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Kubernetes Installation Guide

Complete guide for installing Kubernetes (kubeadm, kubelet, kubectl) across different operating systems with package manager specific commands.

This guide provides step-by-step instructions for installing Kubernetes components on various operating systems.

Prerequisites

  • 2 CPUs or more
  • 2GB of RAM per node
  • Full network connectivity between nodes
  • Unique hostname, MAC address, and product_uuid for every node
  • Certain ports opened on your machines
  • Swap disabled

Installation Instructions

Ubuntu/Debian Installation

# Update package index
sudo apt update
 
# Install prerequisites
sudo apt install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl
 
# Add Kubernetes GPG key
curl -fsSL https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/kubernetes-archive-keyring.gpg
 
# Add Kubernetes repository
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/kubernetes-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.kubernetes.io/ kubernetes-xenial main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kubernetes.list
 
# Update package list
sudo apt update
 
# Install Kubernetes components
sudo apt install -y kubelet kubeadm kubectl
 
# Pin package versions
sudo apt-mark hold kubelet kubeadm kubectl
 
# Disable swap
sudo swapoff -a
sudo sed -i '/ swap / s/^\(.*\)$/#\1/g' /etc/fstab
 
# Enable kernel modules
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/k8s.conf
overlay
br_netfilter
EOF
 
sudo modprobe overlay
sudo modprobe br_netfilter
 
# Configure sysctl params
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/k8s.conf
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables  = 1
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables = 1
net.ipv4.ip_forward                 = 1
EOF
 
sudo sysctl --system

Initializing the Control Plane

After installing the components, initialize the control plane node:

# Initialize the control plane
sudo kubeadm init --pod-network-cidr=192.168.0.0/16
 
# Configure kubectl for the current user
mkdir -p $HOME/.kube
sudo cp -i /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) $HOME/.kube/config
 
# Install Calico network plugin
kubectl apply -f https://docs.projectcalico.org/manifests/calico.yaml

Joining Worker Nodes

On worker nodes, run the join command that was output by kubeadm init:

sudo kubeadm join <control-plane-host>:<control-plane-port> \
    --token <token> \
    --discovery-token-ca-cert-hash sha256:<hash>

Verification

# Check node status
kubectl get nodes
 
# Check system pods
kubectl get pods -n kube-system

Troubleshooting

Security Recommendations

  1. Enable RBAC

    kubectl create role example-role --verb=get --resource=pods
kubectl create rolebinding example-rolebinding --role=example-role --user=example-user

  2. Network Policies

    apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: NetworkPolicy
metadata:
  name: default-deny
spec:
  podSelector: {}
  policyTypes:
  - Ingress
  - Egress

  3. Regular Updates

    sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y kubelet kubeadm kubectl
sudo kubeadm upgrade plan
sudo kubeadm upgrade apply

Next Steps

Docker

Comprehensive guide for installing Docker across different operating systems with package manager specific commands.

Helm

Complete guide for installing Helm package manager for Kubernetes across different operating systems.