Overview
- Section 1: Log in to the PKS CLI
- View a list of available PKS commands
- Login using your Credentials
- Section 2: Creating a Kubernetes Cluster
- Create a Cluster
- vSphere Access
- NSX Manager Access
- Section 3: Preparing to Deploy your Application
- Get Cluster Credentials
- Get k8s Namespaces
- Get k8s Pods
- Section 4: Deploy Restaurant Review Application
- View YAML File
- View Project Library on Harbor
- Run the Application
- View Application on Browser
- Delete Cluster
- Appendix A: TestDrive PKS Architecture Diagram
Before You Begin
Before you begin this walkthrough ensure you are logged onto the VMware Enterprise PKS desktop by following the instructions found here.
Please do NOT create more than 2 k8s clusters.
Also, we encourage everyone to use their My Documents folder located on the VMware Enterprise PKS Horizon Desktop to store yaml files and container images. This folder is persistent which means that users can retrieve their stored application data across multiple sessions.
Section 1: Log in to the PKS CLI
On your VMware Enterprise PKS Desktop, launch PowerShell
Run the following command to get the PKS version and a list of available PKS CLI options
pks -h
Login to the PKS environment using your PKS credentials from the VMware Enterprise PKS tile on the TestDrive Portal
pks login -a pks-api.vmwtd.com -u <username> -p <password> -k
Section 2: Creating a Kubernetes Cluster
On your VMware Enterprise PKS Desktop, launch PowerShell and run the command to list your PKS clusters. You will see a cluster in the format <username>-1
pks clusters
NEW: With our latest release of TestDrive PKS Demo, one cluster will come pre-created with the UAAC user that's assigned to you. Users can either run apps directly on this cluster, or create an additional cluster to demo the cluster creation process. We have set user limitations that will prevent creation of a third cluster.
Deploy a Kubernetes Cluster using the command below, following the cluster naming convention of <username>-<num>. Cluster creation can take somewhere between 10 to 15 minutes based on the active load on the system infrastructure
pks create-cluster <username>-2 -e <username>-2.vmwtd.com --plan small
The domain name "*.vmwtd.com" should remain the same as this is the domain name for this environment. Please follow the following naming convention
When cluster creation is initiated, BOSH creates k8s Master and Worker instances on an ESX datastore. To check this out, launch the vSphere Client shortcut on your desktop and login using the credentials given below, and observe the VMs getting created under the Compute Cluster.
URL: https://vca-1.vmwtd.com/ui
Username: pksdemo@vsphere.local
Password: PKSdemo123!
Next, let’s observe the automated network creation in NSX. Launch the NSX Manager shortcut from desktop and login using the credentials below. To provide a strong isolation boundary, PKS spawns new routers, logical switches and load balancers for each namespace in the k8s cluster. Each of these network infrastructure entries includes the cluster UUID in their name, making it easy for users to identify the ones created for their cluster
URL: https://nsxtmgr-1.vmwtd.com/nsx/#/app/advanced
Username: audit
Password: gpe@uD1T1!!
T1 router with router name same as the UUID of the created cluster
Logical switches with the same UUID
Load Balancer created automatically for our cluster
At this point, we will go back to the PKS CLI and check if cluster has been deployed.
Run the following command to list down all the k8s clusters created by your user
pks clusters
Get details of the cluster you created by using the command below
pks cluster <username>-1
Section 3: Preparing to Deploy your Application
Get k8s Cluster Credentials
This command will populate the kube config file with the right credentials for the cluster
pks get-credentials <username>-1
List all the namespaces
kubectl get namespaces
List the PODs in all namespaces
kubectl get pods --all-namespaces
Octant is a developer-centric web interface for Kubernetes that lets you inspect a Kubernetes cluster on which applications reside. To help a developer better understand the state of the application running inside the cluster, Octant's dashboard allows you to navigate through your namespaces and objects they contain. It lets you visualize the relativity of objects and resources. Unlike the Kubernetes Dashboard, Octant runs locally on your workstation and uses your Kubernetes credentials to access the cluster, thus avoiding a whole class of security concerns. For more information, refer to our blog.
From your PowerShell Window on your PKS Horizon Desktop, launch Octant.
octant
Octant should immediately launch your default web browser on 127.0.0.1:xxxxx
Section 4: Deploy Restaurant Review Application
Now you can deploy your application. This is done using the kubectl apply command and pointing to the appropriate yaml configuration files. You may have to run get pods a couple of times until the STATUS changes to running
cd C:\PKS\apps
cat rest-review.yaml
Note that we can combine all of our deployments and services into a single file, and also notice that the image is harbor.vmwtd.com/library/restreview-ui:V1 which is the private Container Registry called Harbor.
Harbor showing the rest-review application
Harbor with vulnerability scanning
Run the application
This command creates all deployments and services defined in the yaml. It will take a minute or so to come up
kubectl apply -f rest-review.yaml
Get list of all the pods in the cluster
kubectl get pods --all-namespaces
View your deployment
kubectl get deployments
View the number of replicas for this pod. It will only be one in this case
kubectl get rs
Get External LoadBalancer IP
Get external IP to reach your application by running the command below and fetching the External IP against yelb-ui. That is the IP to get to the NSX-T load balancer which will redirect external traffic to the yelb-ui pod. Note that the load balancer port is 80
kubectl get svc
View The Application
- Open Google Chrome
- Enter the EXTERNAL-IP from the kubectl get svc. It should be in the format 192.168.x.x
Enter Votes in the Application
The restaurant review application lets you vote as many times as you want for each restaurant. Try opening multiple browsers and voting from each of them. You will see that the application is caching the page views and persisting the vote totals to the Postgres database.
Play around with Votes and page views
Show LB rules in NSX
Load balancer for this IP
Delete application
Run the following commands to delete the application
kubectl delete -f rest-review.yaml
We recommend users to "NOT" delete their clusters after their demo is complete as we have an automation system in place that will cleanup clusters and their associated NSX Objects
Appendix A: TestDrive PKS Architecture Diagram
This topology has the following characteristics:
- PKS control plane (Ops Manager, BOSH Director, and PKS VM) components are using corporate routable IP addresses.
- Kubernetes cluster master and worker nodes are located on a logical switch that has undergone Network Address Translation on a T0. This requires DNAT rules to allow access to Kubernetes APIs.
Walkthrough Summary
- Section 1: Log in to the PKS CLI
- Section 2: Creating a Kubernetes Cluster
- Section 3: Preparing to Deploy your Application
- Section 4: Deploy Restaurant Review Application