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:

   Zip

   $ 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:

   $ kubectl label namespace istio-system istio-injection=enabled
   $ 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:

   $ GITHUB_URL=https://github.com/kubernetes/dashboard/releases
   $ VERSION_KUBE_DASHBOARD=$(curl -w '%{url_effective}' -I -L -s -S ${GITHUB_URL}/latest -o /dev/null | sed -e 's|.*/||')
   $ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/${VERSION_KUBE_DASHBOARD}/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml
   

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" ...