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Initial setup - GCE/AWS/VB etc. Advice required. Lab 3.1

mikerossiter
mikerossiter Posts: 21
in LFS258 Class Forum

Hi. I'm struggling to get setup in the most appropriate way for the labs in 3.1. I completed the LFCS back in Dec and have been trying to find the best way to get set up to learn Kubernetes as part of the Cloud Engineer Bootcamp.

There are lots of different vendors mentioned and I keep seeing Google Cloud Platform pop up. I only have an 8GB, quad core laptop so I assume VirtualBox is not an option? Please feel free to correct me. I'm happy to pay a small amount in order to learn the basics.

I also got the impression from other discussions that minikube isn't really appropriate. I just wondered (and I know you're not supposed to choose favourites at the LF!) what would be the best site for me to use to continue my learning in the most accurate way in order to be prepared for the CKA exam? Are there any other pre-requisite materials that I should be learning? I feel as though I am already out of my depth and have only just begun.

P.S. Am I right in thinking that the lab support material videos for initial set up (GCE/AWS) precede the lab 3.1 instructions?

Thanks in advance. Mike

Comments

  • chrispokorni
    chrispokorni Posts: 1,411

    Hi @mikerossiter,

    You are correct, the videos are setup guides for lab environments on AWS or GCP, either of which would allow you to run the lab exercises successfully. Which cloud provider to chose is just a matter of personal preference and/or familiarity.

    VirtualBox VMs will not be supported by your workstation considering the minimum MEM requirements outlined by Lab 3. Minikube may also be limited by similar hardware requirements, considering it still requires a hypervisor such as VirtualBox or a container runtime (depending on your host OS).

    Regards,
    -Chris

  • mikerossiter
    mikerossiter Posts: 21

    Thanks Chris. I've noticed microk8s purports to have lower memory requirements than other options I've seen. Is that a viable option to run locally too?

  • chrispokorni
    chrispokorni Posts: 1,411

    Hi @mikerossiter,

    Microk8s may work but during the bootstrapping process it may introduce features and components inconsistent with the lab exercises of this course.

    Regards,
    -Chris

  • mikerossiter
    mikerossiter Posts: 21

    :) GCP it is!

  • mikerossiter
    mikerossiter Posts: 21
    edited March 2021

    Forgive me if I need to start a new thread but I've tried to follow the steps in the Google Cloud lab setup video and I can't set the lfclass network for my VM instance. It doesn't automatically complete the subnet field and it's asking me to complete the PTR record field too. Can anyone help? It works if I leave it on default but I want to follow the example as closely as possible.

  • chrispokorni
    chrispokorni Posts: 1,411

    Hi @mikerossiter,

    When in Custom Subnet creation mode, the Subnet Name field is to be filled by the user (is does not seem to be automatically populated), followed by the Region selection, and IP range.

    Regards,
    -Chris

  • mikerossiter
    mikerossiter Posts: 21
    edited March 2021

    I've followed the steps in the video but when I get to create my master node and select "lfclass" instead of "default" (so it's all the same as the video) it says I have "no subnetworks in this region" and I can't click on it to add it manually. Also it says it wants a Public DNS PTR Record???? I have tried just clicking on "Create" but it is making these items red as if they are compulsory requirements. Any ideas???

  • mikerossiter
    mikerossiter Posts: 21

    I decided to use AWS instead of GCP and now I can't SSH into the instance I created as the converted PEM file is invalid! Are there any instructions anywhere for people who aren't using Windows and PUTTY? I tried to use Putty on the Linux CLI to convert the PEM file but it still doesn't work. This isn't very fun.

  • chrispokorni
    chrispokorni Posts: 1,411

    Hi @mikerossiter,

    The demo videos cover a more complex scenario for users running Putty on Windows. For users running on a different OS (Linux or MacOS), the conversion step of the PEM key may be skipped. Once you downloaded the PEM key and launched the instance, click Connect or select Connect from the Actions menu, and follow the on-screen instructions to access your VM instance.

    Regards,
    -Chris

  • mikerossiter
    mikerossiter Posts: 21
    edited April 2021

    Thanks again Chris. I've just found your Edx course (Intro to Kubernetes) as well so I'm going to take that first before I continue with the rest of this. Hopefully that'll help me too.

    I've found I can ssh from the command line using the PEM key easily enough so I'll just do that and have a master/node setup in Linux.

    Appreciate your help.

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