MicroK8s is Canonical’s single-package fully conformant lightweight Kubernetes [Link]. It is a 100% compatible Kubernetes orchestrator that can be deployed with a single click on Ubuntu and many other distributions via Snap.
Compared to MiniKube [Link] and K3s [Link], MicroK8s is a minimal production-grade Kubernetes with a low operational overhead (low-ops).
Kubernetes was built by Google to meet Google-scale demands, which is why it is widely known to be complex to deploy and manage. This leads many companies to opt for managed services such as EKS (AWS), GKE (GCP), or AKS (Azure), all of which come with an associated cost.
Most container orchestration use cases are straightforward, and MicroK8s handles them well.
INSTALLATION
sudo snap install microk8s --classic microk8s.inspect
That is it! Even kubectl is included in the package.
To use MicroK8s without sudo, add your username to the microk8s group.
sudo usermod -a -G microk8s userName
Stopping and starting the MicroK8s daemon.
microk8s.stop microk8s.start
BASIC COMMANDS
sudo microk8s kubectl get nodes sudo microk8s kubectl get services
For standard Kubernetes commands and use cases, see this reference post [Link].
EXTENDED FEATURES
Enabling popular addons.
sudo microk8s enable dashboard sudo microk8s enable registry sudo microk8s enable ingress sudo microk8s enable dns sudo microk8s enable gpu sudo microk8s enable ha-cluster sudo microk8s enable cert-manager sudo microk8s enable prometheus sudo microk8s enable community sudo microk8s enable istio
ACCESSING THE DASHBOARD
sudo microk8s enable dashboard sudo microk8s kubectl create token default
By default, the token expires in 1 hour. To extend it, optionally specify a namespace and duration.
sudo microk8s kubectl create token default --namespace=namespace --duration=24h
Expose the dashboard.
sudo microk8s kubectl port-forward -n kube-system service/kubernetes-dashboard 10443:443
Navigate to https://127.0.0.1:10443 and paste the generated token.
Note: This dashboard is not specific to MicroK8s. It is a standard Kubernetes module and is outside the scope of this post. See the Dashboard walkthrough post [Link].
RUNNING MICROK8S IN PROXMOX LXC
Create a new CT and uncheck the “unprivileged” option.
Before starting the CT for the first time, open a shell on the host and edit the CT configuration file.
nano /etc/pve/nodes/proxmox/lxc/100.conf
lxc.apparmor.profile: unconfined lxc.cap.drop: lxc.mount.auto: proc:rw sys:rw lxc.mount.entry: /dev/fuse dev/fuse none bind,create=file 0 0 lxc.mount.entry: /sys/kernel/security sys/kernel/security none bind,create=file 0 0
Start the CT and add the following line to the root user’s crontab.
crontab -e
@reboot ln -s /dev/console /dev/kmsg
Set up the environment.
ln -s /dev/console /dev/kmsg apt update && apt upgrade -y apt install snapd squashfuse fuse -y reboot
Now install MicroK8s.
snap install microk8s --classic apparmor_parser --add /var/lib/snapd/apparmor/profiles/snap.microk8s.* microk8s.inspect reboot
After rebooting, verify everything is working as expected.
microk8s.inspect microk8s kubectl get nodes microk8s kubectl get services
BONUS
Auto-start MicroK8s and its dashboard on startup.
nano /etc/systemd/system/kubectl.service
[Unit] Description=Port forward for Kubernetes Dashboard After=network.target [Service] ExecStart=/root/microk8s.sh Restart=always User=root [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
nano /root/microk8s.sh chmod +x /root/microk8s.sh
#!/bin/bash apparmor_parser --add /var/lib/snapd/apparmor/profiles/snap.microk8s.* microk8s.start sleep 30 /snap/bin/microk8s kubectl port-forward -n kube-system service/kubernetes-dashboard 10443:443 --address 0.0.0.0
systemctl daemon-reload systemctl enable kubectl --now
OTHER POSTS
Minikube on Ubuntu 22.04 [Link].
K3s on Ubuntu 22.04 [Link].
K8s Persistent Volumes [Link].
K8s Cheat Sheet [Link].
K8s Dashboard [Link].