View resources on multiple clusters in Tanzu Developer Portal

You can configure Tanzu Developer Portal (formerly called Tanzu Application Platform GUI) to retrieve Kubernetes object details from multiple clusters and then surface those details in the various Tanzu Application Platform GUI plug-ins.

Important
In this topic the terms Build, Run, and View describe the cluster’s roles and distinguish which steps to apply to which cluster.

Build clusters are where the code is built and packaged, ready to be run.

Run clusters are where the Tanzu Application Platform workloads themselves run.

View clusters are where the Tanzu Developer Portal is run from.

In multicluster configurations, these can be separate clusters. However, in many configurations these can also be the same cluster.

Set up a Service Account to view resources on a cluster

To view resources on the Build or Run clusters, create a service account on the View cluster that can get, watch, and list resources on those clusters.

You first create a ClusterRole with these rules and a ServiceAccount in its own Namespace, and then bind the ClusterRole to the ServiceAccount. Depending on your topology, not every cluster has all of the following objects. For example, the Build cluster doesn’t have any of the serving.knative.dev objects, by design, because it doesn’t run the workloads themselves. You can edit the following object lists to reflect your topology.

To set up a Service Account to view resources on a cluster:

Copy this YAML content into a file called tap-gui-viewer-service-account-rbac.yaml.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: tap-gui
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  namespace: tap-gui
  name: tap-gui-viewer
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: tap-gui-read-k8s
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
  namespace: tap-gui
  name: tap-gui-viewer
roleRef:
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: k8s-reader
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: k8s-reader
rules:
- apiGroups: ['']
  resources: ['pods', 'pods/log', 'services', 'configmaps', 'limitranges']
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['metrics.k8s.io']
  resources: ['pods']
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['apps']
  resources: ['deployments', 'replicasets', 'statefulsets', 'daemonsets']
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['autoscaling']
  resources: ['horizontalpodautoscalers']
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['networking.k8s.io']
  resources: ['ingresses']
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['networking.internal.knative.dev']
  resources: ['serverlessservices']
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: [ 'autoscaling.internal.knative.dev' ]
  resources: [ 'podautoscalers' ]
  verbs: [ 'get', 'watch', 'list' ]
- apiGroups: ['serving.knative.dev']
  resources:
  - configurations
  - revisions
  - routes
  - services
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['carto.run']
  resources:
  - clusterconfigtemplates
  - clusterdeliveries
  - clusterdeploymenttemplates
  - clusterimagetemplates
  - clusterruntemplates
  - clustersourcetemplates
  - clustersupplychains
  - clustertemplates
  - deliverables
  - runnables
  - workloads
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['source.toolkit.fluxcd.io']
  resources:
  - gitrepositories
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['source.apps.tanzu.vmware.com']
  resources:
  - imagerepositories
  - mavenartifacts
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['conventions.apps.tanzu.vmware.com']
  resources:
  - podintents
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['kpack.io']
  resources:
  - images
  - builds
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['scanning.apps.tanzu.vmware.com']
  resources:
  - sourcescans
  - imagescans
  - scanpolicies
  - scantemplates
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['app-scanning.apps.tanzu.vmware.com']
  resources:
  - imagevulnerabilityscans
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['tekton.dev']
  resources:
  - taskruns
  - pipelineruns
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['kappctrl.k14s.io']
  resources:
  - apps
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: [ 'batch' ]
  resources: [ 'jobs', 'cronjobs' ]
  verbs: [ 'get', 'watch', 'list' ]
- apiGroups: ['conventions.carto.run']
  resources:
  - podintents
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: ['appliveview.apps.tanzu.vmware.com']
  resources:
  - resourceinspectiongrants
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list', 'create']
- apiGroups: ['apiextensions.k8s.io']
  resources: ['customresourcedefinitions']
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
- apiGroups: [data.packaging.carvel.dev]
  resources: [packages]
  verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']

This YAML content creates Namespace, ServiceAccount, ClusterRole, and ClusterRoleBinding.

On the Build and Run clusters, create Namespace, ServiceAccount, ClusterRole, and ClusterRoleBinding by running:
```
kubectl create -f tap-gui-viewer-service-account-rbac.yaml
```

Again, on the Build and Run clusters, discover the CLUSTER_URL and CLUSTER_TOKEN values.

v1.23 or earlier Kubernetes cluster

If you’re watching a v1.23 or earlier Kubernetes cluster, run:

CLUSTER_URL=$(kubectl config view --minify -o jsonpath='{.clusters[0].cluster.server}')

CLUSTER_TOKEN=$(kubectl -n tap-gui get secret $(kubectl -n tap-gui get sa tap-gui-viewer -o=json \
| jq -r '.secrets[0].name') -o=json \
| jq -r '.data["token"]' \
| base64 --decode)

echo CLUSTER_URL: $CLUSTER_URL
echo CLUSTER_TOKEN: $CLUSTER_TOKEN

v1.24 or later Kubernetes cluster

If you’re watching a v1.24 or later Kubernetes cluster, run:

CLUSTER_URL=$(kubectl config view --minify -o jsonpath='{.clusters[0].cluster.server}')

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: tap-gui-viewer
  namespace: tap-gui
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/service-account.name: tap-gui-viewer
type: kubernetes.io/service-account-token
EOF

CLUSTER_TOKEN=$(kubectl -n tap-gui get secret tap-gui-viewer -o=json \
| jq -r '.data["token"]' \
| base64 --decode)

echo CLUSTER_URL: $CLUSTER_URL
echo CLUSTER_TOKEN: $CLUSTER_TOKEN

Note
You can create a short-lived token with the kubectl create token command if that is the preferred method. This method requires frequent token rotation.

(Optional) Configure the Kubernetes client to verify the TLS certificates presented by a cluster’s API server. To do this, discover CLUSTER_CA_CERTIFICATES by running:
```
CLUSTER_CA_CERTIFICATES=$(kubectl config view --raw -o jsonpath='{.clusters[?(@.name=="CLUSTER-NAME")].cluster.certificate-authority-data}')

echo CLUSTER_CA_CERTIFICATES: $CLUSTER_CA_CERTIFICATES
```
Where CLUSTER-NAME is your cluster name.
Record the Build and Run clusters’ CLUSTER_URL and CLUSTER_TOKEN values for when you Update Tanzu Developer Portal to view resources on multiple clusters later.

Update Tanzu Developer Portal to view resources on multiple clusters

The clusters must be identified to Tanzu Developer Portal with the ServiceAccount token and the cluster Kubernetes control plane URL.

You must add a kubernetes section to the app_config section in the tap-values.yaml file that Tanzu Application Platform used when you installed it. This section must have an entry for each Build and Run cluster that has resources to view.

To do so:

Copy this YAML content into tap-values.yaml:

tap_gui:
## Previous configuration above
  app_config:
    kubernetes:
      serviceLocatorMethod:
        type: 'multiTenant'
      clusterLocatorMethods:
        - type: 'config'
          clusters:
          ## Cluster 1
            - url: CLUSTER-URL
              name: CLUSTER-NAME
              authProvider: serviceAccount
              serviceAccountToken: "CLUSTER-TOKEN"
              skipTLSVerify: true
              skipMetricsLookup: true
          ## Cluster 2+
            - url: CLUSTER-URL
              name: CLUSTER-NAME
              authProvider: serviceAccount
              serviceAccountToken: "CLUSTER-TOKEN"
              skipTLSVerify: true
              skipMetricsLookup: true

Where:

CLUSTER-URL is the value you discovered earlier.
CLUSTER-TOKEN is the value you discovered earlier.
CLUSTER-NAME is a unique name of your choice.

If there are resources to view on the View cluster that hosts Tanzu Developer Portal, add an entry to clusters for it as well.

If you would like the Kubernetes client to verify the TLS certificates presented by a cluster’s API server, set the following properties for the cluster:

skipTLSVerify: false
caData: CLUSTER-CA-CERTIFICATES

Where CLUSTER-CA-CERTIFICATES is the value you discovered earlier.

Update the tap package by running this command:

tanzu package installed update tap -n tap-install --values-file tap-values.yaml

Wait a moment for the tap and tap-gui packages to update and then verify that STATUS is Reconcile succeeded by running:
```
tanzu package installed get all -n tap-install
```

View resources on multiple clusters in the Runtime Resources Visibility plug-in

To view resources on multiple clusters in the Runtime Resources Visibility plug-in:

Go to the Runtime Resources Visibility plug-in for a component that is running on multiple clusters.
View the multiple resources and their statuses across the clusters.