This is the first blog in the Kubernetes Basics series. In this blog, we will be setting up a simple Kubernetes cluster on GCP. We won’t be using the GKE instead we will go for two identical Ubuntu 20.04 VMs to setup a simple lab setup. This is basically the starter point for CKS certification.

Prerequisites:

• A GCP account
• Knowledge of basic Linux commands
• Google Cloud CLI installed on your local machine

Step 1: Create two identical Ubuntu 20.04 VMs on GCP

Let’s Create two identical Ubuntu 20.04 VMs on GCP using the cloud CLI. I have named them cks-master and cks-worker. You can name them as you wish.

gcloud compute instances create cks-master --zone=us-central1-c \
--machine-type=e2-medium \
--image=ubuntu-2004-focal-v20220419 \
--image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
--boot-disk-size=50GB

gcloud compute instances create cks-worker --zone=us-central1-a \
--machine-type=e2-medium \
--image=ubuntu-2004-focal-v20220419 \
--image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
--boot-disk-size=50GB

You can do this in the GCP console as well. Just go to the Compute Engine section and create two VMs with the same configuration.

Step 2: Create a quick start/stop script

Now that we have our VMs ready, we need to create a quick start and stop script for VMs. Very important if you don’t wanna get booked beyond your budget.

start-cks-lab:

gcloud compute instances start cks-master --zone=us-central1-c
gcloud compute instances start cks-worker --zone=us-central1-a

stop-cks-lab:

gcloud compute instances stop cks-master --zone=us-central1-c
gcloud compute instances stop cks-worker --zone=us-central1-a

Step 3: Create short scripts to SSH into the VMs

You can skip this step if you are comfortable with the gcloud compute ssh command. I personally prefer to create a short script to SSH into the VMs. This is just a personal preference.

gssh-cks-master:

gcloud compute ssh cks-master

gssh-cks-worker:

gcloud compute ssh cks-worker

Step 4: SSH into the VMs and install Docker and Kubernetes