is there an option when running the installer (kernel command line or otherwise) to add the node to an existing cluster as a controlplane node. instead of just a worker node. say when adding as a second or third node

IIRC, the configuration of nodes will be: • 1-node cluster: 1 control plane node • 2-node cluster: 1 control plane node and 1 worker node • 3-node cluster: 3 control plane nodes • 4-node and above: 3 control plane nodes (fixed) and 1+ worker node

3 node is 1 control plan 2 workers, we wanted it to be 3 control/worker I think

If you install the first node with

create

mode and the latter 2 nodes with

join

mode, they will form a cluster with 3 control/worker nodes. If that’s not the case for your environment, could you please provide us a support bundle file? We want to look into it.

do control plane nodes also operate as worker nodes? I want to make sure when we go from three nodes (one labeled as control plane, meaning two worker nodes) to four nodes (three control plane nodes, one worker node) that we don't loose compute resources.

All control plane nodes can run workloads. And those three nodes should have

<http://node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane|node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane>: "true"

labels.