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Terraform Module usage on Running Kubernetes KinD Clusters

Authors

In this tutorial we will discover how to use the terraform-kubernetes-kind-module which enables you to deploy a KinD (Kubernetes in Docker) Cluster on your local workstation using Terraform.

Why another method to run KinD

We already have the kind cli that makes it easy to run a KinD Kubernetes clusters, but recently I've been working on a couple of workshop projects where the infrastructure is already using Terraform, so having Terraform to deploy a local environment was something I was keen to do.

What does this module offer?

This Kubernetes Kind Module enables you to do the following:

  • Spins up a KinD Kubernetes Cluster in Docker
  • It dumps the kubeconfig by default to the /tmp/ directory.
  • You can define the Kubernetes Cluster Version.
  • You have the option to define how many worker nodes you want.

Spinning up a 3 node KinD Kubernetes Cluster is as easy as:

module "kind-module" {
  source  = "ruanbekker/kind-module/kubernetes"
  version = "1.0.0"

  cluster_name = "test"
  workers      = 3
}

Lets Deploy a KinD Kubernetes Cluster

The pre-requisite to run this is to have docker, kubectl and terraform installed.

I will create a directory called ~/workspace/kind-kubernetes-terraform:

mkdir -p ~/workspace/kind-kubernetes-terraform

Then inside the directory:

cd ~/workspace/kind-kubernetes-terraform

Create a main.tf with the following content:

main.tf
module "kind-module" {
  source  = "ruanbekker/kind-module/kubernetes"
  version = "1.0.0"

  cluster_name    = "demo"
  cluster_version = "v1.28.15"
  workers         = 3
  kubeconfig_file = "/tmp/kube.config"
}

Once the content has been written to the file, we can initialize terraform where it will download the module dependencies:

terraform init

Once done we can run apply to deploy the cluster to our local workstation:

terraform apply

Configure kubeconfig:

export KUBECONFIG=/tmp/kube.config

Access the cluster:

kubectl get nodes

Cleanup

To tear down the cluster you can run:

terraform destroy

Resources

To see the Terraform Module on Terraform Registry:

The source code:

Thank You

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