This section contains advanced information describing the different ways you can run and manage K3s.

Starting the Server

The installation script will auto-detect if your OS is using systemd or openrc and start the service.When running with openrc logs will be created at /var/log/k3s.log, or with systemd in /var/log/syslog and viewed using journalctl -u k3s. An example of installing and auto-starting with the install script:

  1. curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -

When running the server manually you should get an output similar to:

  1. $ k3s server
  2. INFO[2019-01-22T15:16:19.908493986-07:00] Starting k3s dev                             
  3. INFO[2019-01-22T15:16:19.908934479-07:00] Running kube-apiserver --allow-privileged=true --authorization-mode Node,RBAC --service-account-signing-key-file /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/tls/service.key --service-cluster-ip-range 10.43.0.0/16 --advertise-port 6445 --advertise-address 127.0.0.1 --insecure-port 0 --secure-port 6444 --bind-address 127.0.0.1 --tls-cert-file /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/tls/localhost.crt --tls-private-key-file /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/tls/localhost.key --service-account-key-file /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/tls/service.key --service-account-issuer k3s --api-audiences unknown --basic-auth-file /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/cred/passwd --kubelet-client-certificate /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/tls/token-node.crt --kubelet-client-key /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/tls/token-node.key 
  4. Flag --insecure-port has been deprecated, This flag will be removed in a future version.
  5. INFO[2019-01-22T15:16:20.196766005-07:00] Running kube-scheduler --kubeconfig /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/cred/kubeconfig-system.yaml --port 0 --secure-port 0 --leader-elect=false 
  6. INFO[2019-01-22T15:16:20.196880841-07:00] Running kube-controller-manager --kubeconfig /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/cred/kubeconfig-system.yaml --service-account-private-key-file /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/tls/service.key --allocate-node-cidrs --cluster-cidr 10.42.0.0/16 --root-ca-file /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/tls/token-ca.crt --port 0 --secure-port 0 --leader-elect=false 
  7. Flag --port has been deprecated, see --secure-port instead.
  8. INFO[2019-01-22T15:16:20.273441984-07:00] Listening on :6443                           
  9. INFO[2019-01-22T15:16:20.278383446-07:00] Writing manifest: /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/manifests/coredns.yaml 
  10. INFO[2019-01-22T15:16:20.474454524-07:00] Node token is available at /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/node-token 
  11. INFO[2019-01-22T15:16:20.474471391-07:00] To join node to cluster: k3s agent -s https://10.20.0.3:6443 -t ${NODE_TOKEN} 
  12. INFO[2019-01-22T15:16:20.541027133-07:00] Wrote kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml
  13. INFO[2019-01-22T15:16:20.541049100-07:00] Run: k3s kubectl

The output will likely be much longer as the agent will create a lot of logs. By default the serverwill register itself as a node (run the agent).

Alpine Linux

In order to pre-setup Alpine Linux you have to go through the following steps:

  1. echo "cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup cgroup defaults 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
  3. cat >> /etc/cgconfig.conf <<EOF
  4. mount {
  5. cpuacct = /cgroup/cpuacct;
  6. memory = /cgroup/memory;
  7. devices = /cgroup/devices;
  8. freezer = /cgroup/freezer;
  9. net_cls = /cgroup/net_cls;
  10. blkio = /cgroup/blkio;
  11. cpuset = /cgroup/cpuset;
  12. cpu = /cgroup/cpu;
  13. }
  14. EOF

Then update /etc/update-extlinux.conf by adding:

  1. default_kernel_opts="...  cgroup_enable=cpuset cgroup_memory=1 cgroup_enable=memory"

Then update the config and reboot:

  1. update-extlinux
  2. reboot

After rebooting:

  • download k3s to /usr/local/bin/k3s
  • create an openrc file in /etc/init.d

Running in Docker (and docker-compose)

k3d is a utility designed to easily run K3s in Docker. It can be installed via the brew utility for MacOS.

rancher/k3s images are also available to run K3s server and agent from Docker. A docker-compose.yml is in the root of the K3s repo thatserves as an example of how to run K3s from Docker. To run from docker-compose from this repo run:

  1. docker-compose up --scale node=3
  2. # kubeconfig is written to current dir
  3. kubectl --kubeconfig kubeconfig.yaml get node
  5. NAME           STATUS   ROLES    AGE   VERSION
  6. 497278a2d6a2   Ready    <none>   11s   v1.13.2-k3s2
  7. d54c8b17c055   Ready    <none>   11s   v1.13.2-k3s2
  8. db7a5a5a5bdd   Ready    <none>   12s   v1.13.2-k3s2

To run the agent only in Docker, use docker-compose up node. Alternatively the Docker run command can also be used;

  1. sudo docker run \
  2.         -d --tmpfs /run \
  3.         --tmpfs /var/run \
  4.         -e K3S_URL=${SERVER_URL} \
  5.         -e K3S_TOKEN=${NODE_TOKEN} \
  6.         --privileged rancher/k3s:vX.Y.Z