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Enable Cloud Controller Manager

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As a Cloud Provider, Microsoft Azure works closely with the Kubernetes community to support our infrastructure on behalf of users.

Previously, Cloud provider integration with Kubernetes was "in-tree", where any changes to Cloud specific features would follow the standard Kubernetes release cycle. When issues were fixed or enhancements were rolled out, they would need to be within the Kubernetes community's release cycle.

The Kubernetes community is now adopting an "out-of-tree" model where the Cloud providers will control their releases independently of the core Kubernetes release schedule through the cloud-provider-azure component. As part of this cloud-provider-azure component, we are also introducing a cloud-node-manager component, which is a component of the Kubernetes node lifecycle controller. This component is deployed by a DaemonSet in the kube-system namespace. To view this component, use

kubectl get po -n kube-system | grep cloud-node-manager

We recently rolled out the Cloud Storage Interface (CSI) drivers to be the default in Kubernetes version 1.21 and above.

Note

When enabling Cloud Controller Manager on your AKS cluster, this will also enable the out of tree CSI drivers.

The Cloud Controller Manager is the default controller from Kubernetes 1.22, supported by AKS. If running < v1.22, follow instructions below.

Prerequisites

You must have the following resources installed:

  • The Azure CLI
  • Kubernetes version 1.20.x or above

Install the aks-preview Azure CLI extension

Important

AKS preview features are available on a self-service, opt-in basis. Previews are provided "as is" and "as available," and they're excluded from the service-level agreements and limited warranty. AKS previews are partially covered by customer support on a best-effort basis. As such, these features aren't meant for production use. For more information, see the following support articles:

To install the aks-preview extension, run the following command:

az extension add --name aks-preview

Run the following command to update to the latest version of the extension released:

az extension update --name aks-preview

Register the 'EnableCloudControllerManager' feature flag

Register the EnableCloudControllerManager feature flag by using the az feature register command, as shown in the following example:

az feature register --namespace "Microsoft.ContainerService" --name "EnableCloudControllerManager"

It takes a few minutes for the status to show Registered. Verify the registration status by using the az feature show command:

az feature show --namespace "Microsoft.ContainerService" --name "EnableCloudControllerManager"

When the status reflects Registered, refresh the registration of the Microsoft.ContainerService resource provider by using the az provider register command:

az provider register --namespace Microsoft.ContainerService

Create a new AKS cluster with Cloud Controller Manager with version <1.22

To create a cluster using the Cloud Controller Manager, pass EnableCloudControllerManager=True as a customer header to the Azure API using the Azure CLI.

az group create --name myResourceGroup --location eastus
az aks create -n aks -g myResourceGroup --aks-custom-headers EnableCloudControllerManager=True

Upgrade an AKS cluster to Cloud Controller Manager on an existing cluster with version <1.22

To upgrade a cluster to use the Cloud Controller Manager, pass EnableCloudControllerManager=True as a customer header to the Azure API using the Azure CLI.

az aks upgrade -n aks -g myResourceGroup -k <version> --aks-custom-headers EnableCloudControllerManager=True

Next steps

  • For more information on CSI drivers, and the default behavior for Kubernetes versions above 1.21, please see our documentation.

  • You can find more information about the Kubernetes community direction regarding Out of Tree providers on the community blog post.