Kluster

A package to deploy and configure highly-scalable production-grade apps using kubernetes (OKD) on a bare-metal platform (KVM).

Objectives of the project:

• design a platform using OKD and KVM
• learn and apply the technology and techniques to install, develop, test, maintain and operate
• all installed packages must be free, unless there is no viable alternative (hence the KVM virtualization platform)
• security is a major concern (hence the OKD distribution/flavour of kubernetes)
• the end goal is a platform that is ready for highly-scalable production-grade apps
• everything can be installed and managed from a Windows 10 laptop
• a Windows 10 laptop with Hyper-V and (optionally) a vmware ESXi server can be used as a small development and test environment
• a Windows 10 laptop with Hyper-V and (optionally) a vmware ESXi server can be used as a portable demo environment

This is a project that is continuously updated and possibly changing direction, as we learn, and as new technology and techniques become available. Backward compatibility is not a major concern at this moment.

Before You Start

Setup the PowerShell environment

1. by default, the "kluster" project is expected to be in the ~\Projects\kluster folder.

   • if you put it somewhere else, for instance ~\xyz\kluster, edit the ~\xyz\kluster\.psprofile.ps1 file
     • change the $ROOT = "$HOME\Projects\kluster" line to $ROOT = "$HOME\xyz\kluster"

2. the "kluster" project is expecting PowerShell to be properly setup.

   • setup the PowerShell profiles

Generate root-certificates for the kluster domain

⚠️
Re-generating root certificates will invalidate all already existing kluster-certificates.

1. open a PowerShell terminal

2. execute Generate-RootCACertificates.ps1 $IP_DOMAIN, for instance

   Generate-RootCACertificates.ps1 "kluster.local"

   • you will be asked to allow the script to import a root-CA certificate for the IP-domain - click Yes
   • the generated certificates can be found in $ROOT\.pki\kluster.local

Setup Hyper-V on your laptop

1. there is plenty of information on the web about this, for instance: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/quick-start/enable-hyper-v

2. optionally install Windows Admin Center for a modern web-based GUI to manage your Windows 10 machine and Hyper-V

Setup an ESXi server (optional)

1. browse to the VMware website and select Free Product Downloads on the Downloads-tab: https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=free-esxi6

2. you can get a free license when you create an account

3. download the vSphere Hypervisor and install it

4. configure ESXi server

Prepare the kluster environment

1. navigate to your $ROOT\scripts folder and run @CP_Prepare-KlusterEnvironment.bat