Google Kubernetes Engine Installation

Prerequisites

0. gcloud CLI installed and configured
1. kubectl with the correct context selected, pointing to the GKE cluster where Luna will be deployed. The cluster name passed to the deploy script must match the GKE cluster name in the active kubectl context; otherwise, the deploy script will exit with an error.
2. Helm: the Kubernetes package manager
3. cmctl: the cert-manager command-line utility
4. An existing zonal or regional GKE Standard cluster (Autopilot is not supported) with at least 2 nodes (required for Luna webhook replica availability).

Step 1 (Optional): Install NVIDIA GPU driver

If you plan to run GPU workloads, install the NVIDIA device plugin:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/container-engine-accelerators/master/nvidia-driver-installer/cos/daemonset-preloaded.yaml

Step 2: Deploy Luna

Luna requires cert-manager to be installed/running in the cluster.
The deploy script will detect an existing cert-manager installation and install it into the cert-manager namespace if it is not already present.

For the deploy.sh script, the cluster location must be set to the appropriate zone for a zonal GKE cluster (for example, us-central1-a) or to the region for a regional GKE cluster (for example, us-central1).

By default, the script will use the namespace "elotl" and the release name "elotl-luna" for deployment. However, you can override these defaults using the --namespace and --helm-release-name options, respectively.

Luna requires Workload Identity to be enabled on the cluster and the specified node pool.
If Workload Identity is not enabled, the deployment script will prompt for confirmation to enable it during deployment. Alternatively, you can use the --enable-workload-identity option to enable it automatically.

Luna provisions and manages only the nodes it creates. Existing nodes in the cluster are not modified or removed.

You can then run the following command to deploy Luna into your GKE cluster:

./deploy.sh --name <cluster-name> \
  --project <project-id> \
  (--zone <compute-zone> or --region <compute-region>) \
  --node-pool <node-pool> \
  [--helm-release-name <release-name>] \
  [--namespace <namespace>] \
  [--enable-workload-identity] \
  [--additional-helm-values "<additional-helm-values>"]

This command generates:

• <gke-cluster-name>_values.yaml
• <gke-cluster-name>_<helm-release-name>_values_full.yaml

These files are useful to retain as a reference or backup for future upgrades.

Step 3: Verify Luna installation

Run:

kubectl get all -n elotl

Sample Output

NAME                                READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/luna-manager-5d8578565d-86jwc   1/1     Running   0          56s
pod/luna-webhook-58b7b5dcfb-dwpcb   1/1     Running   0          56s
pod/luna-webhook-58b7b5dcfb-xmlds   1/1     Running   0          56s

NAME                   TYPE        CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)    AGE
service/luna-webhook   ClusterIP   x.x.x.x          <none>        8443/TCP   57s

NAME                           READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/luna-manager   1/1     1            1           57s
deployment.apps/luna-webhook   2/2     2            2           57s

NAME                                      DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/luna-manager-5d8578565d   1         1         1       57s
replicaset.apps/luna-webhook-58b7b5dcfb   2         2         2       57s

Step 4: Test Luna functionality

Follow the tutorial to validate the value provided by Luna.

Step 5: Observe pod placement and node scaling

While testing, observe pod scheduling, dynamic node creation, and removal:

kubectl get pods --selector=elotl-luna=true -o wide -w
kubectl get nodes -w

Upgrade

When running the upgrade command described below, set <retained-values-file> to: <retained-path>/<cluster-name>_<helm_release_name>_values_full.yaml

To upgrade an existing Luna deployment, run:

helm upgrade elotl-luna <chart-path> --wait --namespace=<cluster-namespace> --values=<retained-values-file> <additional-helm-values(optional)>

For example, to upgrade my-cluster from luna-v1.5.1 to luna-v1.5.2 and set an additional helm value binPackingNodeCpu=2, run:

helm upgrade elotl-luna ./elotl-luna-v1.5.2.tgz --wait --namespace=elotl --values=../../luna-v1.5.2/gke/my-cluster_values.yaml --set binPackingNodeCpu=2

And validate the upgrade as follows:

helm ls -A
NAME              NAMESPACE        REVISION        UPDATED                                     STATUS          CHART                    APP VERSION
elotl-luna        elotl            4               2026-01-14 14:15:30.686251 -0700 PDT        deployed        elotl-luna-v1.5.2       v1.5.2

Cleanup

Warning

Uninstalling Luna without first removing the pods Luna placed on Luna-managed nodes may result in orphaned nodes.

We recommend deleting all pods running on Luna-managed nodes before uninstalling Luna to avoid leaving orphaned nodes behind.

To remove Luna manager’s Helm chart run the following:

helm uninstall elotl-luna --namespace=elotl
kubectl delete namespace elotl

If Luna is uninstalled before all Luna-allocated nodes have been scaled down and removed, finalizers may remain on those nodes and prevent deletion. If this occurs, follow the finalizer cleanup instructions

If Luna created a node pool that was not removed before Luna was uninstalled, you may want to delete it manually.

For example:

gcloud container node-pools delete <luna-node-pool-name> \
  (--zone <zone> or --region <region>) \
  --cluster <cluster-name>