Install NFS Client

This tutorial demonstrates how to set up a KubeSphere cluster and configure NFS storage.

Note

  • Ubuntu 16.04 is used as an example in this tutorial.
  • It is not recommended that you use NFS storage for production (especially on Kubernetes version 1.20 or later) as some issues may occur, such as failed to obtain lock and input/output error, resulting in Pod CrashLoopBackOff. Besides, some apps may not be compatible with NFS, including Prometheus.

Prerequisites

You must have an NFS server ready providing external storage services. Make sure you have created and exported a directory on the NFS server which your permitted client machines can access. For more information, see Set up an NFS Server.

Step 1: Configure the Client Machine

Install nfs-common on all of the clients. It provides necessary NFS functions while you do not need to install any server components.

  1. Execute the following command to make sure you are using the latest package.

    sudo apt-get update
    
  2. Install nfs-common on all the clients.

    sudo apt-get install nfs-common
    
  3. Go to one of the client machines (taskbox) where you want to download KubeKey later. Create a configuration file that contains all the necessary parameters of your NFS server which will be referenced by KubeKey during installation.

    vi nfs-client.yaml
    

    An example configuration file:

    nfs:
      server: "192.168.0.2"    # This is the server IP address. Replace it with your own.
      path: "/mnt/demo"    # Replace the exported directory with your own.
    storageClass:
      defaultClass: false
    

    Note

    • If you want to configure more values, see chart configurations for NFS-client.
    • The storageClass.defaultClass field controls whether you want to set the storage class of NFS-client Provisioner as the default one. If you enter false for it, KubeKey will install OpenEBS to provide local volumes, while they are not provisioned dynamically as you create workloads on your cluster. After you install KubeSphere, you can change the default storage class on the console directly.
  4. Save the file.

Step 2: Download KubeKey

Follow the steps below to download KubeKey on the taskbox.

Download KubeKey from its GitHub Release Page or use the following command directly.

curl -sfL https://get-kk.kubesphere.io | VERSION=v1.1.1 sh -

Run the following command first to make sure you download KubeKey from the correct zone.

export KKZONE=cn

Run the following command to download KubeKey:

curl -sfL https://get-kk.kubesphere.io | VERSION=v1.1.1 sh -

Note

After you download KubeKey, if you transfer it to a new machine also with poor network connections to Googleapis, you must run export KKZONE=cn again before you proceed with the steps below.

Note

The commands above download the latest release (v1.1.1) of KubeKey. You can change the version number in the command to download a specific version.

Make kk executable:

chmod +x kk

Step 3: Create a Cluster

  1. Specify a Kubernetes version and a KubeSphere version that you want to install. For example:

    ./kk create config --with-kubernetes v1.20.4 --with-kubesphere v3.1.1
    

    Note

    • Recommended Kubernetes versions for KubeSphere v3.1.1: v1.17.9, v1.18.8, v1.19.8, and v1.20.4. If you do not specify a Kubernetes version, KubeKey will install Kubernetes v1.19.8 by default. For more information about supported Kubernetes versions, see Support Matrix.

    • If you do not add the flag --with-kubesphere in the command in this step, KubeSphere will not be deployed unless you install it using the addons field in the configuration file or add this flag again when you use ./kk create cluster later.

    • If you add the flag --with-kubesphere without specifying a KubeSphere version, the latest version of KubeSphere will be installed.

  2. A default file config-sample.yaml will be created if you do not customize the name. Edit the file.

    vi config-sample.yaml
    
    ...
    metadata:
      name: sample
    spec:
      hosts:
      - {name: client1, address: 192.168.0.3, internalAddress: 192.168.0.3, user: ubuntu, password: Testing123}
      - {name: client2, address: 192.168.0.4, internalAddress: 192.168.0.4, user: ubuntu, password: Testing123}
      - {name: client3, address: 192.168.0.5, internalAddress: 192.168.0.5, user: ubuntu, password: Testing123}
      roleGroups:
        etcd:
        - client1
        master:
        - client1
        worker:
        - client2
        - client3
      controlPlaneEndpoint:
        domain: lb.kubesphere.local
        address: ""
        port: "6443"
      kubernetes:
        version: v1.20.4
        imageRepo: kubesphere
        clusterName: cluster.local
      network:
        plugin: calico
        kubePodsCIDR: 10.233.64.0/18
        kubeServiceCIDR: 10.233.0.0/18
      registry:
        registryMirrors: []
        insecureRegistries: []
      addons:
      - name: nfs-client
        namespace: kube-system
        sources:
          chart:
            name: nfs-client-provisioner
            repo: https://charts.kubesphere.io/main
            valuesFile: /home/ubuntu/nfs-client.yaml # Use the path of your own NFS-client configuration file.
    ...             
    
  3. Pay special attention to the field of addons, under which you must provide the information of NFS-client. For more information about each parameter in this file, see Multi-node Installation.

  4. Save the file and execute the following command to install Kubernetes and KubeSphere:

    ./kk create cluster -f config-sample.yaml
    
  5. When the installation finishes, you can inspect installation logs with the following command:

    kubectl logs -n kubesphere-system $(kubectl get pod -n kubesphere-system -l app=ks-install -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}') -f
    

    Expected output:

    #####################################################
    ###              Welcome to KubeSphere!           ###
    #####################################################
       
    Console: http://192.168.0.3:30880
    Account: admin
    Password: P@88w0rd
       
    NOTES:
      1. After you log into the console, please check the
         monitoring status of service components in
         "Cluster Management". If any service is not
         ready, please wait patiently until all components 
         are up and running.
      2. Please change the default password after login.
       
    #####################################################
    https://kubesphere.io             20xx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx
    #####################################################
    

Step 4: Verify Installation

You can verify that NFS-client has been successfully installed either from the command line or from the KubeSphere web console.

Command line

  1. Run the following command to check your storage class.

    kubectl get sc
    

    Expected output:

    NAME              PROVISIONER                                       RECLAIMPOLICY   VOLUMEBINDINGMODE      ALLOWVOLUMEEXPANSION   AGE
    local (default)   openebs.io/local                                  Delete          WaitForFirstConsumer   false                  16m
    nfs-client        cluster.local/nfs-client-nfs-client-provisioner   Delete          Immediate              true                   16m
    

    Note

    If you set nfs-client as the default storage class, OpenEBS will not be installed by KubeKey.
  2. Run the following command to check the statuses of Pods.

    kubectl get pod -n kube-system
    

    Note that nfs-client is installed in the namespace kube-system. Expected output (exclude irrelevant Pods):

    NAME                                                 READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
    nfs-client-nfs-client-provisioner-6fc95f4f79-92lsh   1/1     Running   0          16m
    

KubeSphere console

  1. Log in to the web console as admin with the default account and password at <NodeIP>:30880. Click Platform in the top-left corner and select Cluster Management.

  2. Go to Pods in Application Workloads and select kube-system from the project drop-down list. You can see that the Pod of nfs-client is up and running.

    nfs-pod

  3. Go to Storage Classes under Storage, and you can see available storage classes in your cluster.

    nfs-storage-class

    Note

    For more information about how to create volumes on the KubeSphere console, see Volumes.

Thanks for the feedback. If you have a specific question about how to use KubeSphere, ask it on Slack. Open an issue in the GitHub repo if you want to report a problem or suggest an improvement.