Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Autopilot

You can now install the Prisma Cloud DaemonSet Defender on your GKE Autopilot cluster. GKE Autopilot clusters use COS (Container-Optimized OS) with Containerd nodes, therefore the DaemonSet must be configured with Containerd. Defenders deployed on GKE Autopilot clusters only support the official Prisma Cloud registry, and you cannot use a custom registry. The DaemonSet image must adhere to the following regex to ensure it comes from the official repository:

^registry-auth\\.twistlock\\.com/.*/twistlock/defender.*.

To ensure a successful deployment, do not modify the volume mounts or capabilities from the YAML generated. Any changes may cause issues with GCP allow list and deployment in GKE Autopilot.

Prerequisites

GKE Autopilot does not natively support DaemonSet scaling. In case of resource exhaustion or insufficient resources, Defender pods may not start. To mitigate this, consider configuring a PriorityClass to prioritize Defender pods. Here are the steps for mitigation:

1. Create a PriorityClass YAML to prioritize the Defender pods:

   apiVersion: scheduling.k8s.io/v1
   kind: PriorityClass
   metadata:
     name: pcc-defender-ds
   value: 1000000000
   globalDefault: false
   description: "Deploy defender daemonset"

   Apply it to your cluster:

   kubectl apply -f pc.yaml

2. Reference the PriorityClass in the DaemonSet YAML under /spec/template/spec:

   priorityClassName: pcc-defender-ds

This will prioritize the Defender pods over other workloads in the cluster.

Here are the steps to deploy the Prisma Cloud DaemonSet Defender on a Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Autopilot.

Deploy Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Autopilot.

Here are the steps to deploy the Prisma Cloud DaemonSet Defender on a Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Autopilot.

1. Review the prerequisites and the procedure in the Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and the Install Prisma Cloud on a CRI (non-Docker) cluster sections.
2. Use the following twistcli command to generate the YAML file for the GKE Autopilot deployment.

      $ <PLATFORM>/twistcli defender export kubernetes \
       --gke-autopilot \
       --container-runtime containerd \
       --cluster-address <console address> \
       --address https://<console address>:443

   • The --gke autopilot flag adds the ’autopilot.gke.io/no-connect: "true"’ `annotation to the YAML file.
   • The --container-runtime containerd flag ensures compatibility with GKE Autopilot clusters by using the Container-Optimized OS with the containerd node image (instead of Docker). This also removes the /var/lib/containers mount, which is not required for GKE Autopilot.

If you are on Prisma Cloud console, from Runtime Security > Manage > Defenders > Deployed Defenders > Manual deploy ensure that the orchestrator type is Kubernetes, select the Container Runtime type as Containerd and from Advanced Settings enable GKE Autopilot deployment.

1. Create the twistlock namespace on your cluster by running the following command:

   $ kubectl create namespace twistlock

2. Deploy the updated YAML or the Helm chart on your GKE Autopilot cluster.
3. Verify that the Defenders are deployed.

After a few minutes, verify that the Defenders are deployed. You should observe the nodes and running containers in the Console, confirming that Prisma Cloud Compute is now protecting your cluster.