Kubernetes Course Labs
Running a Local Kubernetes Cluster
Kubernetes clusters can have hundreds of nodes in production, but you can run a single-node cluster on your laptop and it works in the same way.
We'll also use Git for source control, so you'll need a client on your machine to talk to GitHub.
Git Client - Mac, Windows or Linux
Git is a free, open source tool for source control:
Docker Desktop - Mac or Windows
If you're on macOS or Windows 10/11 Docker Desktop is the easiest way to get Kubernetes:
The download and install takes a few minutes. When it's done, run the Docker app and you'll see the Docker whale logo in your taskbar (Windows) or menu bar (macOS).
On Windows the install may need a restart before you get here.
Right-click that whale and click Settings:
In the settings Windows select Kubernetes from the left menu and click Enable Kubernetes:
Docker downloads all the Kubernetes components and sets them up. That can take a few minutes too. When the Docker logo and the Kubernetes logo in the UI are both green, everything is running.
OR k3d - Linux
On Linux k3d is a lightweight Kubernetes distribution with a good feature set. It runs a whole Kubernetes cluster inside a Docker container :)
You can use k3d on macOS and Windows too - but Docker Desktop is easier.
You need to install Docker, then k3d and then create a cluster:
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rancher/k3d/main/install.sh | bash
k3d cluster create k8s -p "30000-30040:30000-30040@server:0"
This syntax uses the latest k3d command (v5); previous releases used a different syntax so you'll need to upgrade to v5.
OR Kind - Linux
If you're already using Kind, use this setup which is tweaked for the labs:
kind create cluster --name k8s --config setup/kind.yaml
If you're not already using Kind use k3d instead
Check your cluster
Whichever setup you use, you should be able to run this command and get some output about your cluster:
kubectl get nodes
I'm using Docker Desktop and mine says:
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
docker-desktop Ready master 5d4h v1.19.7
Your details may be different - that's fine. If you get errors then we need to look into it, because you'll need your own cluster for every part of the course.