Create a GKE cluster with Ubuntu nodes¶

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is a managed Kubernetes service on Google Cloud that lets you deploy and manage containerized applications. Ubuntu can be used as the base operating system for GKE nodes, giving you a familiar, well-supported foundation for your workloads.

Using Ubuntu for your GKE nodes provides several benefits:

Flexible. Ubuntu can be used across a variety of Kubernetes distributions, so your teams get a standardized experience across multiple clouds, such as Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS).
Secure. Timely updates and patches, building on Ubuntu’s security track record.
Stable. Long-term support with a consistent, predictable lifecycle. Each GKE version ships a customized version of Ubuntu that supports its latest features.
Seamless. A developer-friendly, smooth experience from development to production.

This guide uses the gcloud CLI tool to create a cluster with Ubuntu nodes. To create a cluster from the Google Cloud console instead, refer to the GKE documentation on creating clusters.

Prerequisites¶

Before you begin, make sure that you have:

Installed and initialized the gcloud CLI tool.
Installed kubectl and the gke-gcloud-auth-plugin authentication plugin.
Selected the project you want to work in:
```
gcloud config set project <project-id>
```

Enabled the Kubernetes Engine API for your project:

gcloud services enable container.googleapis.com

Choose a cluster mode¶

GKE offers two modes of operation: Autopilot and Standard. In Autopilot mode, Google manages the infrastructure for you, and you cannot manually select node image types. To explicitly configure and manage Ubuntu nodes, create a Standard cluster, which lets you customize your node pools and specify the UBUNTU_CONTAINERD image type.

Create a cluster with Ubuntu nodes¶

Create a Standard cluster and set the node image type to Ubuntu with containerd using the --image-type flag:

gcloud container clusters create <cluster-name> \
    --image-type UBUNTU_CONTAINERD \
    --zone <zone> \
    --num-nodes <number-of-nodes>

Note

You can substitute --zone <zone> with --region <region> if you are deploying a high-availability regional cluster.

For example, to create a cluster named ubuntu-cluster with three nodes in the us-central1-c zone:

gcloud container clusters create ubuntu-cluster \
    --image-type UBUNTU_CONTAINERD \
    --zone us-central1-c \
    --num-nodes 3

The UBUNTU_CONTAINERD image type corresponds to the “Ubuntu with containerd (ubuntu_containerd)” option in the Google Cloud console.

Use Ubuntu nodes in a specific node pool¶

If you already have an existing cluster, or want only specific node pools to run Ubuntu, create a node pool with the Ubuntu image type:

gcloud container node-pools create <node-pool-name> \
    --cluster <cluster-name> \
    --image-type UBUNTU_CONTAINERD \
    --zone <zone> \
    --num-nodes <number-of-nodes>

Get cluster credentials¶

To interact with your cluster using kubectl, fetch its credentials:

gcloud container clusters get-credentials <cluster-name> --zone <zone>

Verify the node OS image¶

Once the cluster is running, confirm that the nodes are using Ubuntu.

Using kubectl, check the OS-IMAGE column:

kubectl get nodes --output=wide

NAME                                            STATUS   ROLES    AGE   VERSION               INTERNAL-IP    EXTERNAL-IP    OS-IMAGE            KERNEL-VERSION    CONTAINER-RUNTIME
gke-ubuntu-cluster-default-pool-52e0bb17-4032   Ready    <none>   23m   v1.35.6-gke.1127000   x.x.x.x        x.x.x.x        Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS  6.8.0-1055-gke    containerd://2.1.5
gke-ubuntu-cluster-default-pool-52e0bb17-vjw0   Ready    <none>   23m   v1.35.6-gke.1127000   x.x.x.x        x.x.x.x        Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS  6.8.0-1055-gke    containerd://2.1.5
gke-ubuntu-cluster-default-pool-52e0bb17-vjxf   Ready    <none>   23m   v1.35.6-gke.1127000   x.x.x.x        x.x.x.x        Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS  6.8.0-1055-gke    containerd://2.1.5

Alternatively, inspect the image type of a node pool directly via gcloud:

gcloud container node-pools describe <node-pool-name> \
    --cluster <cluster-name> \
    --zone <zone> \
    --format="value(config.imageType)"

The output should return UBUNTU_CONTAINERD.

You now have a GKE cluster running Ubuntu nodes, ready to deploy your containerized applications.