📍 Introduction:

Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration system that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It is widely used for cloud-native applications and provides many benefits such as high availability, scalability, and fault tolerance. However, for beginners, it can be overwhelming to install Kubernetes and set up the cluster. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing Kubernetes using KOPS on EC2.

🔹 Creating the Repository

Before we dive into the installation process, let's talk about the repository. The Kubernetes-Zero-to-Hero repository has been created to make Kubernetes easy for beginners. It is a work-in-progress repository that aims to provide detailed guides and resources for setting up Kubernetes clusters. We hope this repository will help beginners get started with Kubernetes quickly and easily.

🔹 Installation Prerequisites

To install Kubernetes using KOPS on EC2, you will need the following dependencies:

• Python3

• AWS CLI

• kubectl

To install these dependencies, you can run the following commands on your EC2 instance or personal laptop:

curl -s https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://apt.kubernetes.io/ kubernetes-xenial main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kubernetes.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y python3-pip apt-transport-https kubectl
pip3 install awscli --upgrade
export PATH="$PATH:/home/ubuntu/.local/bin/"

🔹 Installing KOPS

KOPS is a command-line tool that makes it easy to create, destroy, upgrade, and maintain Kubernetes clusters. To install KOPS, you can run the following commands:

curl -LO https://github.com/kubernetes/kops/releases/download/$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/kubernetes/kops/releases/latest | grep tag_name | cut -d '"' -f 4)/kops-linux-amd64

chmod +x kops-linux-amd64

sudo mv kops-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/kops

🔹 IAM User Permissions

To set up the Kubernetes cluster, you need to provide the below permissions to your IAM user. If you are using the admin user, the below permissions are available by default:

• AmazonEC2FullAccess

• AmazonS3FullAccess

• IAMFullAccess

• AmazonVPCFullAccess

🔹 AWS CLI Configuration

Before creating the Kubernetes cluster, you need to set up the AWS CLI configuration on your EC2 instance or laptop. You can do this by running the following command:

aws configure

🔹 Creating the Kubernetes Cluster

Now that you have installed the dependencies and KOPS and set up the AWS CLI configuration, you can create the Kubernetes cluster using the following steps:

⚜ Step 1: Create an S3 bucket for storing the KOPS objects.

aws s3api create-bucket --bucket kops-abhi-storage --region us-east-1

⚜ Step 2: Create the cluster.

kops create cluster --name=demok8scluster.k8s.local --state=s3://kops-abhi-storage --zones=us-east-1a --node-count=1 --node-size=t2.micro --master-size=t2.micro --master-volume-size=8 --node-volume-size=8

Important: Edit the configuration as there are multiple resources created which won't fall into the free tier.

kops edit cluster myfirstcluster.k8s.local

⚜ Step 3: Build the cluster.

kops update cluster demok8scluster.k8s.local --yes

Now that the Kubernetes cluster is successfully installed using KOPS on EC2, let's take a moment to understand the process and the steps involved.

Kubernetes is a powerful container orchestration tool that is becoming increasingly popular for managing containerized applications. However, setting up a Kubernetes cluster can be a daunting task, especially for beginners. That's where KOPS comes in.

KOPS is an open-source tool that makes it easy to deploy, manage, and operate Kubernetes clusters on AWS. With KOPS, you can quickly and easily create a highly available, secure, and scalable Kubernetes cluster.

To get started with KOPS, you first need to install it on your local machine or EC2 instance. The installation process involves installing several dependencies such as Python3, AWS CLI, kubectl, and pip3. Once you have installed the dependencies, you can install KOPS by downloading the latest release from the official GitHub repository.

After installing KOPS, you need to set up the AWS CLI configuration on your EC2 instance or laptop. This involves running the aws configure command and providing your AWS access key ID, secret access key, and region.

With KOPS and AWS CLI configured, you can now create a Kubernetes cluster using the kops create cluster command. This command creates a new S3 bucket for storing the KOPS objects, and then creates a new Kubernetes cluster with a single node using the specified parameters such as the name of the cluster, the state store in S3, the AWS region, and the instance types for the master and worker nodes.

Once the cluster is created, you can edit the configuration using the kops edit cluster command. This allows you to customize the cluster settings such as the number of nodes, the instance types, the network settings, and the Kubernetes version.

Finally, you can build the cluster using the kops update cluster command, which creates the Kubernetes resources such as the nodes, pods, services, and deployments in the AWS environment. After a few minutes, you can verify the installation using the kops validate cluster command.

In conclusion, KOPS is a powerful tool that makes it easy to create, manage, and operate Kubernetes clusters on AWS. With KOPS, even beginners can quickly set up a Kubernetes cluster and start deploying their containerized applications. The Kubernetes-Zero-to-Hero repo is a great resource for learning more about Kubernetes and KOPS, and we look forward to seeing its continued development.

📍 Resources:

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