virtuallypotato/content/posts/2022/logging-in-tce-cluster-from-new-device/index.md

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---
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.
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usePageBundles: true
# menu: main
featureImage: "tanzu.png" # Sets featured image on blog post.
# featureImageAlt: 'Description of image' # Alternative text for featured image.
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series: Tips
tags:
- vmware
- kubernetes
- tanzu
comment: 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
```
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 --context tce-mgmt-admin@tce-mgmt --name tce-mgmt
✔ successfully logged in to management cluster using the kubeconfig tce-mgmt
```
{{% 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
NAME NAMESPACE STATUS CONTROLPLANE WORKERS KUBERNETES ROLES PLAN
tce-work default running 1/1 1/1 v1.21.2+vmware.1 <none> dev
tanzu cluster get tce-work
NAME NAMESPACE STATUS CONTROLPLANE WORKERS KUBERNETES ROLES
tce-work default running 1/1 1/1 v1.21.2+vmware.1 <none>
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
tanzu management-cluster get
NAME NAMESPACE STATUS CONTROLPLANE WORKERS KUBERNETES ROLES
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
```
And I can then tell `kubectl` about the two clusters:
```shell
tanzu management-cluster kubeconfig get tce-mgmt --admin
Credentials of cluster 'tce-mgmt' have been saved
You can now access the cluster by running 'kubectl config use-context tce-mgmt-admin@tce-mgmt'
tanzu cluster kubeconfig get tce-work --admin
Credentials of cluster 'tce-work' have been saved
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
CURRENT NAME CLUSTER AUTHINFO NAMESPACE
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
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION INTERNAL-IP EXTERNAL-IP OS-IMAGE KERNEL-VERSION CONTAINER-RUNTIME
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 <none> 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!)