Create a Kubernetes cluster in AWS using Terraform and install MKE

MKE 4 Documentation

Tutorials

Prerequisites

In addition to the MKE dependencies, you need to do the following:

Install Terraform (required for creating VMs in AWS)
Create an AWS account
Set the environment variables for the AWS CLI:
- AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
- AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
- AWS_SESSION_TOKEN

Create virtual machines on AWS

To create virtual machines on AWS using the example Terraform scripts:

Copy the example Terraform folder to your local machine.

Create a terraform.tfvars file with content similar to:

cluster_name = "k0s-cluster"
controller_count = 1
worker_count = 1
cluster_flavor = "m5.large"
region = "us-east-1"

Run terraform init.
Run terraform apply -auto-approve.
Run terraform output --raw k0s_cluster > VMs.yaml.

ℹ️

To get detailed information on the virtual machines using the AWS CLI, run:

aws ec2 describe-instances --region $(grep "region" terraform.tfvars | awk -F' *= *' '{print $2}' | tr -d '"')

Alternatively, you can get a visual overview of the virtual machines at the AWS EC2 page by selecting the desired region from the dropdown menu in the top-right corner.

Install MKE on k0s

Generate a sample mke4.yaml file:
```
mkectl init > mke4.yaml
```

Edit the hosts section in mke4.yaml using the values from the VMs.yaml file. Example configuration of the hosts section:

hosts:
  - role: controller+worker
    ssh:
      address: 54.91.231.190
      keyPath: <path_to_terraform_folder>/aws_private.pem
      port: 22
      user: ubuntu
  - role: worker
    ssh:
      address: 18.206.202.16
      keyPath: <path_to_terraform_folder>/aws_private.pem
      port: 22
      user: ubuntu

Edit the apiServer.externalAddress in the configuration file
```
terraform output -raw lb_dns_name | { read lb; yq -i ".apiServer.externalAddress = \"$lb\"" mke4.yaml; }
```
If you do not have the yq tool installed, edit the mke4.yaml file manually setting apiServer.externalAddress to the output of the terraform output -raw lb_dns_name command.
Create the MKE cluster:
```
mkectl apply -f mke4.yaml
```
ℹ️
Upon successful completion of the MKE 4 installation, a username and password will be automatically generated and displayed once for you to use.
To explicitly set a password value, run mkectl apply -f mke4.yaml --admin-password <password> .

Clean up infrastructure

To clean up and tear down infrastructure that is no longer needed, ensuring that all resources managed by Terraform are properly deleted, navigate to the Terraform folder and run:

terraform destroy --auto-approve

After successfully destroying the resources, Terraform will update the state file to reflect that the resources no longer exist.

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