Container Journey template - Creating a Kubernetes Cluster

This scenario provides instructions for the following tasks:

• Create a Kubernetes cluster with one worker node
• Install the CLIs for using the Kubernetes API

Lession 1. Setting up the CLI

Install the IBM Bluemix Container Service CLI, the image registry CLI, and their prerequisites. These CLIs are used in later lessons and are required to manage your Kubernetes cluster from your local machine, create images to deploy as containers, and in a later tutorial, deploy apps into the cluster.

1. If you do not have one yet, create a Bluemix account. Make note of your user name and password as this information is required later.

Linux Quickstart: For Linux users, you can run bash linux.sh and move on to Lession 2.

2. As a prerequisite for the Bluemix CLI, install the Cloud Foundry CLI. You must install the Cloud Foundry CLI in the default location for your operating system, otherwise the PATH environment variable does not match your installation directory. The prefix for running the Cloud Foundry CLI commands is cf.

3. As a prerequisite for the Bluemix Kubernetes plug-in, install the Bluemix CLI. The prefix for running commands by using the Bluemix CLI is bx.

OS X Quickstart: For Mac users, after you installed the Cloud Foundry CLI and Bluemix CLI, you can run bash osx.sh and move on to Lession 2.

4. Log into the Bluemix CLI.

   $ bx login -a https://api.ng.bluemix.net

5. Follow the prompts to select an account and space to log in to.

6. To create Kubernetes clusters, and manage worker nodes, install the Bluemix Kubernetes plug-in. The prefix for running commands by using the Bluemix Kubernetes plug-in is bx cs.

   $ bx plugin repo-add Bluemix https://plugins.ng.bluemix.net
   $ bx plugin install container-service -r Bluemix

7. Initialize the Bluemix Kubernetes plug-in.

   $ bx cs init 

8. To view a local version of the Kubernetes dashboard and to deploy apps into your clusters, install the Kubernetes CLI. The prefix for running commands by using the Kubernetes CLI is kubectl.

   a. Download the Kubernetes CLI.

   OS X: http://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/v1.5.3/bin/darwin/amd64/kubectl

   Linux: http://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/v1.5.3/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl

   Windows: http://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/v1.5.3/bin/windows/amd64/kubectl.exe

   b. For OSX and Linux users, convert the binary file to an executable.

   $ chmod +x kubectl

   Make sure that /usr/local/bin is listed in your PATH system variable. The PATH variable contains all directories where your operating system can find executable files. The directories that are listed in the PATH variable serve different purposes. /usr/local/bin is used to store executable files for software that is not part of the operating system and that was manually installed by the system administrator.

   $ echo $PATH
   /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

   Move the executable file to the /usr/local/bin directory

   $ sudo mv kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl

Congratulations! You successfully created your Bluemix account and installed the CLIs for the following lessons and tutorials. Next, access your cluster by using the CLI.

Lesson 2: Setting up your cluster environment

1. Create your free Kubernetes cluster

   $ bx cs cluster-create --name [your_cluster_name]

   A free cluster comes with one worker node to deploy container pods upon. A worker node is the compute host, typically a virtual machine, that your pods run on. An app in production runs replicas of a pod across multiple worker nodes to provide higher availability for your app.

Note: It can take up to 2 hours for the worker node machine to be ordered, and for the cluster to be set up and provisioned.

2. Before you continue to the next step, verify that the deployment of your worker node is complete.

   $ bx cs workers [your_cluster_name]
   ID                                           Public IP       Private IP    Machine Type  State     Status   
   dal10-pa8dfcc5223804439c87489886dbbc9c07-w1  169.47.223.113  10.171.42.93  free         deployed  Deploy Automation Successful   

3. Set the context for your cluster in your CLI. Every time you log in to the IBM Bluemix Container Service CLI to work with the wordpress, you must run these commands to set the path to the cluster's configuration file as a session variable. The Kubernetes CLI uses this variable to find a local configuration file and certificates that are necessary to connect with the cluster in Bluemix.

   a. Download the configuration file and certificates for the pr_firm_cluster cluster.

   $ bx cs cluster-config [your_cluster_name]
   export KUBECONFIG=/Users/ibm/.bluemix/plugins/cs-cli/clusters/wordpress/kube-config-dal10-wordpress.yml

   b. Copy and paste the command from the previous step to set the KUBECONFIG environment variable and configure your CLI to run kubectl commands against your cluster.

4. Verify that both Kubernetes secrets were created in your cluster namespace. Every Bluemix service is defined by environment variables that are called VCAP_SERVICES. VCAP_SERVICES include confidential information about the service, such as the user name, password and URL that the container uses to access the service. To securely store this information, Kubernetes secrets are used.

   $ kubectl get secrets --namespace=default
   NAME                       TYPE                                  DATA      AGE
   bluemix-default-secret     kubernetes.io/dockercfg               1         1h
   default-token-kf97z        kubernetes.io/service-account-token   3         1h

Great work! The cluster is created, configured, and your local environment is ready for you to start deploying apps into the cluster.