Cluster API

Cluster API is a Kubernetes(k8s for brevity) project which brings declarative, Kubernetes-style APIs to cluster creation, configuration, and management. It provides an additive functionality on top of k8s.

Cluster API requires an existing k8s cluster accessible via kubectl; during the installation process the k8s cluster will be transformed to a management cluster by installing Cluster API provider components, so it is better to separate it from any application workload.

Common practice is to create a temporary, local bootstrap cluster which can then be used with appropriate backup. We will use kind for deploying the existing k8s cluster.

Steps to start using Cluster API

• Create a kind cluster More details about deploying a new kind cluster are present in our wiki here

• Install clusterctl

The clusterctl CLI tool handles the lifecycle of a cluster API management cluster

Download the latest release-

curl -L https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cluster-api/releases/download/v0.3.3/clusterctl-darwin-amd64 -o clusterctl

Make the kubectl binary executable

chmod +x ./clusterctl 

Move the binary to the PATH

sudo mv ./clusterctl /usr/local/bin/clusterctl

Test to ensure that the installed version is up-to-date

clusterctl version