Working With the Windows Machine

The Windows Node is installed and managed by the Machine Config Operator. In this module you’ll explore the MachineSet as it pertains to the Windows Node.

Windows MachineSet

The Windows Node was installed using a MachineSet.

oc get machinesets -n openshift-machine-api | grep windows
cluster-lax-e35b-tmk54-windows-us-east-2a   1         1         1       1           46h

Go ahead and take a look at the details

oc get machinesets -n openshift-machine-api cluster-lax-e35b-tmk54-windows-us-east-2a -o yaml

This is the same format as a RHCOS MachineSet. Take a look at the machine it creates.

oc get machines -n openshift-machine-api  -l machine.openshift.io/os-id=Windows
NAME                                              PHASE     TYPE        REGION      ZONE         AGE
cluster-lax-e35b-tmk54-windows-us-east-2a-nzqdq   Running   m5a.large   us-east-2   us-east-2a   47h

This will correspond to a node on the platform.

oc get nodes -l kubernetes.io/os=windows
NAME                         STATUS   ROLES    AGE   VERSION
ip-10-0-138-9.ec2.internal   Ready    worker   31m   v1.21.1-1398+98073871f173ba

Note, that this node has a taint on it, so you need to keep that in mind when trying to deploy workloads on the Windows Node.

oc describe node ip-10-0-138-9.ec2.internal | grep -i Taint
Taints:             os=Windows:NoSchedule

You can scale this node like ANY other node! Via the MachineSet.

oc scale machineset cluster-lax-e35b-tmk54-windows-us-east-2a --replicas=2 -n openshift-machine-api

This creates another Windows machine

oc get machines -n openshift-machine-api  -l machine.openshift.io/os-id=Windows
NAME                                              PHASE         TYPE        REGION      ZONE         AGE
cluster-lax-e35b-tmk54-windows-us-east-2a-nclvp   Provisioned   m5a.large   us-east-2   us-east-2a   38s
cluster-lax-e35b-tmk54-windows-us-east-2a-nzqdq   Running       m5a.large   us-east-2   us-east-2a   47h

Adding a node can take some time (up to 10 min). So keep a watch on this

watch "oc get nodes -l kubernetes.io/os=windows"

Another thing you can do is (in another window) watch the WMCO logs with the following command:

oc logs deploy/windows-machine-config-operator -n openshift-windows-machine-config-operator -f

After a while you should have two Windows nodes

oc get nodes -l kubernetes.io/os=windows
NAME                           STATUS   ROLES    AGE     VERSION
ip-10-0-130-249.ec2.internal   Ready    worker   4m56s   v1.21.1-1398+98073871f173ba
ip-10-0-138-9.ec2.internal     Ready    worker   46m     v1.21.1-1398+98073871f173ba

Delete a node the same way, by scaling it down.

oc scale machineset cluster-lax-e35b-tmk54-windows-us-east-2a --replicas=1 -n openshift-machine-api

MachineSet Config

Please take a look at the YAML used for the MachineSet. Take a look at this config.

oc get machineset cluster-lax-e35b-tmk54-windows-us-east-2a -n openshift-machine-api -o yaml

For more information on how this is formatted, consult the [official documentation](https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/latest/windows_containers/creating_windows_machinesets/creating-windows-machineset-aws.html)