k3d

k3d is a lightweight wrapper to run k3s⁵ (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 docker⁶.
• Install the latest version of k3d.
• To interact with the Kubernetes cluster kubectl
• (Optional) Helm⁷ 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 kubeconfig⁸ 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 3⁹ 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 Dashboard¹⁰ 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" ...