Running Kubernetes on CenturyLink Cloud

These scripts handle the creation, deletion and expansion of Kubernetes clusters on CenturyLink Cloud.

You can accomplish all these tasks with a single command. We have made the Ansible playbooks used to perform these tasks available here.

Find Help

If you run into any problems or want help with anything, we are here to help. Reach out to use via any of the following ways:

Clusters of VMs or Physical Servers, your choice.

  • We support Kubernetes clusters on both Virtual Machines or Physical Servers. If you want to use physical servers for the worker nodes (minions), simple use the –minion_type=bareMetal flag.
  • For more information on physical servers, visit: https://www.ctl.io/bare-metal/
  • Physical serves are only available in the VA1 and GB3 data centers.
  • VMs are available in all 13 of our public cloud locations

Requirements

The requirements to run this script are:

  • A linux administrative host (tested on ubuntu and macOS)
  • python 2 (tested on 2.7.11)
    • pip (installed with python as of 2.7.9)
  • git
  • A CenturyLink Cloud account with rights to create new hosts
  • An active VPN connection to the CenturyLink Cloud from your linux host

Script Installation

After you have all the requirements met, please follow these instructions to install this script.

1) Clone this repository and cd into it.

  1. git clone https://github.com/CenturyLinkCloud/adm-kubernetes-on-clc

2) Install all requirements, including

  • Ansible
  • CenturyLink Cloud SDK

  • Ansible Modules

    1. sudo pip install -r ansible/requirements.txt

3) Create the credentials file from the template and use it to set your ENV variables

  1. cp ansible/credentials.sh.template ansible/credentials.sh
  2. vi ansible/credentials.sh
  3. source ansible/credentials.sh

4) Grant your machine access to the CenturyLink Cloud network by using a VM inside the network or configuring a VPN connection to the CenturyLink Cloud network.

Script Installation Example: Ubuntu 14 Walkthrough

If you use an ubuntu 14, for your convenience we have provided a step by step guide to install the requirements and install the script.

  1. # system
  2. apt-get update
  3. apt-get install -y git python python-crypto
  4. curl -O https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
  5. python get-pip.py
  7. # installing this repository
  8. mkdir -p ~home/k8s-on-clc
  9. cd ~home/k8s-on-clc
  10. git clone https://github.com/CenturyLinkCloud/adm-kubernetes-on-clc.git
  11. cd adm-kubernetes-on-clc/
  12. pip install -r requirements.txt
  14. # getting started
  15. cd ansible
  16. cp credentials.sh.template credentials.sh; vi credentials.sh
  17. source credentials.sh

Cluster Creation

To create a new Kubernetes cluster, simply run the kube-up.sh script. A complete list of script options and some examples are listed below.

  1. CLC_CLUSTER_NAME=[name of kubernetes cluster]
  2. cd ./adm-kubernetes-on-clc
  3. bash kube-up.sh -c="$CLC_CLUSTER_NAME"

It takes about 15 minutes to create the cluster. Once the script completes, it will output some commands that will help you setup kubectl on your machine to point to the new cluster.

When the cluster creation is complete, the configuration files for it are stored locally on your administrative host, in the following directory

  1. > CLC_CLUSTER_HOME=$HOME/.clc_kube/$CLC_CLUSTER_NAME/

Cluster Creation: Script Options

  1. Usage: kube-up.sh [OPTIONS]
  2. Create servers in the CenturyLinkCloud environment and initialize a Kubernetes cluster
  3. Environment variables CLC_V2_API_USERNAME and CLC_V2_API_PASSWD must be set in
  4. order to access the CenturyLinkCloud API
  6. All options (both short and long form) require arguments, and must include "="
  7. between option name and option value.
  9.      -h (--help)                   display this help and exit
  10.      -c= (--clc_cluster_name=)     set the name of the cluster, as used in CLC group names
  11.      -t= (--minion_type=)          standard -> VM (default), bareMetal -> physical]
  12.      -d= (--datacenter=)           VA1 (default)
  13.      -m= (--minion_count=)         number of kubernetes minion nodes
  14.      -mem= (--vm_memory=)          number of GB ram for each minion
  15.      -cpu= (--vm_cpu=)             number of virtual cps for each minion node
  16.      -phyid= (--server_conf_id=)   physical server configuration id, one of
  17.                                       physical_server_20_core_conf_id
  18.                                       physical_server_12_core_conf_id
  19.                                       physical_server_4_core_conf_id (default)
  20.      -etcd_separate_cluster=yes    create a separate cluster of three etcd nodes,
  21.                                    otherwise run etcd on the master node

Cluster Expansion

To expand an existing Kubernetes cluster, run the add-kube-node.sh script. A complete list of script options and some examples are listed below. This script must be run from the same host that created the cluster (or a host that has the cluster artifact files stored in ~/.clc_kube/$cluster_name).

  1. cd ./adm-kubernetes-on-clc
  2. bash add-kube-node.sh -c="name_of_kubernetes_cluster" -m=2

Cluster Expansion: Script Options

  1. Usage: add-kube-node.sh [OPTIONS]
  2. Create servers in the CenturyLinkCloud environment and add to an
  3. existing CLC kubernetes cluster
  5. Environment variables CLC_V2_API_USERNAME and CLC_V2_API_PASSWD must be set in
  6. order to access the CenturyLinkCloud API
  8.      -h (--help)                   display this help and exit
  9.      -c= (--clc_cluster_name=)     set the name of the cluster, as used in CLC group names
  10.      -m= (--minion_count=)         number of kubernetes minion nodes to add

Cluster Deletion

There are two ways to delete an existing cluster:

1) Use our python script:

  1. python delete_cluster.py --cluster=clc_cluster_name --datacenter=DC1

2) Use the CenturyLink Cloud UI. To delete a cluster, log into the CenturyLink Cloud control portal and delete the parent server group that contains the Kubernetes Cluster. We hope to add a scripted option to do this soon.

Examples

Create a cluster with name of k8s_1, 1 master node and 3 worker minions (on physical machines), in VA1

  1. bash kube-up.sh --clc_cluster_name=k8s_1 --minion_type=bareMetal --minion_count=3 --datacenter=VA1

Create a cluster with name of k8s_2, an ha etcd cluster on 3 VMs and 6 worker minions (on VMs), in VA1

  1. bash kube-up.sh --clc_cluster_name=k8s_2 --minion_type=standard --minion_count=6 --datacenter=VA1 --etcd_separate_cluster=yes

Create a cluster with name of k8s_3, 1 master node, and 10 worker minions (on VMs) with higher mem/cpu, in UC1:

  1. bash kube-up.sh --clc_cluster_name=k8s_3 --minion_type=standard --minion_count=10 --datacenter=VA1 -mem=6 -cpu=4

Cluster Features and Architecture

We configure the Kubernetes cluster with the following features:

  • KubeDNS: DNS resolution and service discovery
  • Heapster/InfluxDB: For metric collection. Needed for Grafana and auto-scaling.
  • Grafana: Kubernetes/Docker metric dashboard
  • KubeUI: Simple web interface to view Kubernetes state
  • Kube Dashboard: New web interface to interact with your cluster

We use the following to create the Kubernetes cluster:

  • Kubernetes 1.1.7
  • Ubuntu 14.04
  • Flannel 0.5.4
  • Docker 1.9.1-0~trusty
  • Etcd 2.2.2

Optional add-ons

  • Logging: We offer an integrated centralized logging ELK platform so that all Kubernetes and docker logs get sent to the ELK stack. To install the ELK stack and configure Kubernetes to send logs to it, follow the log aggregation documentation. Note: We don’t install this by default as the footprint isn’t trivial.

Cluster management

The most widely used tool for managing a Kubernetes cluster is the command-line utility kubectl. If you do not already have a copy of this binary on your administrative machine, you may run the script install_kubectl.sh which will download it and install it in /usr/bin/local.

The script requires that the environment variable CLC_CLUSTER_NAME be defined. install_kubectl.sh also writes a configuration file which will embed the necessary authentication certificates for the particular cluster. The configuration file is written to the ${CLC_CLUSTER_HOME}/kube directory

  1. export KUBECONFIG=${CLC_CLUSTER_HOME}/kube/config
  2. kubectl version
  3. kubectl cluster-info

Accessing the cluster programmatically

It’s possible to use the locally stored client certificates to access the apiserver. For example, you may want to use any of the Kubernetes API client libraries to program against your Kubernetes cluster in the programming language of your choice.

To demonstrate how to use these locally stored certificates, we provide the following example of using curl to communicate to the master apiserver via https:

  1. curl \
  2.    --cacert ${CLC_CLUSTER_HOME}/pki/ca.crt  \
  3.    --key ${CLC_CLUSTER_HOME}/pki/kubecfg.key \
  4.    --cert ${CLC_CLUSTER_HOME}/pki/kubecfg.crt  https://${MASTER_IP}:6443

But please note, this does not work out of the box with the curl binary distributed with macOS.

Accessing the cluster with a browser

We install the kubernetes dashboard. When you create a cluster, the script should output URLs for these interfaces like this:

kubernetes-dashboard is running at https://${MASTER_IP}:6443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kubernetes-dashboard/proxy.

Note on Authentication to the UIs:

The cluster is set up to use basic authentication for the user admin. Hitting the url at https://${MASTER_IP}:6443 will require accepting the self-signed certificate from the apiserver, and then presenting the admin password written to file at: > _${CLC_CLUSTER_HOME}/kube/admin_password.txt_

Configuration files

Various configuration files are written into the home directory CLC_CLUSTER_HOME under .clc_kube/${CLC_CLUSTER_NAME} in several subdirectories. You can use these files to access the cluster from machines other than where you created the cluster from.

  • ```
    • hosts/: hosts files listing access information for the Ansible playbooks
    • kube/: kubectl configuration files, and the basic-authentication password for admin access to the Kubernetes API
    • pki/: public key infrastructure files enabling TLS communication in the cluster
    • ssh/: SSH keys for root access to the hosts
  1. ## ```kubectl``` usage examples
  3. There are a great many features of _kubectl_.  Here are a few examples
  5. List existing nodes, pods, services and more, in all namespaces, or in just one:
  6. ```
  8. shell

kubectl get nodes kubectl get –all-namespaces pods kubectl get –all-namespaces services kubectl get –namespace=kube-system replicationcontrollers

  2. The Kubernetes API server exposes services on web URLs, which are protected by requiring
  3. client certificates.  If you run a kubectl proxy locally, ```kubectl``` will provide
  4. the necessary certificates and serve locally over http.

shell kubectl proxy -p 8001 ```

Then, you can access urls like http://127.0.0.1:8001/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kubernetes-dashboard/proxy/ without the need for client certificates in your browser.

What Kubernetes features do not work on CenturyLink Cloud

These are the known items that don’t work on CenturyLink cloud but do work on other cloud providers:

  • At this time, there is no support services of the type LoadBalancer. We are actively working on this and hope to publish the changes sometime around April 2016.

  • At this time, there is no support for persistent storage volumes provided by CenturyLink Cloud. However, customers can bring their own persistent storage offering. We ourselves use Gluster.

Ansible Files

If you want more information about our Ansible files, please read this file

Further reading

Please see the Kubernetes docs for more details on administering and using a Kubernetes cluster.

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