k3d

k3d is a lightweight wrapper to run k3s (Rancher Lab’s minimal Kubernetes distribution) in docker. k3d makes it very easy to create single- and multi-node k3s clusters in docker, e.g. for local development on Kubernetes.

Prerequisites

  • To use k3d, you will also need to install docker.
  • Install the latest version of k3d.
  • To interact with the Kubernetes cluster kubectl
  • (Optional) Helm is the package manager for Kubernetes

Installation

  1. Create a cluster and disable Traefik with the following command:

    $ k3d cluster create --api-port 6550 -p '9080:80@loadbalancer' -p '9443:443@loadbalancer' --agents 2 --k3s-arg '--disable=traefik@server:*'
    
  2. To see the list of k3d clusters, use the following command:

    $ k3d cluster list
    k3s-default
    
  3. To list the local Kubernetes contexts, use the following command.

    $ kubectl config get-contexts
    CURRENT   NAME                 CLUSTER              AUTHINFO             NAMESPACE
    *         k3d-k3s-default      k3d-k3s-default      k3d-k3s-default
    
  4. If you run multiple clusters, you need to choose which cluster kubectl talks to. You can set a default cluster for kubectl by setting the current context in the Kubernetes kubeconfig file. Additionally you can run following command to set the current context for kubectl.

    $ kubectl config use-context k3d-k3s-default
    Switched to context "k3d-k3s-default".
    

Set up Istio for k3d

  1. Once you are done setting up a k3d cluster, you can proceed to install Istio with Helm 3 on it.

    $ kubectl create namespace istio-system
    $ helm install istio-base istio/base -n istio-system --wait
    $ helm install istiod istio/istiod -n istio-system --wait
    
  2. (Optional) Install an ingress gateway:

    $ helm install istio-ingressgateway istio/gateway -n istio-system --wait
    

Set up Dashboard UI for k3d

k3d does not have a built-in Dashboard UI like minikube. But you can still set up Dashboard, a web based Kubernetes UI, to view your cluster. Follow these instructions to set up Dashboard for k3d.

  1. To deploy Dashboard, run the following command:

    $ helm repo add kubernetes-dashboard https://kubernetes.github.io/dashboard/
    $ helm upgrade --install kubernetes-dashboard kubernetes-dashboard/kubernetes-dashboard --create-namespace --namespace kubernetes-dashboard
    
  2. Verify that Dashboard is deployed and running.

    $ kubectl get pod -n kubernetes-dashboard
    NAME                                         READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
    dashboard-metrics-scraper-8c47d4b5d-dd2ks    1/1     Running   0          25s
    kubernetes-dashboard-67bd8fc546-4xfmm        1/1     Running   0          25s
    
  3. Create a ServiceAccount and ClusterRoleBinding to provide admin access to the newly created cluster.

    $ kubectl create serviceaccount -n kubernetes-dashboard admin-user
    $ kubectl create clusterrolebinding -n kubernetes-dashboard admin-user --clusterrole cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kubernetes-dashboard:admin-user
    
  4. To log in to your Dashboard, you need a Bearer Token. Use the following command to store the token in a variable.

    $ token=$(kubectl -n kubernetes-dashboard create token admin-user)
    

    Display the token using the echo command and copy it to use for logging in to your Dashboard.

    $ echo $token
    
  5. You can access your Dashboard using the kubectl command-line tool by running the following command:

    $ kubectl proxy
    Starting to serve on 127.0.0.1:8001
    

    Click Kubernetes Dashboard to view your deployments and services.

Uninstall

  1. When you are done experimenting and you want to delete the existing cluster, use the following command:

    $ k3d cluster delete k3s-default
    Deleting cluster "k3s-default" ...
    
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