How to Install a Kubernetes Cluster

Getting Started

Kubernetes cluster setup can be a tricky task to complete. Most people use a single cluster setup with minicube on a local server in a learning environment. When it comes to production-grade installation and configuration, things get more complicated and most organizations get help from IT Giants to have managed Kubernetes clusters but all come with a cost and not a neglectable one. I wanted to share my thoughts on how to set up a production-grade Kubernetes cluster in a lab environment for learning purposes.

I am not trying to cover all aspects of a production K8s cluster installation and configuration as I am also learning while I am writing the post :) I will just share my thoughts on how it should look like and I am more than happy to hear your feedback.

We can summarize K8s cluster installation into 6 steps. I would like to go deeper with all the steps in the upcoming posts and will automate each step by writing Ansible roles.

1. Prerequisites (firewalls, selinux, swap space, etc)

2. Installing container runtime interface

3. Installing kubeadm, kubelet and kubectl

4. Initialize master server

5. Installing Container network interface

6. Joining worker and other control plain nodes

As you can see above, we can have multiple selections for each step as we have more than one CRI and CNI providers. I will mention how to structure each step and give freedom to users with Ansible roles in the upcoming posts series. Finally, I will wrap up the discussion by providing an example play to install and configure a Kubernetes cluster from scratch.