Setting Up a Kubernetes Cluster with KOPS

Introduction
Kops (Kubernetes Operations) is a command-line tool that simplifies the deployment, upgrade, and management of Kubernetes clusters. It is often considered the "kubectl" equivalent for cluster operations and is best suited for production-grade clusters.

This guide walks you through the process of creating a Kubernetes cluster using Kops.

Step 1: Prerequisites
Install AWS CLI

curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip"
unzip awscliv2.zip
sudo ./aws/install

Configure it:

aws configure

Install kubectl

curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
chmod +x kubectl
sudo mv kubectl /usr/local/bin/

Install Kops

curl -LO https://github.com/kubernetes/kops/releases/download/v1.28.0/kops-linux-amd64
chmod +x kops-linux-amd64
sudo mv kops-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/kops

Set up an S3 bucket for Kops state storage

aws s3api create-bucket --bucket <your-kops-state-store> --region <region> --create-bucket-configuration LocationConstraint=<region>

Enable versioning

aws s3api put-bucket-versioning --bucket <your-kops-state-store> --versioning-configuration Status=Enabled

Set environment variables

Define the Kops state store

export KOPS_STATE_STORE=s3://<your-kops-state-store>

Step 2: Create a Cluster

kops create cluster \
  --name=<cluster-name> \
  --state=$KOPS_STATE_STORE \
  --zones=<availability-zones> \
  --node-count=<number-of-nodes> \
  --node-size=<instance-type> \
  --master-size=<instance-type> \
  --dns-zone=<hosted-zone-name>

Validate the configuration
Ensure the cluster configuration is correct:

kops update cluster --name <cluster-name> --yes

Access the cluster
Retrieve the Kubernetes config and interact with the cluster:

kubectl get nodes

Clean Up
To delete the cluster when it is no longer needed:

kops delete cluster --name <cluster-name> --yes

Happy Learning

Prithiviraj Rengarajan
DevOps Engineer