Build a 3-node Kubernetes cluster home lab in 5 minutes (*)

1 minute read

Tux with pi's

I use the lightweight Kubernetes K3s on a 3-node Raspberry Pi 4 cluster. I wrote a few blog posts on how the Raspberry Pi’s are installed.

I run K3s on virtual machines.

Why virtual machines?

Virtual makes it easier to redeploy or to bring a system down and up if your want to test something.

Another reason is that I also run FreeBSD virtual machines on the Raspberry Pis.

I use Debian GNU/Linux as the Operating system with KVM/libvirt as the hypervisor.

I use Ansible to set up the cluster in an automated way. Got finality the time to clean up the code a bit and release it on Github: https://github.com/stafwag/ansible-k3s-on-vms

The code can also - and will by default - be used on x86 systems.

The playbook is a wrapper around the roles:

To set up the virtual machines.

To install and configure K3s on the virtual machines.

To enable libvirt on the vm_kvm_host.

The sample inventory will install the virtual machines on localhost. It’s possible to install the virtual machine on multiple lbvirt/KVM hypervisors.

This should enable you setup the virtual machine with k3s in … 5 minutes

(*) if everything goes well the first time :-)

Have fun

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