Install kubefirst From the CLI

Using the CLI to create your cluster directly without using the UI is a perfect alternative for automation. The end result will be the same, a new production-ready management Kubernetes cluster, but you won't have access to the useful additional features available within the UI.

Prerequisites

kubefirst

macOS & Linux (Homebrew)

If you are on macOS or Linux, and have Homebrew installed, you can run:

brew install konstructio/taps/kubefirst

To upgrade an existing kubefirst CLI to the latest version run:

brew update
brew upgrade kubefirst

Linux (manually)

You can download the latest build for your architecture from the releases page. Once done, extract it, and ensure it's executable. You may need to use sudo for the tar or `chmod`` command.

tar --overwrite -xvf kubefirst_<VERSION>_linux_<ARCH>.tar.gz -C /usr/local/bin/ kubefirst && \
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/kubefirst

Now you can run kubefirst.

kubefirst version

Windows

We currently do not support Windows directly, but you can easily use kubefirst using WSL (tested with Ubuntu). To install the latest WSL version, please follow the Microsoft documentation on how to install Linux on Windows.

Docker Desktop

Install Docker Desktop.

info

If you are a Windows user, you need to be sure to enable Docker support in WSL2 distributions. More information in the Docker documentation.

Docker Resources Allocation

The more resources you give Docker, the faster your cluster creation will go, but here are the minimum requirements:

• CPU: 5 Cores
• Memory (RAM): 5 GB
• Swap: 1 GB
• Virtual Disk limit (for Docker images & containers): 10 GB

If you pull multiple images from Docker Hub, you may reach the rate limit: to help this issue not happening, we suggest you log in to your account (you can create a free one) in Docker Desktop. At the time of writing this docs, the limit is doubled when signed in.

K3s Prerequisites

For kubefirst to be able to provision your K3s resources:

• You need to have 3 virtual machines that will be used for the K3s agents.

GitHub Prerequisites

• A GitHub organisation.
• A GitHub personal access token for your kbot account.

Create your new kubefirst cluster

Adjust the following command with your GitHub token in addition to the appropriate values for your new platform.

export GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

kubefirst beta k3s create \
    --servers-args "--disable traefik,--write-kubeconfig-mode 0644" \
    --alerts-email [email protected] \
    --dns-provider cloudflare \
    --domain-name your-domain.io \
    --gitlab-group your-gitlab-group \
    --git-provider gitlab \
    --servers-private-ips <private-ip-1>,<private-ip-2>,<private-ip-3> \
    --servers-public-ips <public-ip-1>,<public-ip-2>,<public-ip-3> \
    --ssh-privatekey "$(cat ~/.ssh/your-ssh-key)" \
    --ssh-user root \
    --cluster-name kubefirst

If you don't provide the --servers-public-ips flag, kubefirst will use the --servers-private-ips flag value for it.

tip

By default kubefirst use the cloud providers to manage DNS. You also have the option to use Cloudflare.

To do so, add the dns-provider flag with the value cloudflare to your create command --dns-provider cloudflare.

You also need to set the CF_API_TOKEN environment variable with a Cloudflare token (export CF_API_TOKEN=xxxxxxxxx) having the Zone.Zone, and Zone.DNS edit permission. More information on Cloudflare token creation in their documentation.

The kubefirst CLI will produce a directory of utilities, a state file, and some staged platform content that can now be found in the ~/.kubefirst and ~/.k1 folders on your local machine.

After the ~ 10 minute installation, your browser will launch a new tab to the kubefirst Console, which will help you navigate your new suite of tools running in your new K3s cluster.

If your deployment is not successful, errors and troubleshooting information will be stored in a local log file specified during the installation run.

Example of terminal output following cluster creation

GitLab

• Create or use an existing GitLab account.
• Create a GitLab group developer permissions.
• A GitLab personal access token for your kbot account.

note

GitLab SaaS offering has limitations that require us to use groups contrary to GitHub which can be use without an organization.

info

If you want to use GitLab self-managed, you can update your GitOps repository and Kubernetes cluster once the creation is done following this tutorial.

Create your new kubefirst cluster

Adjust the following command with your GitHub in addition to the appropriate values for your new platform.

export GITLAB_TOKEN=glpat-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

kubefirst beta k3s create \
    --servers-args "--disable traefik,--write-kubeconfig-mode 0644" \
    --alerts-email [email protected] \
    --dns-provider cloudflare \
    --domain-name your-domain.io \
    --gitlab-group your-gitlab-group \
    --git-provider gitlab \
    --servers-private-ips <private-ip-1>,<private-ip-2>,<private-ip-3> \
    --servers-public-ips <public-ip-1>,<public-ip-2>,<public-ip-3> \
    --ssh-privatekey "$(cat ~/.ssh/your-ssh-key)" \
    --ssh-user root \
    --cluster-name kubefirst

tip

By default kubefirst use the cloud providers to manage DNS. You also have the option to use Cloudflare.

To do so, add the dns-provider flag with the value cloudflare to your create command --dns-provider cloudflare.

You also need to set the CF_API_TOKEN environment variable with a Cloudflare token (export CF_API_TOKEN=xxxxxxxxx) having the Zone.Zone, and Zone.DNS edit permission. More information on Cloudflare token creation in their documentation.

The kubefirst CLI will produce a directory of utilities, a state file, and some staged platform content that can now be found in the ~/.kubefirst and ~/.k1 folders on your local machine.

After the ~ 10 minute installation, your browser will launch a new tab to the kubefirst Console, which will help you navigate your new suite of tools running in your new K3s cluster.

If your deployment is not successful, errors and troubleshooting information will be stored in a local log file specified during the installation run.

Example of terminal output following cluster creation

Root credentials

To obtain your 3 initial passwords, run

kubefirst k3s root-credentials

If you created your cluster using the UI, or reset your kubefirst environment, you can still retrieve the root credentials (except the kbot user password, which you will have to find manually in Vault) using kubectl:

# Argo CD admin password
kubectl -n argocd get secret argocd-initial-admin-secret -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 -d

# Vault root token
kubectl -n vault get secret vault-unseal-secret -o jsonpath="{.data.root-token}" | base64 -d

Connecting to Kubernetes

To connect to your new Kubernetes cluster, run

export KUBECONFIG=~/.k1/kubeconfig

To view all cluster pods, run

kubectl get pods -A