Running calicoctl on Windows results in error: Failed to create Calico API client: invalid configuration: no configuration has been provided

Question

I'm using k3d with calico, and trying to use calicoctl to set a network policy. I am able to get this working on Ubuntu, but on Windows it doesn't. To set it up I did the following:

# Download Calico YAML
# DOWNLOAD: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rancher/k3d/main/docs/usage/guides/calico.yaml

# Create k3d cluster
k3d cluster create "dev" --k3s-server-arg '--flannel-backend=none' --volume "$(pwd)/calico.yaml:/var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/manifests/calico.yaml

# Download Windows version
# DOWNLOAD: https://github.com/projectcalico/calicoctl/releases/download/v3.18.2/calicoctl-windows-amd64.exe 
 
# Make an Alias
Set-Alias -Name calicoctl -Value ".\calicoctl-windows-amd64.exe"

When I then tried running to apply a NetWorkPolicy with calicoctl apply -f my-policy.yaml and I get the error:

Failed to create Calico API client: invalid configuration: no configuration has been provided, try setting KUBERNETES_MASTER environment variable

So I tried setting that by using my Kubeconfig's values:

# Get the IP/Port from Kubeconfig (Gives https://0.0.0.0:60776)
$kmaster=(kubectl config view -o jsonpath="{.clusters[?(@.name=='k3d-dev')].cluster.server}")

# Set the kubernetes master env variable from what's in kube config
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable(“KUBERNETES_MASTER”, $kmaster, “User”)

That still gives the same error. (Note: the ip from Kubeconfig is "https://0.0.0.0:60776")

So then I tried all the following and none of them work:

set KUBECONFIG=~/.kube/config
SET CALICO_KUBECONFIG=C:\Users\myname\.kube\config
SET KUBE_CONFIG_PATH=C:\Users\myname\.kube\config
$env:KUBERNETES_MASTER=(kubectl config view -o jsonpath="{.clusters[?(@.name=='k3d-dev')].cluster.server}")

How do I get "calicoctl-windows-amd64.exe" to find my Kubernetes cluster?

Answer 1

While the official documentation claims:

1. Calico looks for the config in the default user location ~/.kube/config
2. It will also look at KUBERNETES_MASTER (the error output states this)
3. It will also look at KUBECONFIG

It does NOT! None of the above works on Windows. (On Ubuntu, I did not have to do anything special and it found my config)

The only solution I found was to do the following:

1. Create a config file
2. Pass the config file in every calicoctl call

calico.cfg.yaml

apiVersion: projectcalico.org/v3
kind: CalicoAPIConfig
metadata:
spec:
  datastoreType: "kubernetes"
  kubeconfig: "C:/users/myusername/.kube/config"

NOTE: If you pass "~/.kube/config" it will fail and say it cannot find that path

Calling it now requires:

# NOTICE THE "--config=calico.cfg.yaml"
calicoctl apply -f some-policy.yaml --config=calico.cfg.yaml

I think, judging by the config file working but throwing an error when using "~/.kube/config" as the kubeconfig path, that it is looking in that "default" path but is using a Windows API that does not understand the ~ alias.

Answer 2

I tried the three options mentioned above and I've found that the third option works for me.

Here are the steps I've followed:

1. Define the environment variable KUBECONFIG:

$env:KUBECONFIG="C:\Users\myusername\.kube\config"

2. Call calicoctl as usually. Eg:

calicoctl get ippools

Note: I am using calicoctl version v3.22.0