How to Set Up a Kubernetes Multi Node Cluster: A Day 6 of 40 Days Kubernetes

In this blog, I will guide you through the process of setting up a multi-node Kubernetes cluster using Kind. Kind is a tool that allows you to run local Kubernetes clusters using Docker container nodes. This is a great way to learn and experiment with Kubernetes without having to set up a cloud-based cluster.

What is a cluster ?

A Kubernetes (K8s) cluster is a set of interconnected machines (nodes) that work together to deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications.

Installation

To locally install k8s , we’re using kind package manager .

Kind is a tool for running local Kubernetes clusters using Docker containers. It is primarily designed for development and testing purposes, allowing you to create and manage Kubernetes clusters on your local machine or in CI/CD pipelines .

To install kind we use the following command on macOS:

brew install kind

Creating a Cluster

Once Kind is installed, you can create a cluster using the following command:

kind create cluster --name my-cluster

This will create a cluster with three nodes.

Accessing the Cluster

To access the cluster, you will need to use the kubectl command-line tool. You can configure kubectl to use the Kind cluster by running the following command:

kubectl config use-context kind-my-cluster

Verifying the Cluster

To verify that the cluster is running, you can run the following command:

kubectl get nodes

To check the current context

kubectl config current-context

Creating a Multi-Node Cluster

Create a config.yaml file defining the cluster structure

Config file contents:

three node (two workers) cluster config

kind: Cluster apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4

nodes:

• role: control-plane

• role: worker

• role: worker

Create the cluster using the config file:

kind create cluster --image kindest/node:v1.29.4@sha256:3abb816a5b1061fb15c6e9e60856ec40d56b7b52bcea5f5f1350bc6e2320b6f8 --name kind-cluster-2 --config config.yaml

To list all the context

kubectl config get-contexts

Conclusion

In this blog, I have shown you how to set up a multi-node Kubernetes cluster using Kind. This is a great way to learn and experiment with Kubernetes without having to set up a cloud-based cluster.

References

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RORhczcOrWs&list=PLl4APkPHzsUUOkOv3i62UidrLmSB8DcGC&index=9

Documentation:

https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/docs/user/quick-start/#installing-with-a-package-manager