Creating Kubernetes Cluster on GCP with Kublr

Prerequisites

An existing Google Cloud Platform account is required before you proceed.

To deploy a cluster in your Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account with Kublr, you’ll need to create a GCP service account and a private key.

How it can be done - see this article Create a Service Account for the Custom Role

Overview

We’ll outline the needed steps to create a Kubernetes cluster on GCP with Kublr. Then, we’ll deploy a simple application (WordPress).

  1. Connecting GCP and Kublr.
  2. Creating Kubernetes cluster with Kublr.
  3. Installing and configuring kubectl.
  4. Application example: deploying WordPress to cluster using Helm.

Connecting GCP and Kublr

  1. Log into Kublr using your credentials.

  2. On the left menu, click Credentials.

  3. Click Add Credentials. Add Credentials The ADD CREDENTIALS dialog is displayed.

  4. In the ADD CREDENTIALS dialog, set Credentials Type to “GCP Credentials”. The dialog is updated to display the Google Cloud Platform credentials specific fields.

  5. Enter Credentials Name.

  6. Set:

    • Project ID
    • Client Email
    • Private Key Add Credentials GCP
  7. Click Save Credentials. The “Credentials have been successfully created.” popup is displayed.

  8. To verify if credentials are valid and ready to be used, mouse over the created credentials and click the displayed Test button.

    Verification success popup will be displayed.

  9. Click Ok.

Creating Kubernetes Cluster on GCP with Kublr

To add a new cluster:

  1. On the left menu, click Clusters.

  2. Click Add Cluster. Add New Cluster The Select Installation Type dialog is displayed.

  3. In the Select Installation Type dialog, select Platform or Cluster.

  4. Click Continue Setup. Installation Type - Cluster The add cluster/platform dialog is displayed.

  5. Set Provider to “Google Cloud Platform”.

  6. From the Credentials list, select previously created GCP credentials.

    If credentials were not created previously, use Add New Credentials.

  7. Specify Cluster Name.

  8. Set:

    • Region
    • Kublr Agent GCP-Add Cluster-General Settings
  9. Optionally, set Advanced Options.

  10. Use the INSTANCES tab to set:

    Add Cluster-Master Configuration

    Note For your working nodes, you can have as many instance groups as you need (clone or delete the current instance group, or add another one). If necessary, give specific name to each group.

    Instance Group-Operations

  11. Use the FEATURES tab to select and configure FEATURES that you want to include into your cluster. GCP-Add Cluster-Features Configuration

  12. Click the REVIEW & CREATE step.

  13. Review your cluster parameters.

  14. At the bottom of the dialog, click CONFIRM AND INSTALL.

    A notification is displayed “Your cluster is being created. It might take a few minutes.”

  15. In the notification window, click OK.

    Your new cluster page is displayed on the Events tab showing the cluster creation progress.

kubectl

Installing and Configuring kubectl

For detailed instuctions, see the Install and Set Up kubectl article in Kubernetes documentation.

For Mac users:

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

For Windows users:

  1. To download kubectl v.1.24.0, click this link.

  2. Include the path with the kubectl executable to PATH environment variable.

    For more information about adding tool locations to PATH variable, refer to this article in Microsoft documentation.

  3. See additional information in the Install and Set Up kubectl article in Kubernetes documentation.

Copying KubeConfig File

To retrieve the config from Kublr:

  1. Click on the GCP cluster to access the cluster details page
  2. On the overview tab, download the config file.

For Mac users:

mkdir ~/.kube
cp ~/Downloads/config.yaml ~/.kube/config

For Windows users:

cd %HOME%
mkdir .kube
copy %HOME%\Downloads\config.yaml .kube\config

Check that kubectl is working and using right config file:

kubectl config view
kubectl cluster-info

Application Deployment Example

Below is the example of how to deploy a simple application (WordPress) into your cluster using Helm.

Installing Helm

Install Helm Click here for detailed guidelines.

For Mac users:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/helm/master/scripts/get > get_helm.sh
chmod +x get_helm.sh
./get_helm.sh --version v3.12.3

For Windows users:

  1. Download Helm version 3.12.3 from here.
  2. Extract helm-v3.12.3-windows-amd64.zip to the directory where kubectl is saved.

Installing WordPress

NOTE: It may take a few minutes for the LoadBalancer IP to become available.

helm install bitnami/wordpress --generate-name

For Mac users:

export SERVICE_IP=$(kubectl get svc --namespace default wordpress-wordpress -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname}')
echo http://$SERVICE_IP/admin
echo Username: user
echo Password: $(kubectl get secret --namespace default wordpress-wordpress -o jsonpath='{.data.wordpress-password}' | base64 --decode)

Install helm output Open the browser and navigate to the URL from console output.

For Windows users:

  1. Run the following to get a hostname and password:
kubectl get svc --namespace default wordpress-wordpress -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname}'
kubectl get secret --namespace default wordpress-wordpress -o jsonpath='{.data.wordpress-password}
  1. Open a browser to http://%hostname%/admin, where %hostname% is the hostname you got from the kubectl
  2. Decode admin password with https://www.base64decode.org/

Congrats! You just deployed your first app in a Kubernetes cluster with Kublr.

See Also

  • This documentation:
    • Search for “gcp”, “google cloud” or anything you meet in the GCP cluster ADD/EDIT dialog to find more information about using Kublr with GCP, like:
    • Setup GCP Account
  • Kublr support portal: search for “google”.