Generate and Apply Cluster Configuration

Talos nodes are configured entirely with declarative YAML files. Run talosctl gen config on your workstation to generate the machine configurations:

export CLUSTER_NAME=<cluster_name>
export DISK_NAME=<control_plane_disk_name>

talosctl gen config --install-disk=/dev/$DISK_NAME $CLUSTER_NAME https://$CONTROL_PLANE_IP:6443

• CLUSTER_NAME is the name of your cluster, e.g., k8s-talos-demo.
• DISK_NAME is the disk you identified in Prepare Talos Node (typically vda).
• CONTROL_PLANE_IP is the maintenance environment IP address you exported in Prepare Talos Node.

This produces three files in the current directory:

• controlplane.yaml - machine configuration for the control plane node.
• worker.yaml - machine configuration for the worker node(s).
• talosconfig - client configuration that lets talosctl authenticate to the cluster.

For additional flags (for example, configuring a CNI plugin, an external load balancer, or the cluster DNS), see the talosctl gen config reference in the Talos documentation.

Apply Machine Configuration

With the node still in its unconfigured (maintenance) state, apply the generated configuration:

talosctl apply-config --insecure --nodes $CONTROL_PLANE_IP --file controlplane.yaml

Once the configuration is applied, Talos begins the installation to the disk you specified and restarts out of the RAM environment. Give it a few minutes; the Talos node will reboot and come back up as an installed Talos system. Check instance state through the Pextra web interface or the console as the nodes reboot.