This is a terraform module for the creation of a GCP kubernetes cluster. The cluster is configured with only a single node and so isn't actually a cluster. However, it is inexpensive to run and would be useful for:

• running non-mission critical applications
• learning to maintain aspects of a cluster

Some experience with GCP, Docker and Terrform would be useful when using this resource.

You may already terraform installed but terraform.sh allows you to use a containerised version terraform whilst storing terraform init data in a volume, eg. terraform.sh $TF_VOLUME init.

Before you can create a cluster you will need to create a GCP project to contain it. A Terraform repo has been provided to automate this for you. Follow the repo's README and when you have finished you should have two outputs (default.tf and service_account_credentials.json) - create a another project folder and add these files (along with terraform.sh, if using).

Then to deploy the cluster, add a main.tf file to this folder with the following configuration:

module "tiny_cluster" {
  source = "git::https://github.com/msb/tf-tiny-cluster.git"
}

Various parameters can be overridden. For instance, if you wish to give the cluster a name different to "tiny-cluster":

module "tiny_cluster" {
  source       = "git::https://github.com/msb/tf-tiny-cluster.git"
  cluster_name = "different-name"
}

See the variables.tf for the possible parameters. Then to deploy the run the two standard terraform commands init followed by apply.

Once the cluster is created (it will take a few minutes) you will need to manage it - deploy applications, etc. There are various ways to do this but our README only covers the CI kubectl. You can use the create-cluster-volume.sh script that wraps the TF output to create a docker volume with configuration for connecting your kubectl as follows:

./create-cluster-volume.sh $TF_VOLUME

You can then use this volume in conjunction with the standard GCloud container (which is built with kubectl):

docker run -it --rm -e HISTFILE=/cluster/.bash_history -v $TF_VOLUME-cluster:/cluster \
  google/cloud-sdk bash

Once in the container, connect kubectl to your cluster using the previously generated script:

/cluster/init.sh
# note that you will need to re-run this script every time you start the container

You should now be able to execute kubectl commands:

kubectl cluster-info

When it comes to deleting the cluster, you can do this by running:

terraform.sh $TF_VOLUME destroy