Create multiple IP pools

Understanding multiple IP pools

By default when you install Calico, a single IPv4 pool is created. This IP pool is used for allocating IP addresses to pods and, if needed, tunnels within your cluster.

Sometimes you may want to configure additional IP pools. For example:

• If the IP address space available for pods in your cluster is disjointed.
• You want to assign IP addresses based on cluster topology.

Create multiple IP pools when installing Calico

Operator

You can edit the Installation resource within custom-resources.yaml to include multiple unique IP pools. The following example creates two IP pools assigned to different sets of nodes.

apiVersion: operator.tigera.io/v1
kind: Installation
metadata:
  name: default
spec:
  calicoNetwork:
    ipPools:
    - name: pool-zone-1
      cidr: 192.168.0.0/24
      encapsulation: VXLAN
      nodeSelector: "zone == 'zone-1'"
    - name: pool-zone-2
      cidr: 192.168.1.0/24
      encapsulation: VXLAN
      nodeSelector: "zone == 'zone-2'"

After installing Calico, you can confirm the IP pools were created by using the following command:

kubectl get ippools

Prevent the operator from managing IP pools

In some cases, you may want to disable IP pool management within the operator and instead use calicoctl or kubectl to create and delete IP pools. To do this, you can edit the Installation resource with custom-resources.yaml to specify an empty list of IP pools.

apiVersion: operator.tigera.io/v1
kind: Installation
metadata:
  name: default
spec:
  calicoNetwork:
    ipPools: []

With this configuration, the operator will wait for you to create IP pools before installing Calico components.

Manifest

When using manifests to install Calico, you can use calicoctl to manage multiple IP pools. For complete control, you can disable creation of the default IP pool before doing so.

1. Disable the default IP pool by adding the following environment variable to the calico-node DaemonSet in calico.yaml.

   env:
   - name: NO_DEFAULT_POOLS
      value: "true"

2. Then, install calico.yaml.

3. Create the desired IP pools. For example, the following commands create two IP pools assigned to different sets of nodes.

   calicoctl create -f -<<EOF
   apiVersion: projectcalico.org/v3
   kind: IPPool
   metadata:
     name: pool-zone-1
   spec:
     cidr: 192.168.0.0/24
     vxlanMode: Always
     natOutgoing: true
     nodeSelector: zone == "zone-1"
   EOF

   calicoctl create -f -<<EOF
   apiVersion: projectcalico.org/v3
   kind: IPPool
   metadata:
     name: pool-zone-2
   spec:
     cidr: 192.168.1.0/24
     vxlanMode: Always
     natOutgoing: true
     nodeSelector: zone == "zone-2"
   EOF