Install Calico networking and network policy for on-premises deployments

Install Calico networking and network policy for on-premises deployments

Big picture

Install Calico to provide both networking and network policy for self-managed on-premises deployments.

Value

Calico networking and network policy are a powerful choice for a CaaS implementation. If you have the networking infrastructure and resources to manage Kubernetes on-premises, installing the full Calico product provides the most customization and control.

Concepts

Calico operator

Calico is installed by an operator which manages the installation, upgrade, and general lifecycle of a Calico cluster. The operator is installed directly on the cluster as a Deployment, and is configured through one or more custom Kubernetes API resources.

Calico manifests

Calico can also be installed using raw manifests as an alternative to the operator. The manifests contain the necessary resources for installing Calico on each node in your Kubernetes cluster. Using manifests is not recommended as they cannot automatically manage the lifecycle of the Calico as the operator does. However, manifests may be useful for clusters that require highly specific modifications to the underlying Kubernetes resources.

Before you begin…

Ensure that your Kubernetes cluster meets requirements. If you do not have a cluster, see Installing kubeadm.

How to

Install Calico

Install Calico

Operator
Manifest

First, install the operator on your cluster.

kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.25.0/manifests/tigera-operator.yaml

Download the custom resources necessary to configure Calico
```
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.25.0/manifests/custom-resources.yaml -O
```
If you wish to customize the Calico install, customize the downloaded custom-resources.yaml manifest locally.
Create the manifest in order to install Calico.
```
kubectl create -f custom-resources.yaml
```

Policy	IPAM	CNI	Overlay	Routing	Datastore

Based on your datastore and number of nodes, select a link below to install Calico.

note

The option, Kubernetes API datastore, more than 50 nodes provides scaling using Typha daemon. Typha is not included for etcd because etcd already handles many clients so using Typha is redundant and not recommended.

Install Calico with Kubernetes API datastore, 50 nodes or less
Install Calico with Kubernetes API datastore, more than 50 nodes
Install Calico with etcd datastore

Install Calico with Kubernetes API datastore, 50 nodes or less

Download the Calico networking manifest for the Kubernetes API datastore.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.25.0/manifests/calico.yaml -O

If you are using pod CIDR 192.168.0.0/16, skip to the next step. If you are using a different pod CIDR with kubeadm, no changes are required - Calico will automatically detect the CIDR based on the running configuration. For other platforms, make sure you uncomment the CALICO_IPV4POOL_CIDR variable in the manifest and set it to the same value as your chosen pod CIDR.
Customize the manifest as necessary.
Apply the manifest using the following command.
```
kubectl apply -f calico.yaml
```

The geeky details of what you get:

Policy	IPAM	CNI	Overlay	Routing	Datastore

Install Calico with Kubernetes API datastore, more than 50 nodes

Download the Calico networking manifest for the Kubernetes API datastore.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.25.0/manifests/calico-typha.yaml -o calico.yaml

If you are using pod CIDR 192.168.0.0/16, skip to the next step. If you are using a different pod CIDR with kubeadm, no changes are required - Calico will automatically detect the CIDR based on the running configuration. For other platforms, make sure you uncomment the CALICO_IPV4POOL_CIDR variable in the manifest and set it to the same value as your chosen pod CIDR.
Modify the replica count to the desired number in the Deployment named, calico-typha.
```
apiVersion: apps/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: calico-typha
  ...
spec:
  ...
  replicas: <number of replicas>
```
We recommend at least one replica for every 200 nodes, and no more than 20 replicas. In production, we recommend a minimum of three replicas to reduce the impact of rolling upgrades and failures. The number of replicas should always be less than the number of nodes, otherwise rolling upgrades will stall. In addition, Typha only helps with scale if there are fewer Typha instances than there are nodes.

note

If you set typha_service_name and set the Typha deployment replica count to 0, Felix will not start.
Customize the manifest if desired.
Apply the manifest.
```
kubectl apply -f calico.yaml
```

The geeky details of what you get:

Policy	IPAM	CNI	Overlay	Routing	Datastore

Install Calico with etcd datastore

note

The etcd database is not recommended for new installs. However, it is an option if you are running Calico as the network plugin for both OpenStack and Kubernetes.

Download the Calico networking manifest for etcd.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.25.0/manifests/calico-etcd.yaml -o calico.yaml

If you are using pod CIDR 192.168.0.0/16, skip to the next step. If you are using a different pod CIDR with kubeadm, no changes are required - Calico will automatically detect the CIDR based on the running configuration. For other platforms, make sure you uncomment the CALICO_IPV4POOL_CIDR variable in the manifest and set it to the same value as your chosen pod CIDR.
In the ConfigMap named, calico-config, set the value of etcd_endpoints to the IP address and port of your etcd server.

note

You can specify more than one etcd_endpoint using commas as delimiters.
Customize the manifest if desired.
Apply the manifest using the following command.
```
kubectl apply -f calico.yaml
```

The geeky details of what you get:

Policy	IPAM	CNI	Overlay	Routing	Datastore

Next steps

Required

Install and configure calicoctl

Recommended - Networking

If you are using the default BGP networking with full-mesh node-to-node peering with no encapsulation, go to Configure BGP peering to get traffic flowing between pods.
If you are unsure about networking options, or want to implement encapsulation (overlay networking), see Determine best networking option.

Recommended - Security

Secure Calico component communications
Secure hosts by installing Calico on hosts
Secure pods with Calico network policy
If you are using Calico with Istio service mesh, get started here: Enable application layer policy