Creating Multi Node Kubernetes cluster Locally

This is going to be a very short guide on how to create a multinode Kubernetes cluster with k3d and kind.

There can be multiple reasons why you need a multi-node Kubernetes cluster. For me, it was I wanted to practice some Kubernetes concepts specific to node like taints and tolerations, nodeSelector, nodeAffinity etc.

k3d #

Requirements #

• You need to have docker installed on your system, and it should be running. You can check the status of docker using sudo systemctl status docker

• Install the k3d CLI and let's start.

• I will use arkade to install the k3d CLI. I will execute the command arkade get k3d

• If you don't have arkade installed, then you can execute a curl command curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/k3d-io/k3d/main/install.sh | bash

• If you get stuck somewhere then follow the installation guide here

• First, we need to create a cluster using k3d and for that we will execute our command

k3d cluster create my-cluster

![k3d-new.gif](/img/blog/creating-multi-node-kubernetes-cluster-locally/Qus_1vfoH.gif align="left")

• Now our cluster is ready let's install kubectl to interact with our kubernetes cluster. We will run the following command to install kubectl arkade get kubectl or execute this curl command curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"

• If you want to get the kubeconfig of the cluster that you had created just now, then execute the command k3d kubeconfig get <cluster-name>

• The default location for your kubeconfig in case of k3d is ~/.k3d/kubeconfig-something.yaml

• Now we have created our cluster, and it's time to add another node to the same cluster.

• For adding node to the existing cluster, we need to run the following command

k3d node create <node-name> -c <cluster-name> 

• Do not forget to pass the -c flag as it targets the cluster on which you're trying to create the node.
• We have successfully added our new node to the Kubernetes cluster.
• List all the clusters that you've created using k3d cluster list
• To verify, you need to run kubectl get nodes and you're supposed to see two nodes present in your cluster.

Kind #

• We will repeat the same thing with kind and how we can create a multinode kubernetes cluster with kind.
• kind is a kubernetes-sigs project.
• For kind, the requirement is docker, and you need to have docker installed on your system.
• To create a cluster, we run the command kind create cluster --name <cluster-name>

![kind.gif](/img/blog/creating-multi-node-kubernetes-cluster-locally/8Dc8h2G7v.gif align="left")

• To get the kubeconfig of the cluster, we execute the command kind get kubeconfig --name <cluster-name>
• To set your context to the current kind cluster you can export the cluster manifest with KUBECONFIG variable, or you can do the same by running kind export kubeconfig --name <cluster-name>
• The default location for your kubeconfig in this case is ~/.kube/config
• One thing which you should keep in mind is that you should always pass your cluster name with --name
• List all the cluster that you've created through kind using kind get clusters
• After creating multiple clusters, you may need to manage contexts and for that you can read one more article on managing contexts here

Creating multi-node cluster using kind #

• For creating multi-node cluster using kind, you need to first write a config file and then pass that file during the kind cluster create with --config flag.
• I want to create a cluster with one controlplane and two worker nodes. For creating this cluster, our config file will look something like this.

![Screenshot from 2022-06-30 23-45-37.png](/img/blog/creating-multi-node-kubernetes-cluster-locally/v0l5GuHYw.png align="left")

• To create the cluster, execute the command kind create cluster --config config.yaml Wait for few seconds for your cluster to be created.

![Screenshot from 2022-06-30 23-38-52.png](/img/blog/creating-multi-node-kubernetes-cluster-locally/d_hSa7iKH.png align="left")

• Verify your installation using the kubectl get nodes command.

![Screenshot from 2022-06-30 23-48-52.png](/img/blog/creating-multi-node-kubernetes-cluster-locally/UygN7DylT.png align="left")

• You can read more about the advanced configuration of kind here

Summary #

• In this blog, we have learnt about how to create single node/multi-node kubernetes cluster using kind and k3d both. I hope this was useful.