How do I add a manula droplet as node to a managed Kubernetes cluster?

Hi there,

Short answer: this is not a supported configuration. You cannot add a standalone, self-managed Droplet as a node to a DigitalOcean Managed Kubernetes cluster. Managed clusters only support nodes that are created and managed as part of a node pool.

If you have memory heavy workloads, the supported approach is to add a separate node pool with larger droplet sizes and schedule those pods there using node selectors, affinity, or taints and tolerations.

There is no documented or supported way to manually join an arbitrary droplet to a managed cluster, since the control plane expects to manage the full lifecycle of the nodes.

You can find the supported way to scale and add nodes here: https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/kubernetes/how-to/add-node-pools/

If you really need full control over individual nodes, the alternative would be running your own Kubernetes cluster on droplets, but that comes with more operational overhead.

Heya, @seandesportes

You can’t add a standalone, self-managed Droplet as a node to a DigitalOcean Managed Kubernetes cluster. Managed clusters only allow worker nodes that are created and lifecycle-managed through node pools.

Regards