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Getting Started

This guide will walk you through the process of installing and configuring the talos-operator.

Installation

You can install the talos-operator using Helm:

helm repo add talos-operator https://alperencelik.github.io/helm-charts/ 
helm install talos-operator talos-operator/talos-operator

Features

  • Decoupled Design: The operator is designed to decouple a Kubernetes cluster in two parts: the control plane and the worker nodes. This allows you to manage the control plane and worker nodes independently, which is useful different purposes. You can create control planes without any worker nodes, and vice versa. You can design many scenarious with this decoupled design, such as control plane as a service, or control plane as a pod in Kubernetes, or even more. To learn more please see the examples/ directory.
  • Installation Modes: The operator supports two installation modes: container and metal. The container mode allows you to run Talos clusters inside Kubernetes pods(like Kubernetes-in-Kubernetes), while the metal mode allows you to run Talos clusters on bare metal or virtual machines. This gives you flexibility in how you want to deploy and manage your Talos clusters. Metal mode requires you to have machines already booted with Talos OS(in maintenance mode) and the operator will configure those machines to cluster based on the configuration you provide in the CRDs.

  • Ease of Usage && Flexibility: The operator is designed to be easy to use and flexible. You can create Talos clusters using simple Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) and the operator will take care of the rest. Operator will generate all those configurations and write them in to ConfigMaps and Secrets to provide a way to users to integrate. Even though the operator is managing the all config generations and operations, you can still provide the configuration you want to use in the CRDs. This allows you to customize the Talos clusters according to your needs and make them work with your specific requirements.

  • Integratibility: The operator is designed to be easily integratable with other Kubernetes operators and tools. Since the operator generates a Kubeconfig for the created Talos clusters, you can use that data to feed into other tools or operators such as ArgoCD, FluxCD or any other custom Kubernetes invocation. This allows you to use the operator in your existing Kubernetes workflows and tools.

Next Steps

To get started with the talos-operator, follow these steps:

  • Install the operator
    Follow the installation instructions above to deploy the talos-operator in your Kubernetes cluster.

  • Create a Talos resource
    Define a TalosCluster or TalosControlPlane resource in your cluster. You can start with the examples in the examples/ directory.

  • Monitor the operator and resources You can monitor the operator logs to see the progress of the Talos cluster creation and management. You can use kubectl logs -f to follow the logs. Alternatively, you can see the status of the Talos objects you created using kubectl get talosclusters or kubectl get taloscontrolplanes

  • Access the Talos cluster The operator generates a kubeconfig and stores it (base64-encoded) in a Secret named <talos-cluster-name>-kubeconfig. You can retrieve it using:

kubectl get secret <talos-cluster-name>-kubeconfig -o jsonpath='{.data.kubeconfig}' | base64 --decode
  • Getting the Talosconfig The operator also generates a TalosConfig and stores it in a Secret named <talos-cluster-name>-talosconfig. You can retrieve it using:
kubectl get configmap <talos-cluster-name>-talosconfig -o jsonpath='{.data.talosconfig}' | base64 --decode