Installing k3s

k3s is a lightweight version of Kubernetes, meant to be used on edge devices, in CI, ARM boards and so on.

It's basically a single binary that contains everything to get kubernetes up and running.

To help us with installing k3s, we're going to be using a utility package called k3sup

Creating your cluster

Getting your cluster up and running is as simple as running this command from your local machine

k3sup install --ip <master_ip> --user master --local-path ~/.kube/config --merge --context homelab --ssh-key <ssh_key> --k3s-channel latest --no-extras

This will command will attempt to create a k3s master node on the machine you pointed to (via the --ip flag). After that's done, the newly created cluster will be added to your KUBECONFIG, which would could then switch on over to using kubectl config use-context homelab

If you just want to get the kubeconfig without creating the cluster again, simply add the --skip-install flag at the end of the command above.

Adding nodes to your cluster

Once you've created your master node, it's time to add some workers!

Run the following from your local machine

!!! warning Not 100% sure whether ssh-key in below command should be the ssh key of the master node or the worker node.

k3sup join --ip <worker_ip> --server-ip <master_ip> --user master --ssh-key <master_ssh_key> --k3s-channel latest