Azure Linux Container Host for AKS Clusters¶

In late May 2023, Microsoft announced General Availability of Azure Linux Container Host. This is based on the "CBL Mariner" OSS project maintained by Microsoft.

It is an operating system image that is optimized for running container workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
The OS image is maintained by Microsoft and based on Microsoft Azure Linux, an open-source Linux distribution created by Microsoft.
It is lightweight, containing only the packages needed to run container workloads.
It is hardened based on validation tests and is compatible with Azure agents.

Azure Linux Container Host for AKS and Rafay¶

Existing AKS Clusters¶

Customers can add new node pools based on Azure Linux Container Host to their existing AKS clusters provisioned and managed by Rafay.

New AKS Clusters¶

Customers can provision new AKS clusters where both system and user node pools are based on Azure Linux Container Host.

Add Azure Linux based Node Pool¶

Customers that wish to add a node pool based on Azure Linux Container Host can do this in Rafay via a declarative cluster specification for AKS. Just add a node pool by adding the following YAML to your existing cluster specification for AKS clusters.

nodePools:
      - apiVersion: "2022-07-01"
        location: centralindia
        name: primary
        properties:
          count: 1
          enableAutoScaling: true
          maxCount: 1
          maxPods: 110
          minCount: 1
          mode: System
          orchestratorVersion: 1.24.9
          osSKU: AzureLinux
          type: VirtualMachineScaleSets
          vmSize: Standard_B4ms
        type: Microsoft.ContainerService/managedClusters/agentPools

View Node Details¶

Once a node pool based on Azure Linux Container Host has been added to an AKS cluster, users can explore details about nodes using the Cluster Dashboard on the Rafay Console. An example of the node details are shown below highlighting the references to the "Azure Linux Container Host"

Node based on Azure Linux Container Host

Describe Node¶

Here is an example showing the references to Azure Linux Container Host when an administrator attempts to using kubectl to describe a node.

Kubectl Describe Node

Important

At the time of this blog, nodes based on Azure Linux Container Host are displayed as **CBL-Mariner/Linux", the name of the OSS project

Blog Ideas¶

Sincere thanks to readers of our blog who spend time reading our product blogs. This blog was authored because we had many customers that asked us about Azure Linux Container Host. Please Contact the Rafay Product Team if you would like us to write about other topics.