microk8s-aws

This project provides an easy way to deploy a Kubernetes single-node cluster using an AWS EC2 instance. The project leverages microk8s package to install all the cluster components.

Using this project

The most common workflow for this project has two steps:

• AMI building: Build the AWS AMI using Packer.
• Cluster provisioning: Create an AWS EC2 instance using the built AMI. This step uses Terraform and some helper shell scripts.

Installing Dependencies

• bash
• awscli

Building the AMI

This task build an AMI with microk8s. The default AMI name is "flugel-microk8s-aws-{{isotime | clean_resource_name}}. You can change the prefix ("flugel-microk8s-aws") modifying the variable AMI_NAME_PREFIX in the Makefile call.

To build the AMI run:

$ AMI_NAME_PREFIX=my-microk8s-ami make ami

Provisioning a new cluster

The directory terraform contains all you need to provision a new cluster after building the AMI.

First install Terraform and any other dependency to the terraform/bin directory running:

$ cd terraform
$ ./ctl.sh deps

You need to specify the values of these Terraform variables to provision a cluster:

• ami_filter_name: Filter to use to find the AMI by name. Must be the same you used as the AMI name prefix (default: "flugel-microk8s-aws-*")
• ami_filter_owner: Filter for the AMI owner (default: "self")
• instance_type: Type of EC2 instance to use (default: "t2.micro")
• key_pair: Public key to authenticate access to the instance using SSH
• allow_ssh_from_cidrs_0: Network block allowed to connect using SSH.
• allow_kube_api_from_cidrs_0: Network block allowed to connect to the Kubernetes API.
• allow_ingress_from_cidrs_0: Network block allowed to connect to ports 80 and 443.
• tag_name: Tag value of the tag Name to apply to all resources.

You can create a tfvars file to pass the variables values or provide them in environment variables, prefixing the variable names with TF_.

Inside the terraform directory you can find wizard.sh, a script to help you to set the values for all the variables.

Example:

$ cd terraform
$ ./wizard.sh
AMI name filter [flugel-microk8s-aws-*]: 
AMI owner filter [self]: 
EC2 instance type [t2.micro]: 
Tag Name [microk8s-aws]: 
What is your internet IP address? [181.166.95.104]: 
SSH public key file [/home/miguel/.ssh/id_rsa.pub]: 
SSH private key file [/home/miguel/.ssh/id_rsa]: 
To setup your cluster:

1) configure aws-cli
2) Install dependencies

./ctl.sh deps

3) Run

./ctl.sh up

The wizard creates a terraform.auto.tfvars containing your preferences.

Then inside the terraform directory run ./ctl.sh up to provision your cluster.

$ ./ctl.sh up

Terraform will inform you the actions to be executed, type "yes" if you agree. (Optionally you can use the ./ctl.sh up -auto-approve to skip interactive approval of changes before applying them)

Do you want to perform these actions?
  Terraform will perform the actions described above.
  Only 'yes' will be accepted to approve.

  Enter a value: yes

This might take some minutes. There might be messages saying "Server not ready yet. Waiting for server", just wait.

When the script finishes it outputs importan information about how to use the cluster.

The IP address is 3.209.90.166
The EC2 InstanceIds is i-0d88f7a8a4186d1ff
Kubeconfig stored in ./kubeconfig file
kubectl get nodes --kubeconfig=./kubeconfig
You can connect using ssh -i key.pem [email protected]

For example you can see the status of the node running:

$ kubectl get nodes --kubeconfig=kubeconfig

Stoping the cluster

To stop the cluster, but still be able to restart it later run this inside the terraform directory:

$ ./ctl.sh stop

This will free some resources, but not all (Volume and Elastic IP will be preserved).

Restarting an stopped cluster

To restart a previously stopped cluster, run this inside the terraform directory:

$ ./ctl.sh restart

This might take some minutes, after that you will be able to use the cluster.

Destroy a cluster to free all its resources

You can free all your cluster resources running inside the terraform directory:

$ ./ctl.sh destroy

Terraform will inform you the actions to be executed, type "yes" if you agree. (Optionally you can use the ./ctl.sh destroy -auto-approve to skip interactive approval of changes before applying them)

Do you really want to destroy all resources?
  Terraform will destroy all your managed infrastructure, as shown above.
  There is no undo. Only 'yes' will be accepted to confirm.

  Enter a value: yes

After this, all the cluster's resources in AWS will no longer exist.

You can still recreate the cluster running ./ctl.sh up

Other ctl.sh commands

Usage: ./ctl.sh <command> [args].

Available commands:
chpass         Change cluster's password
deps           Install required dependencies, like terraform
destroy        Destroy all cluster's resources
kubeconf       Download the cluster's kubeconf file
up             Provision the cluster
restart        Restart a previously "stopped" cluster
status         Shows information such as cluster IP and InstanceId
stop           Stop the cluster without destroying its resources

Moving the Terraform directory outside the project repository

In some cases it might be useful to move the terraform directory to another place or repository. In that case just copy the directory and update the Terraform module source in terraform/main.tf to point to this repository.

Example:

module "microk8s_cluster" {
  source = "github.com/flugel-it/microk8s-aws//terraform-microk8s-aws"
  ami_filter_name = "${var.ami_filter_name}"
  ami_filter_owner = "${var.ami_filter_owner}"
  instance_type = "${var.instance_type}"
  allow_ssh_from_cidrs = ["${var.allow_ssh_from_cidrs_0}"]
  allow_kube_api_from_cidrs = ["${var.allow_kube_api_from_cidrs_0}"]
  allow_ingress_from_cidrs = ["${var.allow_ingress_from_cidrs_0}"]
  key_pair = "${var.key_pair}"
}

Then proceed as previously described.