Lab 2.1 Help regarding a multi node cluster on Virtual machine

abhijitherekar

Hi,

I have Vmware fusion and I want deploy multi node cluster, is there a way to do it??

Please, let me know if there are any resources that can help me in completeing the task mentioned above.

 

chrispokorni

 

Hi, 

Although I completed most labs on Google Cloud, I was also curious about setting up a cluster on my local machine. I used VirtualBox and I was able to spin up a small cluster with 4 Ubuntu VMs: 1 master and 3 worker nodes. The only challenge was figuring out the right networking setup for the VMs.

I would assume the process to be similar on VMware to spin up at least 2 Ubuntu VMs (1 master and 1 worker node), and once up and running follow the instructions in the lab to install all the required software. 

I would also check VMware documentation for VMs networking setup, since the VMs would need to be accessible from the host, have access to the internet and also be able to talk to each other.

I found a setup guide for Kubernetes on VMware vSphere for Kubernetes 1.4, which I realize it's outdated, but may provide some help with your setup.

https://kubernetes-v1-4.github.io/docs/getting-started-guides/vsphere/

From my experience however, it was a lot easier to spin up a cluster on Google Cloud than it was on my local machine. 

Good luck!

-Chris

serewicz

Hello,

I've found the the biggest issue is ensuring full network access from one instance to another. Make sure VMWare isn't blocking any ports, and the instance OS themselves are not blocking traffic, such as ufw disable.    One idea would be to have a single, bridged interface live on your network. With that level of access, and only a single interface to limit complexity, you should be on your way towards using VMWare.   

As Chris mentioned above, cloud providers can be much easier to deal with. 

Regards,

mrmcmuffinz

Not the answer you are seeking but I will tell you how I did my setup. I have windows 10 pro installed on my gaming system and it wasn't getting any use. So I went and looked into HyperV and setup 2 vms with static ips and hostnames. Then when I found out about the insecure registry, I actually setup another dedicated node for that in HyperV with its own static ip and hostname. Now I have 3 nodes to play with from my macbook pro. I have a bit of experience under my belt which is why I can work with k8s from my macbook pro. Here is youtube video  explaining how to setup a vanilla ubuntu server https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-VVaCvSYtw. As for k8s setup you need to download the class tar bundle where you will find the scripts. One thing to note is that it is recommended that you setup static ips and hostnames for your nodes to avoid issues in the future.

abhijitherekar

Hey Chris, Can you expalin a bit more on virtual box setup?

 

I can use virtual instead of vmware fusion.

I have GCP account its not that fun to work like that. Please, let me know how did you go about Virtual.

Any pointers will be appriciated.

 

Thanks for helping.

chrispokorni

Hi, 

Although I completed the labs on GCP compute engines, I tried bringing up a cluster on VirtuaBox as well, and I was able to successfully complete some labs too. These are the steps that worked for me (I am sure there are other working solutions also):

1. Create 2 VMs

2. Each VM with 1 NIC adapter - Bridged

3. Install Ubuntu 16 and virtualbox guest additions

4. Check ufw status, it should be inactive

5. Disable the swap partition

6. Run the installation scripts provided in the labs to install docker and kubernetes on both Ubuntu VMs

Hope these steps will help you get started with Kubernetes on virtualbox.

-Chris