k8sConfig

A microk8s config for non production app deployments

microk8s in the cloud: a low cost, cloud-agnostic Kubernetes cluster

Kubernetes is a hugely powerful open source container orchestration engine for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. By developing applications for Kubernetes, applications are easy to deploy, scale and monitor. Organisations can reduce many of the risks and costs associated with building, maintaining and supporting their applications.

All major cloud providers support Kubernetes, including Google (GKE), Amazon Web Services (AKS) and Microsoft Azure (TODO). However, you'll quickly find that once you start deploying a couple of applications, and with each application being available in multiple environments; costs can add up very quickly.

This technical article gives instructions on how to run microk8s Kubernets in the cloud so you can spin up applications without the cost overhead. I'll show you how to quickly and reliably set up microk8s. This article is quite lengthy and in-depth and is designed for my company's requirements, but you can pick and choose from:

Installation on Ubuntu 18.04
DNS set up
Firewall configuration (Kubernetes cluster is secure - only http and https accessible)
SSL using letsencrypt
Multiple domain names from the same Kubernetes cluster
Kubernetes ingress
Authentication of specific routes
Running a private Docker registry on microk8s Kubernetes
Connecting Docker for Mac to microk8s Kubernetes cluster

Desired result

A microk8s Kubernetes that serves all my non-production web apps. All apps served over https. I can configure any of my domain names to run on my microk8s cluster. I can send my client a password to the public URL so they can login and see the most up-to-date version of their product. My microk8s Kubernetes cluster also runs my Jenkins server. And I can use Docker for Mac to seamlessly deploy containers from my local machine to my microk8s Kubernetes cluster.

My goal is to increase my operational efficiency, increase my product deployment velocity, increase product quality and lower costs.

So, what problem are we solving?

Managed Kubernetes in the cloud can be expensive. Configuring your own microk8s Kubernetes on your own VM can be much cheaper (about 10 times cheaper in my case).

If you're an indy developer or small software dev team (like me!), things can get relatively expensive. Costs can add up for a Kubernetes application with three environments (PRODUCTION, UAT and DEV). Pricing structures vary considerably across the major cloud providers but in my case, the cost of running an AWS Kubernetes cluster could easily run over $1000 a month. Check with your cloud provider for most up-to-date pricing information:

A good cost comparison overview article: https://www.replex.io/blog/the-ultimate-kubernetes-cost-guide-aws-vs-gce-vs-azure-vs-digital-ocean

The cost of running your application on a managed Kubernetes cloud can get quite expensive, depending on what you're doing, of course. For example, managed services are incredibly cheap when you consider the cost of setting up and maintaining your own mission-critical, enterprise-grade infrastructure (arguably, it would be hard to beat Amazon or Microsoft on service quality and cost when an enterprise-grade cluster is required).

But do you really need a fully managed, enterprise-grade Kubernetes cloud service for your non production apps? Sometimes even your production app may not need the 99.99% up-time provided by managed Kubernetes infrastructure. Perhaps 99% is OK for your needs? Is the expense always justified? What if you have several clients and dozens of projects? Costs can add up very quickly.

I build software applications for a living and the DevOps pipeline I use for every product I build is deployed in multiple environments. Each product I'm working on is live in multiple environments. This is a common workflow and used extensively. I typically have three or four environments, depending on my clients' needs - DEV (development environment), UAT (user account testing) and PRODUCTION (production). My CI/CD pipeline (Jenkins) typically consists of:

build application
test application
unit test application
save build artefact
deploy application on Kubernetes

You can save a lot of money by deploying to cheaper Kubernetes infrastructure.

How I arrived at Kubernetes

It's been quite a journey. Back in the day, I had an account on a Sun Microsystems machine at my university. I could serve a web page to anyone in the world from my /~hynese public folder. Some of us may remember the days of writing your web page in HTML, CSS and JavaScript and using FTP to sync your local folder with your remote folder. There's so much wrong with this approach but that's also for another article.

I soon learned (the hard way) that syncing folders is not the way to do things. And that writing inline PHP (yuck!) in your HTML (very quickly) leads to problems. Even when working solo and not as part of a team. I learned MVC (model, view, controller) architecture which improved things. I started using Iaas (infrastructure-as-a-service) on AWS which made life much easier. I started using github which made life much easier. I started to automatically deploy things which made life much easier. I started to use proper CI/CD tools like Jenkins and multiple environments - which improved things. I started building apps for PaaS (platform-as-a-service) on AWS and IBM which improved things. I learnt Agile methodology and started using Pivotal Tracker. And doing proper business analysis. I started to learn about containers and CaaS (container-as-a-service) cloud infrastructure. I became a faster, more effective, more efficient developer with strong ops know-how. But I was beginning to worry (just a tad) - the software I'm building only seemed to run on AWS and it seemed that every month, costs were incrementing. In the good old days I could write my web page and deploy it on a Sun server or any other server I had an account on. I was beginning to feel locked in to my cloud provider. I was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable. Less free.

Until I discovered Kubernetes. Kubernetes allows me to avoid much of the vendor lock-in risks while enabling me to build and deploy scalable container applications with ease. I get to leverage modern software development techniques but in a cloud agnostic way. It's amazing to have all these tools at my fingertips and I'm hugely grateful for all the open source contributions.

microk8s for non-production deployments

My solution to keeping costs down while maintaining all the benefits of Kubernetes infrastructure is to use microk8s. microk8s is an easy-to-install Kubernetes engine for Ubuntu. It's important to note that mickrok8s does not scale!!!* But that's not the point here. microk8s is designed as a developer tool to allow you to quickly and reliably test your applications with low configuration overhead. In my case, I don't just use microk8s for testing, I use microk8s to deploy all my non-production applications.

Some advantages of microk8s:

Reduce cloud vender lock-in. microk8s runs on any up-to-date Ubuntu box
Lower cost (depending on business objectives)
Mature, easy to install, well supported

Some disadvantages of microk8s:

Does not scale
Some Kubernetes features not supported (e.g. load balancing) non production deployment configuration may be slightly different to production deployment configuration (developers should aim for no difference or minimal difference)
Must manage the microk8s installation (patching, disk space, security, etc.)
Not enterprise grade

In my situation (several clients, dozens of applications, limited budget); the advantages of using microk8s for non-production deployments considerably outweigh any disadvantages. This article is divided into two parts:

Part 1: Setting up a microk8s box from scratch. Complete and detailed instructions on how to set up microk8s in the cloud (Amazon EC2).

Part 2: Configuring microk8s to serve the specific needs of my company: a low cost infrastructure to deploy non-production applications to.

Part 1: Setting up a microk8s box from scratch

Installing microk8s on Amazon EC2 (infrastrcture-as-a-service) is easy. Simply spin up an Ubuntu 18.04 instance. We'll be running several containers so recommend at least a t3.small (or whatever the equivalent is on Google or Azure). Note on storage: recommend at least 32GB of storage. It's very difficult to add additional storage without stopping the machine, expanding the partition and restarting. I tried (and failed) to use external storage for storing snap data. Finally, I recommend using an Elastic IP address so your IP doesn't change every time your EC2 instance reboots.

First, update your system:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get autoremove

Then install snap:

sudo apt install snapd

Now install microk8s:

sudo snap install microk8s --classic
sudo usermod -a -G microk8s $USER
sudo chown -f -R $USER ~/.kube

Add microk8s.kubctl to your path

echo "source <(microk8s.kubectl completion bash)" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Confirm microk8s is running with:

microk8s.kubectl cluster-info

Get more detail on current state with:

microk8s.kubectl get all --all-namespaces

Before we do anything further, there are some firewall additions we need to make (double-check settings and do your own research). Also as we're running microk8s on a public IP address, we need to constrain public access to only those ports that are needed (port 22, 80 and 443).

# Enable port forwarding on all interfaces:
sudo iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
# Make this permanent across reboots:
sudo vim /etc/sysctl.conf
# Append this line to the end of the file:
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
# and enable with:
sudo sysctl -p
# Also need to tweak the cbr0 bridge interface ufw rules slightly:
sudo ufw allow in on cni0 && sudo ufw allow out on cni0
# Allow routing:
sudo ufw default allow routed
# Allow ssh, http and https:
sudo ufw allow 22
sudo ufw allow 80
sudo ufw allow 443
# And enable the firewall:
sudo ufw enable
# Finally, restart Kubernetes:
sudo microk8s.stop
sudo microk8s.start

Now if we do:

microk8s.kubectl get all --all-namespaces

Everything should look in order.

Install kubernetes addons

For the setup in the article, we'll be utilising additional addons:

microk8s.enable dns dashboard ingress registry storage

dns - resolve service names to IP addresses
dashboard - get an intuitive web UI into our "cluster"
ingress - be able to split http traffic to different containers * according to our needs
registry - store build images in our own private registry
storage - we want to provide persistent storage capabilities to our deployments

Accessing Kubernetes ports on a local developer machine

OK, so we have microk8s installed on an Amazon EC2 instance. We have its IP address. But I can't access any of the ports except for ports 22, 80 and 443. I need to be able to interact with the Kubernetes API service and it operates on IP addresses that aren't accessible and on ports other than 22, 80 and 443.

The trick now is to use a sshuttle to set up a tunnel (secure over ssh) to our EC2 instance and route any requests matching the 10.152.0.0/8 netmask (the netmask for microk8s) through our Amazon EC2 instance rather than the developer's local machine.

If you're developing on a Mac, install shuttle with:

brew install shuttle

To set up a tunnel to your EC2 instance, simply do:

sshuttle -r -i ~/Desktop/mykey.pem ubuntu@$REMOTE_EC2 10.152.0.0/8

, where $REMOTE_EC2 is your instance's public IP address and mykey.pem is your Amazon private ssh key.

Check everything is working

To check everything is working OK, let's deploy a simple nginx deployment:

microk8s.kubectl create deployment nginx --image=nginx
# You should now be able to see your nginx by running:
microk8s.kubectl get all --all-namespaces
# But nginx needs a service so we can attach to it:
microk8s.kubectl create service clusterip nginx --tcp=80:80

Note: we're using a "clusterip" type service. There are 4 types of service available to you:

clusterip (an IP address is given to your pod
nodeport (a port on your pod is accessible via a port on your Kubernetes cluster IP)
loadbalancer (traffic is load balanced across your pods)
externalname (maps external CNAME to a pod)

Note: loadbalancer is not available on microk8s.

It's worth researching details on each type of service. In a production system (i.e. not microk8s), I'd expect loadbalancer to be used and not clusterip. Very often this is the only difference between your production and non-production Kubernetes deployments. It's also worth noting that the loadbalancer service differs across cloud providers - Amazon implements load balancing different to the way Microsoft and Google do. Load balancer pricing also varies a lot between cloud providers.

Now that nginx is running and we've exposed a clusterip service, let's get the ip address:

microk8s.kubectl get all --all-namespaces

Once we get the ip address, simply type it into a web browser on your development maching (in my case Brave browser on a Mac):

http://10.152.183.236/

If you see "Welcome to nginx!", congratulations; you've just successfully served a web page from your a microk8s cluster.

DNS setup

It's useful to be able to lookup our nginx using its name. For example:

nslookup nginx.default.svc.cluster.local

should return an IP address, but it doesn't.

# Let's add an additional nameserver using resolvconf.
sudo apt-get install resolvconf
sudo vim /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/tail
# Add the following line:
nameserver 10.152.183.10
# , where 10.152.183.10 is your Kubernetes DNS IP address (get this from `microk8s.kubectl get all - all-namespaces`).
# reboot your machine:
sudo reboot

On reboot, should now be able to do:

nslookup nginx.default.svc.cluster.local

Part 2: Using microk8s for all your non-production applications

Now that you have microk8s set up, it's time to configure it to handle multiple projects, with each project having several environments. There are several other things we need to configure.

I'll show how to configure a Kubernetes ingress featuring the following:

https using letsencrypt
multiple domain names and sub-domain names. Support for multiple environments - production and non-production
basic authorization of all non-production endpoints

Set up DNS and handle multiple domain names

Before we can do anything, we must set up DNS entries. The purpose of this article is not to explain DNS and I'll assume familiarity with DNS records. I personally use my own DNS server (I highly recommend mailinabox) and am free from vendor-specific services such as Route53 (Amazon Web Services). For production applications, I recommend using an enterprise-grade DNS service such as Route53.

For the purposes of this article, let's assume we have two domain names we want our microk8s Kubernetes non-elastic cluster to handle:

rexsystems.co.uk (two environments - DEV and PRODUCTION)
ideahopper.org (three environments - DEV, UAT and PRODUCTION)

rexsystems.co.uk is my own domain and is a very simple website. If it looks good in DEV, I'm happy to put it in production.

ideahopper.org is for a client and I have three environments set up there. Periodically we promote a DEV build to UAT. We send the UAT link to the client for review. If the client is happy with UAT, we can promote to PRODUCTION.

Finally, for the purposes of this tutorial, microk8s will be serving both non-production environments and production environments. Ordinarily, we'd have a separate IP (or load balancer) for non-production apps (our microk8s "cluster") and production apps (a managed Kubernetes service).

Here are the required DNS records:

A record: rexsystems.co.uk - 99.80.128.68
A record: ideahopper.org - 99.80.128.68
CNAME record: dev.web.0001.rexsystems.co.uk - rexsystems.co.uk.
CNAME record: dev.api.0001.rexsystems.co.uk - rexsystems.co.uk.
CNAME record: dev.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk - rexsystems.co.uk.
CNAME record: dev.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk - rexsystems.co.uk.
CNAME record: uat.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk - rexsystems.co.uk.
CNAME record: uat.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk - rexsystems.co.uk.
CNAME record: staging.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk - rexsystems.co.uk.
CNAME record: staging.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk - rexsystems.co.uk.

When using production infrastructure, simply update the DNS records.

Setting up the ingress

For this article, the ingress will support two domains:

rexsystems.co.uk
ideahopper.org

rexsystems.co.uk has two environments (DEV and PRODUCTION). ideahopper.org has three environments (DEV, UAT and PRODUCTION). So, we need the ingress to support the following routes (https is not enabled just yet):

http://rexsystems.co.uk
http://ideahopper.org
http://dev.web.0001.rexsystems.co.uk (authorization required)
http://dev.api.0001.rexsystems.co.uk (authorization required)
http://dev.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk (authorization required)
http://dev.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk (authorization required)
etc.

We want authorization on all nonprod environments and no authorization on all prod environments. Because of this split, we'll create two separate ingresses:

ingress-noauth.yaml
ingress-auth.yaml

Because my authentication and authorization requirements are very simple (at the moment), I'll be using Basic Authentication which is supported by Kubernetes.

Here is an ingress for PRODUCTION endpoints (i.e. no authorization) called "ingress-noauth.yaml":

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
name: ingress-fanout-noauth
annotations:
# remove www prefix
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/configuration-snippet: |
  if ( $host ~ ^www\.(.+)$ ) {
    set $without_www $1;
    rewrite ^ $scheme://$without_www$uri 302;
  }
spec:
  rules:
  - host: rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: rexsystems-web-production
          servicePort: 3000
      - path: /api
        backend:
          serviceName: rexsystems-api-production
          servicePort: 8090

  - host: www.rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: rexsystems-web-production
          servicePort: 3000
      - path: /api
        backend:
          serviceName: rexsystems-api-production
          servicePort: 8090

  - host: ideahopper.org
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: ideahopper-web-production
          servicePort: 3000
      - path: /api
        backend:
          serviceName: ideahopper-api-production
          servicePort: 8090
#  tls:
#  - secretName: tls-secret-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-www-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-ideahopper-org

Note: the last four lines are commented out. This is the SSL/https configuration - we'll get to this in the next section...

It won't work if you try to create the ingress with:

microk8s.kubectl create -f ingress-noauth.yaml

You first need to start two containers (rex-prod and ideahopper-prod); with each container having its own service to expose the container to the cluster.

Let's spin up some bog standard nginx containers:

microk8s.kubectl create deployment rexsystems-web-production --image=nginx
microk8s.kubectl create deployment rexsystems-api-production --image=nginx
microk8s.kubectl create deployment ideahopper-web-production --image=nginx
microk8s.kubectl create deployment ideahopper-api-production --image=nginx

So we can identify which one is which, let's login to each pod and change the default webpage text:

# Get the pod names:
microk8s.kubectl get pod
#Login to rex-prod:
microk8s.kubectl exec -it rex-prod______ -- /bin/bash
#Mark the default index.html page:
echo "rex-PRODUCTION" >> /usr/share/nginx/html/index.html
#logout
#Do the same for ideahopper-prod
microk8s.kubectl exec -it ideahopper-prod______ -- /bin/bash
#Mark the default index.html page:
echo "ideahopper-PRODUCTION" >> /usr/share/nginx/html/index.html
#logout

Our ingress doesn't connect to pods or deployments. The ingress serves services. We need to create a service for each of our two deployments (rex-prod and ideahopper-prod):

microk8s.kubectl create service clusterip rexsystems-web-production --tcp=80:80
microk8s.kubectl create service clusterip rexsystems-api-production --tcp=80:80
microk8s.kubectl create service clusterip ideahopper-web-production --tcp=80:80
microk8s.kubectl create service clusterip ideahopper-api-production --tcp=80:80

# View the cluster IP addresses with:
microk8s.kubectl get service

Now you should be able to start the ingress:

microk8s.kubectl create -f ingress-noauth.yaml

Navigate to your domains (http://rexsystems.co.uk and http://ideahopper.org) and you should see the default nginx page showing your service name.

Voila!

Authorization

We don't want to allow public access to non-production environments. So placing a username and password on all non-production endpoints makes sense. I use Basic http Authorization in this setup. There are more advanced authorization and authentication mechanisms available, but these are overkill for my needs. Note: I highly recommend not using Basic Authorization without SSL/https enabled. Using Basic Authorization over http transmits your username/password pair in the clear. Make sure you know what you are doing.

Note: I previously attempted to set up my ingres to allow routing such as:

Three issues here:

Routing (e.g. API traffic routing) should be done in Kubernetes (not web app). Avail of high performance load balancers, etc.
DNS leaking. Use code names instead of your product's full domain name.
React/front-end configuration. Preferable to KISS

Here is a Kubernetes ingress with basic authorization:

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: ingress-fanout-auth
  annotations:
    # basic auth:
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-type: basic
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-secret: htsecret
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-realm: "Authentication Required"

    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /
spec:
  rules:

  #rexapp (0001)
  - host: dev.web.0001.rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: rexapp-web-dev
          servicePort: 3000
      - path: /api
        backend:
          serviceName: rexapp-api-dev
          servicePort: 8090
  - host: dev.api.0001.rexsystems.co.uk
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: rexapp-api-dev
          servicePort: 8090

  #ideahopper (0002)
  - host: dev.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: ideahopper-web-dev
          servicePort: 3000
      - path: /api
        backend:
          serviceName: ideahopper-api-dev
          servicePort: 8090
  - host: dev.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: ideahopper-api-dev
          servicePort: 8090
  - host: uat.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: ideahopper-web-uat
          servicePort: 3000
      - path: /api
        backend:
          serviceName: ideahopper-api-uat
          servicePort: 8090
  - host: uat.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: ideahopper-api-uat
          servicePort: 8090
  - host: staging.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: ideahopper-web-staging
          servicePort: 3000
      - path: /api
        backend:
          serviceName: ideahopper-api-staging
          servicePort: 8090
  - host: staging.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: ideahopper-api-staging
          servicePort: 8090


  #jenkins
  - host: jenkins.rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: jenkins
          servicePort: 8080

  #sonarqube
  - host: sonarqube.rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: sonarqube
          servicePort: 9000

  #artifactory
  - host: artifactory.rexsystems.co.uk
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: artifactory
          servicePort: 80


#  tls:
#  - secretName: tls-secret-dev-web-0000-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-dev-api-0000-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-dev-web-0001-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-dev-api-0001-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-dev-web-0002-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-dev-api-0002-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-uat-web-0002-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-uat-api-0002-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-staging-web-0002-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-staging-api-0002-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-jenkins-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-sonarqube-rexsystems-co-uk
#  - secretName: tls-secret-artifactory-rexsystems-co-uk

Again, the last few lines are commented out - I'll show you how to enable SSL in the next section.

I've configured the ingress to route two non-production domain names serving the following environments:

It won't work if you try to start the ingress with:

microk8s.kubectl create -f ingress-auth.yaml

You need to set up the containers and services just like you did for "ingress-noauth.yaml". This is left as an exercise for you. You also need to create a Kubernetes secret object named "htsecret". But first, you'll need "htpasswd" installed:

sudo apt-get install apache2-utils

Now, here's a one-liner to create a secret called "htsecret":

microk8s.kubectl create secret generic htsecret --from-literal=auth=`htpasswd -n your_username | tr -d '\n'`

You'll be prompted to enter a password and password verification. Now check the secret is set up and working:

microk8s.kubectl get secret htsecret -o yaml

You can now start your nonprod ingress featuring authorization:

# start our nonprod ingress:
microk8s.kubectl create -f ingress-auth.yaml
# Check everything on our microk8s cluster is OK:
microk8s.kubectl get all --all-namespaces

Navigate to http://http://dev.web.0001.rexsystems.co.uk and you should be prompted to enter your password. On successful password authorization, you will see your nginx default homepage.

Voila!

Configuring the cluster to use SSL

SSL is highly desirable for both production and non-production systems. If you're happy to use self-signed certificates, the configuration is straightforward. If you want to use signed SSL certificates; there are a few more steps. I use letsencrypt (ISRG) to sign my certificates. Some of my clients have their own preferred SSL certificate signer and it's easy to modify my configuration to accommodate this.

Self-signed certificates

If you are happy enough with browser warnings (and with explaining this to your client), you can use self-signed certificates.

mkdir ssl
cd ssl
# Generate a private key:
openssl genrsa -out private.key 2048

# Optional step - generate a CSR to get signed certs:
#Generate a .csr (certificate signing request) - we'll use this later
openssl req -new -key private.key -out server.csr

# And the cert for each of your FQDNs:
openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key private.key -subj "/CN=[rexsystems.co.uk]" > rexsystems.co.uk.crt

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key private.key -subj "/CN=[ideahopper.org]" > ideahopper.org.crt

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key private.key -subj "/CN=[dev.web.0001.rexsystems.co.uk]" > dev.web.0001.rexsystems.co.uk.crt

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key private.key -subj "/CN=[dev.api.0001.rexsystems.co.uk]" > dev.api.0001.rexsystems.co.uk.crt

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key private.key -subj "/CN=[dev.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk]" > dev.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key private.key -subj "/CN=[dev.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk]" > dev.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key private.key -subj "/CN=[uat.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk]" > uat.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key private.key -subj "/CN=[uat.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk]" > uat.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key private.key -subj "/CN=[staging.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk]" > staging.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -key private.key -subj "/CN=[staging.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk]" > staging.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt

# Now create your TLS secrets with:
microk8s.kubectl create secret tls tls-secret-rexsystems-co-uk --cert ./rexsystems.co.uk.crt --key ./private.key

microk8s.kubectl create secret tls tls-secret-ideahopper-org --cert ./ideahopper.org.crt --key ./private.key

microk8s.kubectl create secret tls tls-secret-dev-web-0001-rexsystems-co-uk --cert ./dev.web.0001.rexsystems.co.uk.crt --key ./private.key

microk8s.kubectl create secret tls tls-secret-dev-api-0001-rexsystems-co-uk --cert ./dev.api.0001.rexsystems.co.uk.crt --key ./private.key

microk8s.kubectl create secret tls tls-secret-dev-web-0002-rexsystems-co-uk --cert ./dev.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt --key ./private.key

microk8s.kubectl create secret tls tls-secret-dev-api-0002-rexsystems-co-uk --cert ./dev.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt --key ./private.key

microk8s.kubectl create secret tls tls-secret-uat-web-0002-rexsystems-co-uk --cert ./uat.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt --key ./private.key

microk8s.kubectl create secret tls tls-secret-uat-api-0002-rexsystems-co-uk --cert ./uat.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt --key ./private.key

microk8s.kubectl create secret tls tls-secret-staging-web-0002-rexsystems-co-uk --cert ./staging.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt --key ./private.key

microk8s.kubectl create secret tls tls-secret-staging-api-0002-rexsystems-co-uk --cert ./staging.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk.crt --key ./private.key

# View all the secrets your just created with:
microk8s.kubectl get secret

Next edit both ingresses ("ingress-auth.yaml" and "ingress-noauth.yaml") to remove the TLS section that's commented out at the bottom.

Update the ingresses with:

microk8s.kubectl apply -f ingress-auth.yaml
microk8s.kubectl apply -f ingress-noauth.yaml

Now if you navigate to rexsystems.co.uk it will return over https:// (with browser warnings)

Voila!

Note: a useful default behaviour of tls in Kubernetes is that it automatically directs any http requests to https. Sweet!

Signed certificates using letsencrypt

Yeah, but I want signed certificates. I haven't got time to be continually having the same conversation repeatedly with multiple clients.

Quick-start:

You have a new domain called "acme.org"

unset CERTBOT_DOMAIN
./renew-and-restart.sh acme.org

Boom. cert generated and k8s secret created.

Details:

You can generate a certificate signing request (CSR) based off your private key and send your CSR to a trusted certificate authority (e.g. Thawtes, GoDaddy) for signing. You can then use the resulting certificate the certificate authority provides to create a new Kubernetes secret object for your domain. But I have dozens of domains and dozens of clients... The overheads (dollars and administration) associated with paying a certificate authority $100 a year quickly add up.

I use letsencrypt. But using letsencrypt is not as simple as generating a CSR and asking letsencrypt to sign it. Letsencrypt require you to verify that you own the domain you're asking them to sign. There are two options for certificate requesters (i.e. me) to prove ownership: i) by updating my domain's DNS records to contain a TXT record or ii) to serve a shared secret via http. I prefer the latter and will now show you how to do this.

First create an ingress especially for letsencrypt called "ingress-letsencrypt.template.yaml". Note that this file is a template for a yaml file.

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: ingress-letsencrypt
  annotations:
    # Letsencrypt TLS/SSL validation challenge:
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/configuration-snippet: |
      location ~ .well-known/acme-challenge/$CERTBOT_TOKEN {
        return 200 "$CERTBOT_VALIDATION";
      }
spec:
  rules:
  - host: $CERTBOT_DOMAIN
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        backend:
          serviceName: dummy
          servicePort: 80

Note the nginx annotation. We prove our shared secrets to letsencrypt using raw nginx configuration. Note also the "dummy" service name. We don't need to serve anything from a container so just use "dummy". Now let's test our letsencrypt ingress:

# first set some environment variables:
export CERTBOT_DOMAIN=rexsystems.co.uk
export CERTBOT_TOKEN=token
export CERTBOT_VALIDATION=validation
# Use this one-liner to create an ingress suitable for validating our domain:
cat ingress-letsencrypt.template.yaml | envsubst | microk8s.kubectl apply -f -
# Test with:
curl -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' http://$CERTBOT_DOMAIN/.well-known/acme-challenge/token
# You should see:
validation

If you see "validation", everything is going OK sofar.

Now let's ask letsencrypt to give us a signed certificate for real.

First, make sure you have EFF's "certbot" installed on your microk8s cluster:

sudo apt-get install certbot
mkdir letsencrypt

Before we can get our certificate from letsencrypt, we need to add a script in the "ssl" folder called "certbot-hook-auth.sh":

#!/bin/bash
cat ./ingress-letsencrypt.template.yaml | envsubst | microk8s.kubectl apply -f -

Make sure it's executable:

cd letsencrypt
chmod +x certbot-hook-auth.sh

Once this is done (and you're happy to agree to letsencrypt's T&Cs and with logging your public IP), use this command to get a signed cert from letsencrypt:

sudo certbot certonly --manual --manual-auth-hook ./certbot-hook-auth.sh -d $CERTBOT_DOMAIN --manual-public-ip-logging-ok --agree-tos

Your signed certificates are now in:

/etc/letsencrypt/live/   #(sudo access needed)

Finally,

# Delete the old self-signed SSL secret:
microk8s.kubectl delete secret tls-secret-rexsystems-co-uk
# And create a new Kubernetes secret using the letsencrypt cert:
sudo microk8s.kubectl create secret tls tls-secret-rexsystems-co-uk - cert /etc/letsencrypt/live/$CERTBOT_DOMAIN/fullchain.pem - key /etc/letsencrypt/live/$CERTBOT_DOMAIN/privkey.pem

You should now be able to navigate to https://rexsystems.co.uk and see a https web page with no warnings.

Voila!

Now repeat this procedure for all your other domains and sub-domains. If my scripts have saved you time, send me a high five!

Renewing letsencrypt certificates

Letsencrypt certificates must be renewed every 90 days. To set up automatic renewal, first create the script below ("renew-letsencrypt.sh"). This script will be called by cron every second month. Letsencrypt certificates expire every 90 days and letsencrypt recommend renewing every 60 days.

#!/bin/bash

if (( "$#" < 1 ))
then
    echo "No domain name set. Pass a domain name and try again."
    echo "Usage: ./gen-certs.sh domain.name [\"renew\"]"
exit 1
fi

SHOULD_RENEW=$2

export CERTBOT_DOMAIN=$1

if [ "$SHOULD_RENEW" == "renew" ]; then
        echo "...Renewing existing certificate..."
        cmd="sudo certbot certonly --manual --manual-auth-hook ./certbot-hook-auth.sh --manual-cleanup-hook ./certbot-hook-cleanup.sh -d $CERTBOT_DOMAIN --manual-public-ip-logging-ok --agree-tos --keep-until-expiring --force-renewal"
        echo $cmd
        result=`$cmd`
        echo $result
else
        echo "...Creating a new certificate..."
        cmd="sudo certbot certonly --manual --manual-auth-hook ./certbot-hook-auth.sh --manual-cleanup-hook ./certbot-hook-cleanup.sh -d $CERTBOT_DOMAIN --manual-public-ip-logging-ok --agree-tos --keep-until-expiring"
        echo $cmd
        result=`$cmd`
        echo $result
fi

Make it executable:

chmod +x ./gen-certs.sh

And add the following cron job (root user's cron) to run it every other month:

sudo crontab -e

# And add the following lines:
00 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh rexsystems.co.uk
02 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh www.rexsystems.co.uk
04 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh jenkins.rexsystems.co.uk
04 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh sonarqube.rexsystems.co.uk
05 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh artifactory.rexsystems.co.uk
06 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh kibana.rexsystems.co.uk
10 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh ideahopper.org
16 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh dev.web.0001.rexsystems.co.uk
18 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh dev.api.0001.rexsystems.co.uk
20 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh dev.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk
22 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh dev.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk
24 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh uat.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk
26 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh uat.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk
28 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh staging.web.0002.rexsystems.co.uk
30 03 01 Jan,Mar,May,Jul,Sep,Nov * /home/ehynes/k8sConfig/renew-and-restart.sh staging.api.0002.rexsystems.co.uk

, where "renew-and-restart.sh" renews the certs, updates the Kubernetes secrets objects, deletes the letsencrypt temporary ingress and restarts the ingresses:

#!/bin/bash

if (( "$#" < 1 ))
then
    echo "No domain name set. Pass a domain name and try again."
    echo "Usage: ./renew-and-restart.sh domain.name"
exit 1
fi

export CERTBOT_DOMAIN=$1

# get this script's directory (works on Linux, OSX, etc.)
# See: https://stackoverflow.com/a/17744637
thisScriptsDir=$(cd -P -- "$(dirname -- "$0")" && pwd -P)
pushd $thisScriptsDir/letsencrypt

# renew certs:
echo " -> Renewing certificicates..."
./gen-certs.sh $CERTBOT_DOMAIN renew

# update secrets:
echo " -> Updating Kubernetes secrets..."
./gen-secrets.sh $CERTBOT_DOMAIN

popd

# restart ingress:
pushd $thisScriptsDir
echo " -> Restarting the ingress(es)..."
./ingress-restart.sh

popd

### Bonus 1: Add a Docker for Desktop profile

Now that your cluster is set up and configured, let's add it to Docker for Mac.

Make sure sshuttle is running. microk8s on Docker for Mac won't run unless sshuttle is running.

Existing Kubernetes configs are often (Mac OSX) stored in:

vim ~/.kube/config

The config file is split into three main sections:

clusters
users
contexts

Add a microk8s cluster ("microk8s-cluster") to your Kubernetes config with:

kubectl config set-cluster microk8s-cluster --server=$APISERVER --insecure-skip-tls-verify=true

, where $APISERVER can be found by running below command on your microk8s cluster:

microk8s.kubectl describe service kubernetes

export APISERVER=https://10.152.183.1:443

Add a microk8s user ("microk8s-user") to your Kubernetes config with:

kubectl config set-credentials microk8s-user --token=$TOKEN

, where $TOKEN is the bearer token of your microk8s machine. Get the bearer token by typing this into your microk8s terminal:

microk8s.kubectl get secrets -o jsonpath="{.items[?(@.metadata.annotations['kubernetes\.io/service-account\.name']=='default')].data.token}"|base64 -d

Finally, add a microk8s context ("microk8s-context") to your Kubernetes config with (providing the "microk8s-cluster" and "microk8s-user" we've just created):

kubectl config set-context microk8s-context --cluster=microk8s-cluster --user=microk8s-user

Restart Docker for Mac

Select the "microk8s-context" Kubernetes profile.

Now open a terminal and enter:

kubectl get pods

Voila!

You can now seamlessly deploy containers to microk8s in the cloud.

### Bonus 2: A private Docker registry

First off, enable the registry on your microk8s server with:

microk8s.enable registry

The registry's IP address can be got from:

nslookup registry.container-registry.svc.cluster.local

It should be listening on port 5000.

Recent versions of microk8s no longer provide the microk8s.docker command.

Ubuntu users should install their own docker:

sudo apt-get install docker.io

On the command line, docker should now be available.

Docker needs a slight change to its configuration - it is set up only to trust known Docker registries with TLS, etc. Because we want to use our own Docker registry (with no TLS), we must register our registry in the daemon.json configuration file for our docker.io installation.

sudo vim /etc/docker/daemon.json

And add the following lines (where 10.152.0.0 is a trusted microk8s subnet):

{
  "debug" : true,
  "experimental" : true,
  "insecure-registries" : [
    "127.0.0.0/16",
    "10.152.0.0/16"
  ]
}

Finally, restart the docker daemon:

sudo service docker restart

To access our newly created private registry on our local machine, also add the following insecure registeries:

127.0.0.0/16
10.152.0.0/16

This can be configured grapically in Docker for Mac:

Test your registry:

Firstly, ensure sshuttle is running on your local machine!

sshuttle -r me@$REMOTE_EC2 10.152.0.0/16

Now on local machine do:

# list all images
docker images

# Pull latest Alpine image:
docker pull alpine

# set DOCKER_REGISTRY env var:
export DOCKER_REGISTRY=10.152.183.58

# Now, re-tag the alpine image:
# tag image:
docker image tag alpine $DOCKER_REGISTRY:5000/my-first-image

# and push it to our private registry:
docker push $DOCKER_REGISTRY:5000/my-first-image

Now, on remote machine, do:

docker images   # won't see our image yet

# pull the image we just created on local:
docker pull 10.152.183.58:5000/my-first-image

docker images   # should see your image

You can now push and pull images to/from a private docker registry. Useful for setting up CI/CD pipelines while keeping data inside your private network.

### Bonus 3: ELK stack logging

E: elasticsearch - store and search through collosal number of logs

L: livestash - systematically send your logs to elasticsearch

K: Kibana - log visualization

Notes:

let's not bother with livestash for now...
elasticsearch port 9200 is exposed internally in the cluster
kibana maps to a https end-point (with htaccess password)
beautifully, kibana's config is persisently stored in elasticsearch :)

vim deployment-elk.yaml

kind: Deployment
apiVersion: apps/v1
metadata:
  name: elasticsearch
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: elasticsearch
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: elasticsearch
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: elasticsearch
        image: elasticsearch:7.0.1
        ports:
        - containerPort: 9200
          protocol: TCP
        - containerPort: 9300
          protocol: TCP
        volumeMounts:
        - name: elasticsearch-data
          mountPath: "/usr/share/elasticsearch/data/"
        #- name: sonar-extensions
        #  mountPath: "/opt/sonarqube/extensions/"
        env:
        - name: discovery.type
          value: single-node
        - name: ES_JAVA_OPTS
          value: "-Xms1g -Xmx1g"
        #- name: sonar.jdbc.url
        #  value: jdbc:postgresql://postgres.default.svc.cluster.local/sonar
        #- name: sonar.jdbc.password
        #  valueFrom:
        #    secretKeyRef:
        #      name: sonar-postgres-pword
        #      key: SONAR_POSTGRES_PASSWORD
      volumes:
      - name: elasticsearch-data
        persistentVolumeClaim:
          claimName: pvc-elasticsearch-data

---

kind: Deployment
apiVersion: apps/v1
metadata:
  name: kibana
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: kibana
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: kibana
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: kibana
        image: kibana:7.0.1
        ports:
        - containerPort: 5601
          protocol: TCP
        #volumeMounts:   # don't need this! :) Stored in elastic search!!! :)
        #- name: kibana-data
        #  mountPath: "/usr/share/kibana/data/"
        env:
        - name: ELASTICSEARCH_URL
          value: http://elasticsearch.default.svc.cluster.local:9200
      #volumes:
      #- name: kibana-data
      #  persistentVolumeClaim:
      #    claimName: pvc-kibana-data

And create two services:

microk8s.kubectl create service clusterip elasticsearch --tcp=9200:9200 --tcp=9300:9300

and

microk8s.kubectl create service clusterip kibana --tcp=5601:5601

check with:

curl http://elasticsearch.default.svc.cluster.local:9200 and curl 10.152.183.30:5601/app/kibana

And update ingress-auth.yaml with the following lines to enable authentication:

#kibana
- host: kibana.rexsystems.co.uk
  http:
    paths:
    - path: /
      backend:
        serviceName: kibana
        servicePort: 5601




...

- secretName: tls-secret-kibana-rexsystems-co-uk

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 86 Commits
docs		docs
letsencrypt		letsencrypt
.gitignore		.gitignore
README.md		README.md
deployment-artifactory.yaml		deployment-artifactory.yaml
deployment-elk.yaml		deployment-elk.yaml
deployment-jenkins.yaml		deployment-jenkins.yaml
deployment-postgres.yaml		deployment-postgres.yaml
deployment-sonarqube.yaml		deployment-sonarqube.yaml
ingress-auth.yaml		ingress-auth.yaml
ingress-noauth.yaml		ingress-noauth.yaml
ingress-restart.sh		ingress-restart.sh
jenkins.Dockerfile		jenkins.Dockerfile
nginx.artifactory.conf		nginx.artifactory.conf
pvc-artifactory.yaml		pvc-artifactory.yaml
pvc-elk.yaml		pvc-elk.yaml
pvc-jenkins.yaml		pvc-jenkins.yaml
pvc-postgres.yaml		pvc-postgres.yaml
pvc-sonarqube.yaml		pvc-sonarqube.yaml
pvc-uploads.yaml		pvc-uploads.yaml
renew-and-restart.sh		renew-and-restart.sh

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k8sConfig

microk8s in the cloud: a low cost, cloud-agnostic Kubernetes cluster

Desired result

So, what problem are we solving?

How I arrived at Kubernetes

microk8s for non-production deployments

Part 1: Setting up a microk8s box from scratch

Install kubernetes addons

Accessing Kubernetes ports on a local developer machine

Check everything is working

DNS setup

Part 2: Using microk8s for all your non-production applications

Set up DNS and handle multiple domain names

Setting up the ingress

Authorization

Configuring the cluster to use SSL

Self-signed certificates

Signed certificates using letsencrypt

Quick-start:

Details:

Renewing letsencrypt certificates

check with:

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