Node image

This page describes the node operating system (node OS) image that runs on Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for VMware cluster nodes.

For version 1.35 and later, cluster nodes run ubuntu_cgv2 by default. For version 1.34 and earlier, cluster nodes run ubuntu_containerd by default. The image is similar to Google Kubernetes Engine's Ubuntu node image.

Google Distributed Cloud node pools also support Container-Optimized OS (cos_cgv2 or cos). Container-Optimized OS on Google Distributed Cloud supports kdump for debugging kernel issues.

As of version 1.35, Kubernetes no longer supports cgroup v1, and Google Distributed Cloud no longer supports the ubuntu_containerd and cos OS image types. To learn how to migrate your cluster nodes to cgroup v2 images (ubuntu_cgv2 and cos_cgv2), see Migrate to cgroup v2.

Google Distributed Cloud offers the following node image options for your cluster:

Kubernetes version

New Google Distributed Cloud versions sometimes introduce a new Kubernetes version for clusters. Version changes are announced in Release notes. To learn which Kubernetes version your cluster runs, see Versions.

Preinstalled tools

• The node OS has the following tools preinstalled: arping cloud-utils, conntrack, logrotate, prips, and systemd-container.
• The node OS has the debug-toolbox container image preinstalled. debug-toolbox includes several packages for debugging node issues. You run an accompanying shell script, toolbox, to unpack and run the debug-toolbox container. Learn about the toolbox script.

Networking

As of version 1.1.0-gke.6, the node OS default networking configuration is disabled to support static IP allocation.

Security

See node security.