Set up Palette with Azure

In this guide, you will learn how to set up Palette for use with your Azure cloud account. These steps are required in order to authenticate Palette and allow it to deploy host clusters. The concepts you learn about in the Getting Started section are centered around a fictional case study company, Spacetastic Ltd.

🧑‍🚀 Back at Spacetastic HQ

The Spacetastic team decide to look for an external solution that can help them scale and manage their Kubernetes services. Partnering with a team of Kubernetes experts allows them to focus on expanding their astronomy education platform, instead of spending countless hours migrating and rehosting their services. They identify the following list of benefits that their new platform should provide.

• Simplified Kubernetes cluster deployment processes across cloud providers.
• Cluster maintenance and security patching across environments.
• Monitoring and observability of Kubernetes workloads.

"I have so many ideas for new features for our backlog." says Anya, Lead Astrophycist. "Our community of space explorers want to keep learning, so we shouldn't slow down our implementation cycle. We need to keep expanding our astronomy education product."

Kai nods knowingly. As a Platform Engineer, they agree with Anya's concerns. "I've done some research on Kubernetes orchestration solutions. It seems that Palette has all the capabilities we need to help us grow."

"I agree with both of you, but I want to review the developer experience in detail before we agree to implement a new solution in production." says Wren, whose main concern as Founding Engineer is to ensure development velocity does not decrease. "Let's reach out to Spectro Cloud to create an account. Then, we can make an informed decision after we complete their Getting Started tutorials."

Prerequisites

• A Palette account with tenant admin access.

• Sign up to a public cloud account from Azure. The Azure cloud account must have the required permissions.

• Access to a terminal window.

• The utility ssh-keygen or similar SSH key generator software.

Enablement

Palette needs access to your Azure cloud account in order to create and manage Azure clusters and resources.

Add Azure Cloud Account

Use the following steps to add an Azure or Azure Government account in Palette or Palette VerteX.

1. Log in to Palette or Palette VerteX as a tenant admin.

2. From the left Main Menu, select Tenant Settings.

3. Next, select Cloud Accounts in the Tenant Settings Menu.

4. Locate Azure, and click + Add Azure Account.

5. Fill out the following information, and click Confirm to complete the registration.

Basic Information	Description
Account Name	A custom account name.
Tenant ID	Unique tenant ID from Azure Management Portal.
Client ID	Unique client ID from Azure Management Portal.
Client Secret	Azure secret for authentication. Refer to Microsoft's reference guide for creating a Client Secret.
Cloud	Select Azure Public Cloud or Azure US Government.
Tenant Name	An optional tenant name.
Disable Properties	This option prevents Palette and VerteX from creating Azure Virtual Networks (VNets) and other network resources on your behalf for static placement deployments. If you enable this option, all users must manually specify a pre-existing VNet, subnets, and security groups when creating clusters.
Connect Private Cloud Gateway	Select this option to connect to a Private Cloud Gateway (PCG) if you have a PCG deployed in your environment. Refer to the PCG Architecture page to learn more about a PCG.

6. After providing the required values, click the Validate button. If the client secret you provided is correct, a Credentials validated success message with a green check is displayed.

7. Click Confirm to complete the registration.

Create and Upload an SSH Key

Follow the steps below to create an SSH key using the terminal and upload it to Palette. This step is not required for the Cluster Management with Terraform tutorial.

1. Open the terminal on your computer.

2. Check for existing SSH keys by invoking the following command.

   
   

    ls -la ~/.ssh

   If you see files named id_rsa and id_rsa.pub, you already have an SSH key pair and can skip to step 8. If not, proceed to step 3.

3. Generate a new SSH key pair by issuing the following command.

   
   

   ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"

   Replace your_email@example.com with your actual email address.

4. Press Enter to accept the default file location for the key pair.

5. Enter a passphrase (optional) and confirm it. We recommend using a strong passphrase for added security.

6. Copy the public SSH key value. Use the cat command to display the public key.

   
   

   cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

   Copy the entire key, including the ssh-rsa prefix and your email address at the end.

7. Log in to Palette.

8. Navigate to the left Main Menu, select Project Settings, and then the SSH Keys tab.

9. Open the Add New SSH Key tab and complete the Add Key input form:

   • Name: Provide a unique name for the SSH key.

   • SSH Key: Paste the SSH public key contents from the key pair generated earlier.

10. Click Confirm to complete the wizard.

info

You can edit or delete SSH keys later by using the three-dot Menu to the right of each key.

During cluster creation, assign your SSH key to a cluster. You can use multiple keys to a project, but only one key can be assigned to an individual cluster.

Create a Palette API Key

Follow the steps below to create a Palette API key. This is required for the Cluster Management with Terraform tutorial.

1. Log in to Palette as a tenant admin.

2. Switch to the Tenant Admin scope

3. Navigate to the left Main Menu and select Tenant Settings.

4. From the Tenant Settings Menu, select API Keys.

5. Click on Add New API key.

6. Fill out the following input fields:

Input Field	Description
API Key Name	Assign a name to the API key.
Description	Provide a description for the API key.
User Name	Select the user to assign the API key.
Expiration Date	Select an expiration date from the available options. You can also specify a custom date by selecting Custom.

5. Click the Generate button.

6. Copy the API key and save it in a secure location, such as a password manager. Share the API key with the user you created the API key for.

warning

Ensure you save the API key in a secure location. You will not be able to view the API key again.

Validate

You can verify your account is added.

1. Log in to Palette.

2. From the left Main Menu, select Tenant Settings.

3. Next, on the Tenant Settings Menu, select Cloud Accounts.

4. The added cloud account is listed under Azure with all other available Azure cloud accounts.

Next Steps

Now that you set up Palette for use with Azure, you can start deploying Kubernetes clusters to your Azure account. To learn how to get started with deploying Kubernetes clusters to Azure, we recommend that you continue to the Create a Cluster Profile tutorial to create a full cluster profile for your host cluster.

🧑‍🚀 Catch up with Spacetastic

After following the detailed Palette setup instructions, the Spacetastic team have added their cloud accounts on the Palette dashboard. They are ready to learn about Palette.

"The Spectro Cloud team has provided our Palette accounts" says Kai. "I have followed their setup guide and have added our cloud accounts. I can already tell at a first glance that they offer many Kubernetes customization features."

Wren joins Kai in looking at the Palette dashboard. "I'm interested to learn more, but I never believe in magic solutions. We should review their Getting Started material in detail to ensure that Palette is a good fit for us."