Lab 1 - Configure your jumphost to access your virtual K8s

F5 Distributed Cloud App Stack provides the ability to manage your vK8s namespace via command line with kubectl

In this lab, we will learn about and perform the following:

  • Download the kubeconfig, and then upload the kubeconfig file to the jumphost to allow for access your virtual k8s using native kubectl commands.

Core Concepts

Virtual Kubernetes vK8s

F5 Distributed Cloud Services support a Kubernetes compatible API for centralized orchestration of applications across a fleet of sites (customer sites or F5 Distributed Cloud Regional Edge). This API is “Kubernetes compatible” because not all Kubernetes APIs or resources are supported. However, for the API(s) that are supported, it is hundred percent compatible. We have implemented a distributed control plane within our global infrastructure to manage scheduling and scaling of applications across multiple (tens to hundreds of thousands of) sites, where each site in itself is also a managed physical K8s cluster.

kubectl

Standard upstream kubectl CLI tool can be used on the vK8s API URL or the downloaded kubeconfig file can be used to access the vK8s APIs.

For more core concepts, please review F5 Distributed Cloud documentation

Exercise 1 - Log into F5 Distributed Cloud Console

  1. Click the distributed apps tile on the F5 Distributed Cloud Services home page.

    ../../_images/distributedappclick-updated1.png

  2. Click virtual K8s under the applications section.

    ../../_images/distributedappclickvirtualk8s1.png

  3. Click the three dots under the “Action” column and then click Kubeconfig.

    ../../_images/distributedappclickvirtualk8kubeconfig-updated1.png

  4. When prompted to select an expiration date, pick a future date that will give you adequate time to complete the lab.

    ../../_images/kubeconfigexpirydate1.png

    Click Download Credential. If your browser prompts you for a location to download the file, select a directory you prefer and click Save.

  5. From the Lab Deployments view, find the Jumphost and click the Access button. From the access list, select File Browser.

    ../../_images/M4-L1-filebrowser-launch2.png

    Note

    If you have kubectl available on your computer, you would be able to interact with your vK8s cluster using the downloaded kubeconfig file. For the purposes of this lab, we will use the Jumphost to interact with the vK8s cluster. Before we can do that, we need to upload the kubeconfig file to the Jumphost.

  6. Login with admin/admin credentials.

    ../../_images/M4-L1-filebrowser-login.png

  7. Within File Browser, click the Upload upload icon, Choose File and then select the kubeconfig file you downloaded. Select this file and complete the upload.

    ../../_images/M4-L1-filebrowser-upload.png

    Make sure the kubeconfig file appears in File Browser.

    ../../_images/M4-L1-filebrowser-file.png

Proceed to the next Lab where you’ll deploy the MQTT containers to your vk8s cluster and run Grafana on the Jumphost.