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Installing sidero

Planning

I would suggest you read most of the Sidero docs Sidero, as well as some of the Talos Introduction Docs before getting started. Familiarity with these will be important, the below is more of a fleshed out version of my docs and isn't intended to replace the real thing - especially as there will be drift.

Hardware considerations

As Sidero runs in its own k8s cluster, you need to have an always on second cluster to run. Sidero really only needs 4GB of RAM and is very light on CPU - making a SBC like the Raspberry Pi 4 4GB a perfect option for home use. A small PC would also be fine if thats more to your linking.

Ask yourself the following questions:

  • How may masters/workers for my cluster.
  • CPU arcitecture - will I use strinctly AMD64 or will I have some ARM64 SBC's?
  • Will I replace flannel CNI with another?
  • Will I use a VIP for HA control plane?

Refer to Sidero documentation on Raspi-4 servers

Info here created with reference to Sidero docs - Always read their latest docs!

Ref: https://www.sidero.dev/docs/v0.5/guides/rpi4-as-servers/

Software considerations

Refer to Sidero documentation on cli pre-requisites

Ref: https://www.sidero.dev/docs/v0.5/getting-started/prereq-cli-tools/

Grab the binaries specified:

  • kubectl
  • clusterctl
  • talosctl

Tip

talosctl can be used to stand up a local docker cluster. This can be amazing for doing testing on sidero, or just local cluster testing in general. More info here

Warning

Be careful on the verison of clusterctl you use. The latest version may not be the one you need, and may not work with the api versions. Refer to the Sidero Github as they have a compatibility table in the readme.

  • Now to setup dhcp for dual booting. If you do amd64 its not so bad as its one config, but with pi you need to config it to be able to send either arm64 or amd64 binaries. https://www.sidero.dev/docs/v0.4/getting-started/prereq-dhcp/ is the document. I had problems here, and i had to mod my udm-pro's dnsmasq with extra configs that get applied at boot to make it work. Codeblock on this page gives you enough info to mod your config - cant see your router on
  • I used the bootstrapping section a few times to test - https://www.sidero.dev/docs/v0.4/guides/bootstrapping/. Cool use case.

Setup DHCP to serve PXE boot files

Refer to Sidero documentation on DHCP setup

Ref: https://www.sidero.dev/docs/v0.5/getting-started/prereq-dhcp/

This step will be specific to your network

Last update: September 22, 2023