Cluster Administration [page]deterministic

The cluster administration overview is for anyone creating or administering a Kubernetes cluster. It assumes some familiarity with core Kubernetes [concepts](/docs/concepts/).

## Planning a cluster

See the guides in [Setup](/docs/setup/) for examples of how to plan, set up, and configure Kubernetes clusters. The solutions listed in this article are called *distros*.

> Note: Not all distros are actively maintained. Choose distros which have been tested with a recent version of Kubernetes.

Before choosing a guide, here are some considerations:

• Do you want to try out Kubernetes on your computer, or do you want to build a high-availability, multi-node cluster? Choose distros best suited for your needs.
• Will you be using a hosted Kubernetes cluster, such as [Google Kubernetes Engine](https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/), or hosting your own cluster?
• Will your cluster be on-premises, or in the cloud (IaaS)? Kubernetes does not directly support hybrid clusters. Instead, you can set up multiple clusters.
• If you are configuring Kubernetes on-premises, consider which [networking model](/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/networking/) fits best.
• Will you be running Kubernetes on "bare metal" hardware or on virtual machines (VMs)?
• Do you want to run a cluster, or do you expect to do active development of Kubernetes project code? If the latter, choose an actively-developed distro. Some distros only use binary releases, but offer a greater variety of choices.
• Familiarize yourself with the [components](/docs/concepts/overview/components/) needed to run a cluster.

## Managing a cluster

* Learn how to [manage nodes](/docs/concepts/architecture/nodes/). * Read about [Node autoscaling](/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/node-autoscaling/).

* Learn how to set up and manage the [resource quota](/docs/concepts/policy/resource-quotas/) for shared clusters.

## Securing a cluster

* [Generate Certificates](/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/certificates/) describes the steps to generate certificates using different tool chains.

* [Kubernetes Container Environment](/docs/concepts/containers/container-environment/) describes the environment for Kubelet managed containers on a Kubernetes node.

* [Controlling Access to the Kubernetes API](/docs/concepts/security/controlling-access) describes how Kubernetes implements access control for its own API.

* [Authenticating](/docs/reference/access-authn-authz/authentication/) explains authentication in Kubernetes, including the various authentication options.

* [Authorization](/docs/reference/access-authn-authz/authorization/) is separate from authentication, and controls how HTTP calls are handled.

* [Using Admission Controllers](/docs/reference/access-authn-authz/admission-controllers/) explains plug-ins which intercepts requests to the Kubernetes API server after authentication and authorization.

* [Admission Webhook Good Practices](/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/admission-webhooks-good-practices/) provides good practices and considerations when designing mutating admission webhooks and validating admission webhooks.

* [Using Sysctls in a Kubernetes Cluster](/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/sysctl-cluster/) describes to an administrator how to use the `sysctl` command-line tool to set kernel parameters .

* [Auditing](/docs/tasks/debug/debug-cluster/audit/) describes how to interact with Kubernetes' audit logs.

### Securing the kubelet

* [Control Plane-Node communication](/docs/concepts/architecture/control-plane-node-communication/) * [TLS bootstrapping](/docs/reference/access-authn-authz/kubelet-tls-bootstrapping/) * [Kubelet authentication/authorization](/docs/reference/access-authn-authz/kubelet-authn-authz/)

## Optional Cluster Services

* [DNS Integration](/docs/concepts/services-networking/dns-pod-service/) describes how to resolve a DNS name directly to a Kubernetes service …(trimmed)