Easy way to setup a Kubernetes (k8s) cluster on ESXi for lab purposes

Goal

This setup allows to create a multi-node kubernetes cluster on an ESXi lab environment.

Prerequisites

• ESXi host with free (ESXi) installed (https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=free-esxi7)
• Vagrant host uses linux (centos in my case)
  • OVF tool (https://code.vmware.com/web/tool/4.4.0/ovf)
  • Vagrant (https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html)
  • Ansible (https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/installation_guide/intro_installation.html)

Prep ESXi:

Make ssh available and configure ESXi passwordless access as described in WWW many times already ;-). Test with a Linux box first before you move on.

Important:
I use DHCP on the "VM Network" and configure static IP/MAC mappings for all the uk8sxx hosts I defined in Vagrantfile.
DNS configuration hostname/upstream-DNS comes inherently with DHCP.

Issues I faced regarding mac addresses in ESXi:
ESXi uses 00:0C:29 as vendor prefix for ESXi. In order to automate VM's I used 00:50:56 as prefix pre-defined in Vagrantfile.

Prep Ansible via python:

I installed ansible via python on the Vagrant host:

$ sudo python3 -m pip install pip --upgrade
$ sudo python3 -m pip install openshift
$ sudo python3 -m pip install ansible

$ ansible-galaxy collection install community.kubernetes

Prep Vagrant:

Install vagrant as describe at Hashicorp!

ESXi plug-in documentation: https://github.com/josenk/vagrant-vmware-esxi

Install plugin: vagrant plugin install vagrant-vmware-esxi

Prep ESXi params based on your needs and bring the k8s cluster alive:

$ vagrant up |tee log.txt

Disclaimer

These scripts are only meant to be used for testing purposes only ! Even if they strive to create a environement relatively representative of a production kubernetes cluster (with notably different roles on different nodes and the activation of RBAC), the cluster comes with default configuration and with no hardening whatsoever !