AKS Edge Essentials uses this service principal to connect your cluster to Arc. You can use the App Registrations page in the Microsoft Entra resource page on the Azure portal, to list and manage the service principals in a tenant. Be aware that the service principal requires the Kubernetes Cluster - Azure Arc Onboarding role at either the subscription or resource group level. For more information, see Microsoft Entra identity requirements for service principals.
ClientSecret	string	Provide the password for the service principal.

Note

You only need to perform this configuration once per Azure subscription. You don't need to repeat the procedure for each Kubernetes cluster.

Step 3: connect your cluster to Arc

Run Connect-AksEdgeArc to install and connect the existing cluster to Arc-enabled Kubernetes:

# Connect Arc-enabled kubernetes
Connect-AksEdgeArc -JsonConfigFilePath .\aksedge-config.json

Note

This step can take up to 10 minutes and PowerShell may become stuck on Establishing Azure Connected Kubernetes for your cluster name. PowerShell outputs True and returns to the prompt when the process is complete.

Step 4: view AKS Edge Essentials resources in Azure

1. Once the process is complete, you can view your cluster in the Azure portal if you navigate to your resource group:

   

2. On the left panel, select the Namespaces option, under Kubernetes resources (preview):

   

3. To view your Kubernetes resources, you need a bearer token.

   

4. You can also run Get-AksEdgeManagedServiceToken to retrieve your service token.

   

5. Now you can view resources on your cluster. The Workloads option shows the pods running in your cluster.

   kubectl get pods --all-namespaces
   

   

Disconnect from Arc

Run Disconnect-AksEdgeArc to disconnect from the Arc-enabled Kubernetes.

# Disconnect Arc-enabled kubernetes
Disconnect-AksEdgeArc -JsonConfigFilePath .\aksedge-config.json

Next steps

• Overview
• Connect host machine to Arc
• Uninstall AKS cluster