01-prerequisites.md

Prerequisites

Proxmox Hypervisor

This tutorial is intended to be performed with a Proxmox hypervisor, but you can also use it with ESXi, KVM, Virtualbox or other hypervisor.

The compute resources required for this tutorial is 25GB of RAM and 140GB HDD (or SSD).

List of the VM used in this tutorial :

Name	Role	vCPU	RAM	Storage (thin)	IP	OS
controller-0	controller	2	4GB	20GB	192.168.8.10/24	Ubuntu
controller-1	controller	2	4GB	20GB	192.168.8.11/24	Ubuntu
controller-2	controller	2	4GB	20GB	192.168.8.12/24	Ubuntu
worker-0	worker	2	4GB	20GB	192.168.8.20/24	Ubuntu
worker-1	worker	2	4GB	20GB	192.168.8.21/24	Ubuntu
worker-2	worker	2	4GB	20GB	192.168.8.22/24	Ubuntu
gateway-01	Reverse Proxy, client tools, gateway	1	1GB	20GB	192.168.8.1/24 + PUBLIC IP	Debian

On the Proxmox hypervisor, I just added the k8s- prefix in the VM names.

Prepare the environment

Hypervisor network

For this tutorial, you need 2 networks on your Proxmox hypervisor :

• a public network bridge (vmbr0 in the following screenshot).
• a private Kubernetes network bridge (vmbr8 in the following screenshot).

Note: the pods networks will be defined later.

All the Kubernetes nodes (workers and controllers) only need one network interface linked to the private Kubernetes network (vmbr8).

The reverse proxy / client tools / gateway VM needs 2 network interfaces, one linked to the private Kubernetes network (vmbr8) and the other linked to the public network (vmbr0).

Network architecture

This diagram represents the network design:

If you want, you can define the IPv6 stack configuration.

Gateway VM installation

The basic VM installation process is not the purpose of this tutorial.

Because it's just a tutorial, the IPv6 stack is not configured, but you can configure it if you want.

This VM is used as a NAT gateway for the private Kubernetes network, as a reverse proxy and as a client tools.

This means all the client steps like certificates generation will be done on this VM (in the next parts of this tutorial).

You have to:

• Install the latest amd64 Debian netinst image on this VM.

• Configure the network interfaces (see the network architecture). Example of /etc/network/interfaces file if your public interface is ens18 and your private interface is ens19 (you need to replace PUBLIC_IP_ADDRESS, MASK and PUBLIC_IP_GATEWAY with your values):

source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The public network interface
auto ens18
allow-hotplug ens18
iface ens18 inet static
        address PUBLIC_IP_ADDRESS/MASK
        gateway PUBLIC_IP_GATEWAY
        dns-nameservers 9.9.9.9

# The private network interface
auto ens19
allow-hotplug ens19
iface ens19 inet static
        address 192.168.8.1/24
        dns-nameservers 9.9.9.9

If you want, you can define the IPv6 stack configuration.

If you want, you can use another DNS resolver.

• Define the VM hostname:

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname gateway-01

• Update the packages list and update the system:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y

• Install SSH, vim, tmux, curl, NTP and iptables-persistent:

sudo apt-get install ssh vim tmux curl ntp iptables-persistent -y

• Enable and start the SSH and NTP services:

sudo systemctl enable ntp
sudo systemctl start ntp
sudo systemctl enable ssh
sudo systemctl start ssh

• Enable IP routing:

sudo echo 'net.ipv4.ip_forward=1' >> /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo echo '1' > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

If you want, you can define the IPv6 stack configuration.

• Configure the iptables firewall (allow some ports and configure NAT). Example of /etc/iptables/rules.v4 file if ens18 is your public interface and ens19 is your private interface:

# Generated by xtables-save v1.8.2 on Fri Jun  5 16:45:02 2020
*nat
-A POSTROUTING -o ens18 -j MASQUERADE
COMMIT

*filter
-A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
# allow ssh, so that we do not lock ourselves
-A INPUT -i ens18 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i ens18 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i ens18 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i ens18 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 6443 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i ens18 -p icmp -j ACCEPT
# allow incoming traffic to the outgoing connections,
# et al for clients from the private network
-A INPUT -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
# prohibit everything else incoming
-A INPUT -i ens18 -j DROP
COMMIT
# Completed on Fri Jun  5 16:45:02 2020

If you want, you can define the IPv6 stack configuration.

• If you want to restore/active iptables rules:

sudo iptables-restore < /etc/iptables/rules.v4

• Configure the /etc/hosts file (you need to replace PUBLIC_GW_IP):

127.0.0.1       localhost
PUBLIC_GW_IP    gateway-01.external gateway-01

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

192.168.8.10    controller-0
192.168.8.11    controller-1
192.168.8.12    controller-2

192.168.8.20    worker-0
192.168.8.21    worker-1
192.168.8.22    worker-2

• To confirm the network configuration, reboot the VM and check the active IP addresses:

sudo reboot

Kubernetes nodes VM installation

The basic VM installation process is not the purpose of this tutorial.

Because it's just a tutorial, the IPv6 stack is not configured, but you can configure it if you want.

These VM are used as Kubernetes node (controllers or workers).

The basic VM configuration process is the same for the 6 VM (you can also configure one, clone it and change IP address and hostname for each clone).

You have to:

• Install the Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS Server install image on this VM.

• Configure the network interface (see the network architecture). Example of /etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml file if ens18 is the name of your private network interface (you need to change the IP address depending on the installed server):

# This is the network config written by 'subiquity'
network:
  ethernets:
    ens18:
      addresses:
      - 192.168.8.10/24
      gateway4: 192.168.8.1
      nameservers:
        addresses:
        - 9.9.9.9
  version: 2

If you want, you can define the IPv6 stack configuration.

If you want, you can use another DNS resolver.

• Define the VM hostname (example for controller-0):

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname controller-0

• Update the packages list and update the system:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y

• Install SSH and NTP:

sudo apt-get install ssh ntp -y

• Enable and start the SSH and NTP services:

sudo systemctl enable ntp
sudo systemctl start ntp
sudo systemctl enable ssh
sudo systemctl start ssh

• Configure /etc/hosts file. Example for controller-0 (need to replace PUBLIC_GW_IP and adapt this sample config for each VM):

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 controller-0

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

PUBLIC_GW_IP    gateway-01.external
192.168.8.1     gateway-01

192.168.8.11    controller-1
192.168.8.12    controller-2

192.168.8.20    worker-0
192.168.8.21    worker-1
192.168.8.22    worker-2

• To confirm the network configuration, reboot the VM and check the active IP address:

sudo reboot

Running Commands in Parallel with tmux

tmux can be used to run commands on multiple compute instances at the same time. Labs in this tutorial may require running the same commands across multiple compute instances, in those cases consider using tmux and splitting a window into multiple panes with synchronize-panes enabled to speed up the provisioning process.

The use of tmux is optional and not required to complete this tutorial.

Enable synchronize-panes by pressing ctrl+b followed by shift+:. Next type set synchronize-panes on at the prompt. To disable synchronization: set synchronize-panes off.

Next: Installing the Client Tools