How to add Windows node while creating cluster using Kubernetes on Google cloud platform?

Question

I have tried creating Kubernetes cluster but all the nodes are linux based OS(Container-Optimized OS (cos) (default) and Ubuntu). I have windows based image stored on docker Hub I need to deploy this app to kubernetes cluster. I am using https://console.cloud.google.com/kubernetes/ to create cluster.

While creating nodes, in setting there are only two options: Container-Optimized OS (cos) (default) and Ubuntu.

Answer 1

I don't think you can run Windows nodes in GKE, even though Kubernetes itself supports Windows nodes (https://kubernetes.io/docs/getting-started-guides/windows/).

In my opinion, the other options you have are:

• Run an on-prem Kubernetes cluster with your Windows licenses (the control plane would still run with Linux, only the nodes would be Windows based)
• Use GCE instead of GKE to run your containers: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/containers/ and https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/how-to-run-windows-containers-on-compute-engine

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Windows is not supported by Google Kubernetes. There is a feature request that you can track: Feature request : Support for Windows Server Containers in GKE

You can launch your own Google Compute VM and run Windows containers. This article provides more information.