Accessing a Kubernetes cluster with IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service

Connect to your cluster using the Cloud Shell

For this lab, a web shell is provided for you with all the necessary tools. Use this web shell to perform the tasks in this lab.

Using Chrome or Firefox:

1. Navigate to IBM Cloud
2. Choose the 1835659 - IBM account

3. Click the Cloud Shell icon on the top right.

   

Access your cluster

Learn how to set the context to work with your cluster by using the kubectl CLI, access the Kubernetes dashboard, and gather basic information about your cluster.

1. Set the context for your cluster in your CLI. Every time you log in to the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service CLI to work with the cluster, you must run these commands to set the path to the cluster's configuration file as a session variable. The Kubernetes CLI uses this variable to find a local configuration file and certificates that are necessary to connect with the cluster in IBM Cloud.

   a. List the available clusters.

   ibmcloud ks clusters
   

   b. Set an environment variable for your cluster name:

   export MYCLUSTER=<your_cluster_name>
   

   c. Download the configuration file and certificates for your cluster using the cluster-config command.

   ibmcloud ks cluster config $MYCLUSTER
   

   d. Copy and paste the output command from the previous step to set the KUBECONFIG environment variable and configure your CLI to run kubectl commands against your cluster.

   Example: (Do not copy/paste this exact command, but your result from the previous command)

   export KUBECONFIG=/Users/user-name/.bluemix/plugins/container-service/clusters/mycluster/kube-config-hou02-mycluster.yml
   

2. Get basic information about your cluster and its worker nodes. This information can help you manage your cluster and troubleshoot issues.

   a. View details of your cluster.

   ibmcloud ks cluster get $MYCLUSTER
   

   b. Verify the worker nodes in the cluster.

   ibmcloud ks workers $MYCLUSTER
   

3. Validate access to your cluster by viewing the nodes in the cluster.

   kubectl get node
   

Clone the lab repo

1. From your command line, run:

   git clone https://github.com/IBM/istio101
   
   cd istio101/workshop
   

   This is the working directory for the workshop. You will use the example .yaml files that are located in the workshop/plans directory in the following exercises.