Prerequisites

Google Cloud Platform

This tutorial leverages the Google Cloud Platform to streamline provisioning of the compute infrastructure required to bootstrap a Kubernetes cluster from the ground up. Sign up for $300 in free credits.

Estimated cost to run this tutorial: $0.23 per hour ($5.50 per day).

The compute resources required for this tutorial exceed the Google Cloud Platform free tier.

Google Cloud Platform SDK

Install the Google Cloud SDK

Follow the Google Cloud SDK documentation to install and configure the gcloud command line utility.

Verify the Google Cloud SDK version is 338.0.0 or higher:

  1. gcloud version

Set a Default Compute Region and Zone

This tutorial assumes a default compute region and zone have been configured.

If you are using the gcloud command-line tool for the first time init is the easiest way to do this:

  1. gcloud init

Then be sure to authorize gcloud to access the Cloud Platform with your Google user credentials:

  1. gcloud auth login

Next set a default compute region and compute zone:

  1. gcloud config set compute/region us-west1

Set a default compute zone:

  1. gcloud config set compute/zone us-west1-c

Use the gcloud compute zones list command to view additional regions and zones.

Running Commands in Parallel with tmux

tmux can be used to run commands on multiple compute instances at the same time. Labs in this tutorial may require running the same commands across multiple compute instances, in those cases consider using tmux and splitting a window into multiple panes with synchronize-panes enabled to speed up the provisioning process.

The use of tmux is optional and not required to complete this tutorial.

tmux screenshot

Enable synchronize-panes by pressing ctrl+b followed by shift+:. Next type set synchronize-panes on at the prompt. To disable synchronization: set synchronize-panes off.

Next: Installing the Client Tools