--- title: "Logging in to a Tanzu Community Edition Kubernetes Cluster from a new device" # Title of the blog post. date: 2022-02-01T22:07:18-06:00 # Date of post creation. # lastmod: 2022-02-01T10:58:57-06:00 # Date when last modified description: "The Tanzu Community Edition documentation does a great job of explaining how to authenticate to a newly-deployed cluster at the tail end of the installation steps, but how do you log in from another system once it's set up?" # Description used for search engine. featured: false # Sets if post is a featured post, making appear on the home page side bar. draft: false # Sets whether to render this page. Draft of true will not be rendered. toc: false # Controls if a table of contents should be generated for first-level links automatically. usePageBundles: true # menu: main featureImage: "tanzu.png" # Sets featured image on blog post. # featureImageAlt: 'Description of image' # Alternative text for featured image. # featureImageCap: 'This is the featured image.' # Caption (optional). thumbnail: "tanzu.png" # Sets thumbnail image appearing inside card on homepage. # shareImage: "share.png" # Designate a separate image for social media sharing. codeLineNumbers: false # Override global value for showing of line numbers within code block. categories: VMware tags: - vmware - kubernetes - tanzu comments: true # Disable comment if false. --- When I [set up my Tanzu Community Edition environment](/tanzu-community-edition-k8s-homelab/), I did so from a Linux VM since the containerized Linux environment on my Chromebook doesn't support the `kind` bootstrap cluster used for the deployment. But now that the Kubernetes cluster is up and running, I'd like to be able to connect to it directly without the aid of a jumpbox. How do I get the appropriate cluster configuration over to my Chromebook? The Tanzu CLI actually makes that pretty easy - once I figured out the appropriate incantation. I just needed to use the `tanzu management-cluster kubeconfig get` command on my Linux VM to export the `kubeconfig` of my management (`tce-mgmt`) cluster to a file: ```shell tanzu management-cluster kubeconfig get --admin --export-file tce-mgmt-kubeconfig.yaml # [tl! .cmd] ``` I then used `scp` to pull the file from the VM into my local Linux environment, and proceeded to [install `kubectl`](/tanzu-community-edition-k8s-homelab/#kubectl-binary) and the [`tanzu` CLI](/tanzu-community-edition-k8s-homelab/#tanzu-cli) (making sure to also [enable shell auto-completion](/enable-tanzu-cli-auto-completion-bash-zsh/) along the way!). Now I'm ready to import the configuration locally with `tanzu login` on my Chromebook: ```shell tanzu login --kubeconfig ~/projects/tanzu-homelab/tanzu-setup/tce-mgmt-kubeconfig.yaml \ # [tl! .cmd] --context tce-mgmt-admin@tce-mgmt --name tce-mgmt ✔ successfully logged in to management cluster using the kubeconfig tce-mgmt # [tl! .nocopy] ``` {{% notice tip "Use the absolute path" %}} Pass in the full path to the exported kubeconfig file. This will help the Tanzu CLI to load the correct config across future terminal sessions. {{% /notice %}} Even though that's just importing the management cluster it actually grants access to both the management and workload clusters: ```shell tanzu cluster list # [tl! .cmd] NAME NAMESPACE STATUS CONTROLPLANE WORKERS KUBERNETES ROLES PLAN # [tl! .nocopy:2] tce-work default running 1/1 1/1 v1.21.2+vmware.1 dev tanzu cluster get tce-work # [tl! .cmd] NAME NAMESPACE STATUS CONTROLPLANE WORKERS KUBERNETES ROLES # [tl! .nocopy:start] tce-work default running 1/1 1/1 v1.21.2+vmware.1 ℹ Details: NAME READY SEVERITY REASON SINCE MESSAGE /tce-work True 24h ├─ClusterInfrastructure - VSphereCluster/tce-work True 24h ├─ControlPlane - KubeadmControlPlane/tce-work-control-plane True 24h │ └─Machine/tce-work-control-plane-vc2pb True 24h └─Workers └─MachineDeployment/tce-work-md-0 └─Machine/tce-work-md-0-687444b744-crc9q True 24h # [tl! .nocopy:end] tanzu management-cluster get # [tl! .cmd] NAME NAMESPACE STATUS CONTROLPLANE WORKERS KUBERNETES ROLES # [tl! .nocopy:start] tce-mgmt tkg-system running 1/1 1/1 v1.21.2+vmware.1 management Details: NAME READY SEVERITY REASON SINCE MESSAGE /tce-mgmt True 23h ├─ClusterInfrastructure - VSphereCluster/tce-mgmt True 23h ├─ControlPlane - KubeadmControlPlane/tce-mgmt-control-plane True 23h │ └─Machine/tce-mgmt-control-plane-7pwz7 True 23h └─Workers └─MachineDeployment/tce-mgmt-md-0 └─Machine/tce-mgmt-md-0-745b858d44-5llk5 True 23h Providers: NAMESPACE NAME TYPE PROVIDERNAME VERSION WATCHNAMESPACE capi-kubeadm-bootstrap-system bootstrap-kubeadm BootstrapProvider kubeadm v0.3.23 capi-kubeadm-control-plane-system control-plane-kubeadm ControlPlaneProvider kubeadm v0.3.23 capi-system cluster-api CoreProvider cluster-api v0.3.23 capv-system infrastructure-vsphere InfrastructureProvider vsphere v0.7.10 # [tl! .nocopy:end] ``` And I can then tell `kubectl` about the two clusters: ```shell tanzu management-cluster kubeconfig get tce-mgmt --admin # [tl! .cmd] Credentials of cluster 'tce-mgmt' have been saved # [tl! .nocopy:2] You can now access the cluster by running 'kubectl config use-context tce-mgmt-admin@tce-mgmt' tanzu cluster kubeconfig get tce-work --admin # [tl! .cmd] Credentials of cluster 'tce-work' have been saved # [tl! .nocopy:1] You can now access the cluster by running 'kubectl config use-context tce-work-admin@tce-work' ``` And sure enough, there are my contexts: ```shell kubectl config get-contexts # [tl! .cmd] CURRENT NAME CLUSTER AUTHINFO NAMESPACE # [tl! .nocopy:3] tce-mgmt-admin@tce-mgmt tce-mgmt tce-mgmt-admin * tce-work-admin@tce-work tce-work tce-work-admin kubectl get nodes -o wide # [tl! .cmd] NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION INTERNAL-IP EXTERNAL-IP OS-IMAGE KERNEL-VERSION CONTAINER-RUNTIME # [tl! .nocopy:2] tce-work-control-plane-vc2pb Ready control-plane,master 23h v1.21.2+vmware.1 192.168.1.132 192.168.1.132 VMware Photon OS/Linux 4.19.198-1.ph3 containerd://1.4.6 tce-work-md-0-687444b744-crc9q Ready 23h v1.21.2+vmware.1 192.168.1.133 192.168.1.133 VMware Photon OS/Linux 4.19.198-1.ph3 containerd://1.4.6 ``` Perfect, now I can get back to Tanzuing from my Chromebook without having to jump through a VM. (And, [thanks to Tailscale](/secure-networking-made-simple-with-tailscale/), I can even access my TCE resources remotely!)