Set up Palette with VMware

In this guide, you will learn how to set up Palette for use with your VMware user account. These steps are required in order to authenticate Palette and allow it to deploy host clusters.

Prerequisites

• A Palette account with tenant admin access.

• A VMware vSphere user account with the required permissions.

Enablement

Palette needs access to your VMware user account in order to create and manage VMware resources.

Create a Palette API Key

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.

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 optional 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.

Validate

You can verify your Palette API key is added.

1. Log in to Palette.

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. Verify the API key is listed in the table with the correct user name and expiration date.

Next Steps

Now that you set up Palette for use with VMware vSphere, you can start deploying a Private Cloud Gateway (PCG), which is the bridge between Palette and your private infrastructure environment.

To learn how to get started with deploying Kubernetes clusters to VMware virtual machines, we recommend that you continue to the Deploy a PCG with Palette CLI tutorial.